3 pictures that could use advice

[Boko Ono]

http://i5.photobucket.com/albums/y171/herestothenights/treejpg.jpg

http://i5.photobucket.com/albums/y171/herestothenights/horses.jpg

http://i5.photobucket.com/albums/y171/herestothenights/100_9095.jpg

[Radtech1]

Well shoot.

I wish that I had some glowing things to say, but instead I will try to explain why they don't work for me.

1) TREE Trees are hard to do. Especially this one. I try to think back to all of the tree shots that appealed to me and find some commonalities.

a - First is that there is usually something interesting about their shape - twisted gnarly branches, etc - and I see nothing particular compelling about the shape of this tree.
b - Also, (jmho) trees are best shot in relationship to their environment. A tree in a field seems more involving than a narrow fov as this shot is. There seems to be more of a "story" if the surroundings are included.
c - Finally, it is nearly imposable to get a unique visual perspective on a tree. Throughout the course of human evolution, almost every tree we have seen has been from the ground looking up. And here we have yet another view of a tree from the ground looking up. Even if the subject is not too interesting (see "a"), an interesting perspective can take the place of an interesting subject.

2) HORSES The fatal problem with this shot is the subject. Yes, it is an interesting perspective, but I have no desire to take a second look at a photo of one horse with his snout up the butt of another horse.

3) DOG This shot suffers from a few problems.

a - Nothing seems to be in focus which causes my eyes to move all over trying to find the subject - the area in focus.
b - The dog is looking elsewhere which (jmho) removes him from involvement in the shot. If it were a wider fov and we had some clue as to what he might be looking at it would be different, but as it stands, it is just a shot of a dog not looking at me.
c - Yet another example of "standard human point of view". In real life we always see a dog by looking down on it. If you want to produce a photo that interests me, give me a fresh viewpoint - NOT the same one that I have seen in a million snapshots.

Hope this helps.

Rad

[Big WIll]

totally agree with Radtech1. Well said

[Robert_Lay]

I see two abstractions and a picture of a close friend.

The tree is being treated as an abstraction here (in my opinion). I think what you were after here is simply a recording of the weird, twisting shapes of the trunk and branches. It could have been a vegetable as well as a tree. My only suggestion would be to do some additional manipulation to make it more abstract. For example, it may be more interesting if inverted into a negative instead of a positive - if so, then continue with that thought by forcing the contrast to the extreme and see what happens.

The two horses also seem to be an abstraction - simply because we don't have two horses - we have two fragments of two horses that don't add up to one horse. Again, you might try something weird, such as some of the exotic filters in Photoshop to artificially colorize it.

The image of the dog is nicely done with good composition, good exposure and good color balance and depth of field. I think it's cropped just right and it's a great picture - Congratulations!

[Nidz]

First pic is interesting. The twisting tree certainly looks cool. Seems a little hazy on the right side maybe due to the way the sun was facing.

Second pic to me feels a little over cropped and squished. Don't realy like seeing the missing bit on the horse's face and the ass of the other one overlapping.

Third one seems a little hazy and might need up contrast/saturation to make it pop.

Most of the stuff you can fix with post processing in PS.. Hope this helps.