Critiquing
As we have the benefit of a comfortable studio and a state of the art 4k projector (and a white wall), one of the most popular parts of our course is the critiquing of you own pictures.
We ask you to send in three pictures in advance of the course and we’ll spend the start of the day gently suggesting ways in which they could be improved (or patting you on the back if they’re excellent)
In between lectures you’ll be sent out to take more pictures and when you come back to the studio, we’ll download and review those.
When you eventually get home, we encourage you to send us 3 more pictures for us to critique again, this time by email.
Anna
Cyrus:
This is an excellent picture – you have included 2 subjects which is quite advanced – well done !
Also you’ve captured the circular stone pattern leading to the man
Only criticism is a little triangle of concrete on bottom right and light in top left – both could be removed by shuffling a bit.
Although we didn’t have time to discuss it in our lesson, another helpful tip when trying to work out if anything is distracting is to squint when looking at a picture.
Marc:
Great, really like how you’ve balanced the two subjects. Definitely one to be kept in colour – the pink in the person’s cap and flamingos make absolutely clear you’re drawing a relationship between the two. This is nit-picking but I’d be tempted to crop out the light which is appearing in the very top right – it’s the only other warm colour in the scene so could lead the eye away from the subjects.
Malcolm
Although this picture is slightly blurred and tilted, this adds to the atmosphere.
Human eyes are instinctively drawn to words (“GO”) and numbers (“66”) in a picture so if you have the opportunity, think about whether you want to include these in your shot.
This picture might have been even more amazing if you’d been able to scoot around a little and get her face, but then you’d have lost some of the elements of the balloon.
Declan
Lovely tone in this picture. You always need to ask yourself what is the subject of the picture.
Really good photos have 2+ subjects and bland, boring pictures usually have no subject.
So, is the subject of this picture the car ?
Or the golden tone ?
Or the shiny hood ?
Or the two people behind the car ?
Or is it the third person in the window of the car ?
A common theme of our courses is to encourage you not to just take one picture of the scene and then scuttle away, but to take 3 or 4. Or 10.
You’ll often find thet the more pictures you take the more you refine the story you’re trying to tell.