Well this is my first ever submissioin so any critique is welcome. This is also one of the first pics I have shot with my new mini home studio :)
Chocolate is a great comfort to some people, and I quite like it myself ;) I wanted to focus on the texture of the chocolate, especially on the broken segment edges. I've used a low DoF to focus the attention on this and kept the picture pretty simple in all other aspects.
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Place: 113 out of 253 Avg (all users): 5.1429 Avg (commenters): 5.0000 Avg (participants): 4.9024 Avg (non-participants): 5.2817 Views since voting: 1041 Views during voting: 313 Votes: 224 Comments: 18 Favorites: 0
Any photo depicting chocolate is alright by me. Good subject no matter what you do with it.
I read your comments on why you chose the style that you did and I can apppreciate what you were trying to do. I think in general the shot worked out, highlighting what you were trying to bring to light, but as you've probably noted in other comments, the extreme shallow DOF appears to be working against the image more than anything.
The lighting looks spot on and I like the composition, the chocolate arrangement is interesting and leads to some nice shadow/light play. The bits of chocolate in the foreground are a nice touch as well, though I think they are severely under-utilized.
I think this type of image screams for being in sharp focus throughout the main subject. You'd mentioned wanting to explore the texture of the chocolate, particularly the edges. I think the edges on some portions of the chocolate are enjoying a nice sharp line, but the surrounding softness, instead of accentuating that sharp area, actually is bleeding into there and making my eyes interprete everything as just a bit softer than it really is. Also the thick bands of blur from the shallow DOF definitely grab my attention and shove it down to the chocolate crumbs and away from the areas you're trying to emphasize.
If possible, it might be worth while to reshoot an image like this and try to get all the chocolate into complete focus, you may be surprised at how much detail and texture is visible. Also, if possible, I would keep the chocolate crumbs as focused as you can as they help boost the idea of ruggedness and texture by their very existance. Similar to a mountain having boulders populated at its base, more areas of interest for the eye to view and a subtle reminder of the roughness (read: texture) of the area.
You have some great lines provided by the way the chocolate is blocked off but they are being downplayed by the soft focus when they could be a wonderful asset to the image. I do think the simplicity of your set up is a boon to the image however and the concept is easily understood.
While I personally think complete focus on all areas would help this shot immensely, I do think it is possible to keep with your original intent of featuring selective areas using a shallow DOF without being at the extreme this shot is. Perhaps opening up the DOF just a little bit and finding a nice middle ground between what you've experimented with here and complete sharp focus will create a nice balance so all aspects of the chocolate subject can be enjoyed and you're objective of a shallow DOF is still met.
If you do give the shot another go, I'd love to see the results!
a nice image that fits the topic well but too much of the subject matter is out of focus, a greater aperture would have brought more depth of field and a higher score from me
My eye is drawn to the blurry chocolate in the middle, rather than the chocolate on the left which is in focus. Perhaps a slightly deeper depth, or a different focul point would have been better.
Nice picture all the same.
good idea but DOF is just a bit shallow for this to work I really need the leading edge of the center piece of chocalate in focus, without it I'm left looking at the crumbs.
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