What a great opportunity for a critique!

[fetching]

I went to look up a story today on sfgate.com and was taken aback for a moment when I saw the photo...at first glance it looked like one of mine from the fire arts festival 2 weeks ago.

So I took a look at the photos, expecting to see photos from angles that I failed to shoot or shots that just blew mine out of the water. I was kind of shocked. I didn't.

The photographer is Lance Iverson of the San Francisco Chronicle. Assuming that they chose his best images to publish, it gives me (and you if you would kindly do so) a chance to compare my photos with his.

my thoughts:

One shot of his, the tesla coil, is blurry and out of focus. Mine were pretty sharp.

I think his shot of the dance dance immolation guy could have been better from the angle i shot mine. I managed to get the screen in along with the crowd and gave it some context.

His shot of my friend's piece, the tank of flaming water (really called the Propane Fountain) is okay, but i think the flaming Zen garden was much more visual and made for a better image. they were sitting right next to each other.

I like the shot of the person suiting up for the dance thing, i didn't get one of those quite like that, (i did get one of someone suiting up, tho). and i the shot of the stilt fire twirler is nice too.

I would love to get everyone's opinions, and please be honest. It's kind of a unique opportunity to see how my images match up with a pro's.

the sfgate piece is here:

http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2005/07/26/BAGVNDTDA61.DTL

click on the thumbnails for the gallery of images.

and my galleries (much larger) are here: http://www.pbase.com/fetching/fire_arts_festival__oakland_ca

also remember that i was shooting with an XT on JPEG, with an 17-40 f4 L lens (also use my XT kit lens a bit too on the first 17 images. and i used my 70-200 f4 L for a few daylight closeups. I had my beater ritz camera tripod, and did minimal post processing of images.

wonder what he was shooting with? :)

[mijbril]

Perhaps he got a bit lazy?? Comparing your Tesla 1 with his, I'd have to give your shot the nod :)

Or maybe he got into some early Burning Man festival mentality......

[jfrancho]

His pictures have proper white balance and have fairly straight horizon lines. There aren't any weird "ghosted" images. Perhaps he tesla coil was for effect, since the other shots were all crisp. You have some nice pics, but I don't think I could pick six winners out of you huge collection. That doesn't mean that yours are worse, or his are better, just that in a PJ style, he has provided more appropriate images. Remember these are images meanbt to capture art and document, not necessarily be artistic themselves. Though, you can be influenced by the subject.

[Little Fish]

It was a little hard to compare since we are looking at the top few from one photographer vs. the entire batch from another.

I suspect that many of the non-professionals on this forum have run across situations where they think they have a better image than the one published in the local newspaper the next day. I've done that but I have to remind myself that they may have gotten their shot in 15 minutes while I shot for 4 hours. Also, a pro needs to come back with quality stuff every time whereas guys like me are usually hit-and-miss on the events where they come up with great shots. One thing that this forum has taught me is that I have a lot to learn but that also makes it exciting to realize the vast potential for improvement that I have in front of me.

Frank.