Processing: Shot in RAW, made a few RAW adjustments (temperature, exposure, curves, etc.) and added the blue/yellow frame.
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Now the voting is over and I must say I got a bit embarrased when I saw how it was going in the beginning. Can't do much more than smile about it though; I kind of misuderstood the theme of the challenge, taking "Country life" as "Life in the country" as in "Life in Sweden" (in general). Well ... now you know :)
Statistics
Place: 216 out of 219 Avg (all users): 4.0388 Avg (commenters): 3.1818 Avg (participants): 3.8646 Avg (non-participants): 4.1909 Views since voting: 1055 Views during voting: 298 Votes: 206 Comments: 14 Favorites: 0
Maybe it's because my mother is from Minnesota and of Swedish descent (she makes meatballs at the drop of a hat), but I didn't have any problem with this picture making the challenge. I'm surprised more people didn't "get it".
I\'m going to side step critiquing the image for just a minute. First, Welcome to DPC! I took a glance at your profile. I would not be too concerned about the score on the two images you have entered. The important thing is to sort through the comments and decide which ones will help you and which ones won\'t and also take a look at not only the current ribbons but past winners as well. Now on to the critique.
From the comments, the main concern with the image is whether or not it fit the challenge. I\'ve seen images that are questionable as to whether or not they fit a challenge...if you have a potential blue...voters may tend to overlook that criteria; however, I\'ve learned not to chance it. With that said, I think it fits the challenge! Having grown up in the country, Swedish Meatballs are very popular. If someone that raises cattle were to look at the image...I think they would agree. I\'m just guessing here, but I think the country folk in sweden would also agree. Now on to the image. You had good backlighting on this. I think I would have used some fill lighting on the front of the meatballs to remove the shadows and bring out more detail in the meatballs. I find the dark areas of the image at the top distracting. Possibly an all white background would have worked better. I rated the overall impact of the image as poor (3 or 4 rating). Again, take a look at the first twenty or so entries and look for impact...which ones grab your attention and keep you there! This is one of my goals this year...improve the impact. I think you are on the right track after looking at the panning motion image in your profile. As for the post processing, I have no reference to what was done with the image but a noise filter may help to smooth out the gradient in the background and then come back and sharpen. I\'m not sure if this would work but it may be something to try. One thing I will give this image is that it made me awfully hungry!! It also probably made alot of the commentors hungry as well...and as we all know, when the dinner bell rings in the country, everyone comes running. Keep at it, this was not that bad an image, you\'re only three points away from a ribbon! If you have any questions on the critique, please contact me through the PM system. Again, Glad to have you on board!!
What do they call them, kottbular? Taste good.
Nice composition and light (altough I'd try to fill the shadows with a reflector). The meatballs are a bit out of context. On a plate or in a pan they'd be more naturally presented.
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