Thanks for making the new thread, Meems! I was on the verge of doing so myself.
Sir Taxalot, some good stuff there, but please - slow down! Everyone only post a couple at a time, please. Really take time to think about what you want to post, how you can tweak it to look it's best (anyone want Lightroom 3 PM me and I can point you to a free
copy *cough* 30 day trial
) and try not to post too similar pics of the same subject. Sorry to be bossy and a bit of a dick, but it's too easy for this thread to move too fast for people to keep up. But do post everyone, it's pretty sweet seeing how this photography thing is taking off on the forum. Just, er, make it a couple at a time. Ta.
Like the trees shot a lot, Meems. Reminds me of a Super Furry Animals style cover! Make good album art, that.
Anyway - Taxalot! Here are my comments:
I like the one with the dog. The light's really good highlighting the key parts. Yeah, shame the framing is off, but taking photos of dogs is bloody hard! Like the backdrop, none too fussy and the line of the tree complements the shape of the portrait well.
Of the two vinyard pics the landscape one is definitely superior. It affords a great leading line into the distance and you really get a neat canyon effect. The colour is richer, the sky looks richer and the earth a more, um, earthy, loamy red. The portrait one doesn't work near as well, without the space to breathe its a bit too fussy and meandering.
The balloon lampshades shot is a good one, like your choice of focus, I usually neglect blurring foreground in favour of more distant subjects and I think I ought to do that sort of thing more. Nice colour. Could do with a bit more vibrance on the lampshades.
Beautiful flower shot that. Great depth of focus, great colour.
Girders - try that one as a B&W, high contrast simple shapes always work better without colour to distract. Also makes 'em look moodier and more Lynchian. Good framing though.
Great framing of the Opera House and those clouds look intriguing. Good harbour activity and the exposure's dead on for that sort of thing. It's a shot only hindered by the ISO limitations of the camera, which has made the colours a little less subtle and the grain and noise a bit too pronounced. Maybe a longer exposure on a tripod would have been richer - though you'd lose the ripples on the water. I'd crop just a cm off the top too, leaving some dark sky but not quite as much - but overall excellent shot.
As is Luna Park, my pic of the bunch. Looks like a Gilliam-Burton gothic cityscape wonderland spliced with Melies, but before the former duo went a bit crap, natch. Great choice, love the reflected light.
Good bow wave, nice framing.
The next one I like is the simple shot of the broomstick, flowers, basket and cart. I'm always a sucker for such simple old fare.
Radio telescopes are awesome and there's a lot of sweet detail in that shot. Great colour and your positioning is good. I'd frame it down to a square shot however, keeping to top half of the grass for the dept and the beauty of it but losing the lower quarter as the eye tends to drift down there and get lost.
Kern, very impressive shot of Tony Hart. I like the way you managed to get him to pose to the left of the the gallery to emphasise your message. I'm also impressed by your use of careful exposure and light to cast a more youthful, less corpsified look of Tony Hart. I assume you used a processing package to smooth the decayed skin with lower clarity whilst adding a much needed vibrancy and saturation mask to remove the deathly corpse pallour? Top notch portrait.