a) You have to look at my ugly mug
b) No one will get it
Simple enough shot but lighting was a bit of a mismatch so not exactly stunning and the background bugs me still. Levels/Curves, Neat Image, USM, Dodge/Burn and the usual resize/border/save for web.
It's a reference to the Two Ronnies "Fork Handles" sketch, a genius bit of comedy. I did end up spending far too long watching Two Ronnies sketches on You Tube and not long enough on this entry in the end :)
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Place: 26 out of 75 Avg (all users): 5.5979 Avg (commenters): 6.9500 Avg (participants): 5.1026 Avg (non-participants): 5.7226 Views since voting: 1368 Views during voting: 448 Votes: 194 Comments: 26 Favorites: 1 (view)
HA! Oh my gosh, I just got it! Talk about a blonde moment! Man, I wish the Critique Club would critique one of my photos. I should probably enter a few into contests, you think?
Well I do not know who Ronnie Barker is but like pineapple said I'm sure that he would have been proud of you.
As far as the image itself goes, you were right about the lighting. The mismatch lighting doesn't help this image. To fix it, you should have closed the blinds on the window or turned off the house light. If you like using ambient light from outside and you are shooting inside I might suggest the light bulb "Daylight". It has the exactly what you are looking for to give you that perfect indoor/outdoor lighting.
I personally don't use Neat image but know a lot that do. From the looks of it you may have applied too much to try and smooth out the background. A good helpful hint for blurring the background is to pull your subject away from it. This is called Depth of Focus or "DOF" for short. The further the subject is from the background the blurrier it becomes thus creating a sharper subject image.
I'm also seeing a bit of blurriness on the paper that you're subject is holding. This is caused by the slow shutter speed. Try shooting at ISO 200 or higher while indoors so you can have a faster shutter speed. You might also consider using the flash or a soft box to increase lighting.
Over all, the entire image is fairly good. After all 26th out of 74 isn't bad at all if you ask me. And I can see how 4 candles can sound like fork handles. Good work on coming up with the idea for the image.
Terrific! A little too much halo around the shoulders from your selection/gaussian blur for my taste, but one of the best on the theme in the challenge.
This should put you on the front page. A great idea, well composed.
My pick for the blue.
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Editing after finishing reviewing all of the entries; This should be on the front page; Either 1st or 2nd. This is one of only a handful that was well thought out, well composed, and met the challenge. The only issue I have is it seems to have a slightly blue cast to it.
It's a good shot, but without the title I don't see a misunderstanding, I see just simply confusion. Try to let the photo tell the understanding without the title in it yet.
I'm lost here, perhaps I have never had to shop for fork "handles".... concept is good could have used a contrasting color in the candles to really bring across the idea IMO..... btw, nice job of giving us all the finger! LOL!
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