@knikki - I completely agree with the idea of narrative and story being important in a photo, I thought the unusual figure and relatively unusual setting was enough to do it and I settled, next opportunity i'll try to go the extra step.
@Mark-A Ahhh, I see what you mean now, I should have blended the pixels there or something, or left it out of the sharpen filter. Thanks again, and yes I agree a different challenge may have yielded different results, it's all about the timing I guess, I just wanted to submit it in something. Too bad there was no 'alien in a suit' challenge, haha.
First of all, I preface my comments with the fact that I'm still a newb. Having said that, I thought it was gorgeous make up and a cool photo - it just didn't "speak to me" like so many of the other photos in the challenge. When voting, it's such a subjective thing - and I recognize that your photo is excellent, and the subject is interesting - it wasn't a pose in which I was wondering what he was doing, or a setting in which I immediately wanted to know more. I just thought it was cool. End of story. Understand that my voting is about quality - but for ME, it's also about art and being intrigued and often times it's just finding what many call that "it" factor, which is hard to describe.
A different pose? A different background? Something to give it story - to give it mystery? I wish I could articulate more - but these are just the things that would have made ME score it higher, and subsequently others might have voted lower. So please take it with a grain of salt and know in another challenge, I may have loved it so much more just based on the change in context.
Hmm all down the right side of his body is a jaggy and then a px halo well on my monitors. If you still can't see it Sebi PM me and I will try and send you a copy with it emphasized even more.
For me the composition is perfect, I don't feel rule of thirds here would have been as strong and I feel sometimes people stick to that far to rigidly and are quick to throw it around like it's the be all and end all in a photo, rules are meant to be broken and for me this is the perfect example of why, trouble is people that think it's a rule that should be adhered to aren't always forgiving in their voting (again this is only my opinion).
I love the lighting and the setting too I think both add to the feeling of the shot, I could honestly see this on the cover of a movie or a poster for one. I have no idea why it didn't score much higher and personally feel it's underrated. You just didn't hit a chord with the voters - however in the "right" challenge it may well have scored much better even here ;)
One more thing I want to add is that his posture is perfect. It's an almost nonchalant "I'm gonna kill you and I don't really care" attitude that is projected. As a guy who has watched literally thousands of horror movies, you nailed that aspect of it.
Awesome advice and noted (literally on a sticky note) Thank you!
I had a couple of facial closeups that I decided against simply because I thought the hallway was weird and cool and wanted to showcase a bit. ISO was stupid high haha.
I think it's the composition. Forget the hands. Focus on the face and crop a little tighter...
Also the eye goes to the light and he's the darkest thing in the photo... get rid of some of the background light with either a faster shutter or reduce ISO and bounce the flash.
In PP, you can add a levels layer set to multiply mode and it will dark. Using the layer mask you can restore the lightness to the main character and use gradient fill to create diminishing light.
I like it. As a horror fan this is cool. I wonder if a composition following the "rule of thirds" would have been a little more dramatic and scored a little higher? That would be my only suggestion.
Strange I really expected this to score way higher than this, unfortunately so often "different" doesn't do as well here at DPC as it deserves to, I'd have given this at least a 9 for originality and creativity alone and then there's the great lighting on top of that! One nitpick is the halo around the person I think you could have been hit by the voters because of this as it is quite obvious and could have been so easily resolved.
Thanks for the nightmares ...LOL, this is awesome make up ... your lighting is great and love the how you angled it so He looks so tall .. My husband said he must be a lawyer ? LOLOLOL
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