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PowerHouse Books, an industry leader in conceptual art photography, publishers of Patrick McMullen, Helen Levitt, Magnum Photos and more, will hold a portfolio review on Sunday, March 8, 2007. The third annual review has become increasingly popular welcoming all levels of photography from inspired amateurs to established professionals.
Last year’s review included a 37-member panel of experts with leaders in fine art, fashion, entertainment, advertising and publishing and this year’s judges include Time magazine director of photography George Pitts, powerHouse publisher Daniel Power and chair of the BFA photography department at the School of Visual Arts.
The review at powerHouse Arena will include five one-on-one reviews from the panel directed at each attendee’s interest. Apply early because registration is limited and they offer a student discount.
Check out the Web site for more information about the review and the company:
http://www.powerhousebooks.com/portfolioreview/
Also, visit the address below to download the registration form:
http://www.powerHouseBooks.com/portfolioreview/registration.pdf
 Here are the details:
The 3rd Annual powerHouse Portfolio Review
Sunday, March 18, 2007
10:30 a.m. to 5:30 p.m.
The powerHouse Arena
37 Main Street, DUMBO, Brooklyn
Contact: Daniela Larcher, at 212.604.9074 ext 100, or e-mail: daniela@powerHouseBooks.com.
Nate Shepard, a 16-year-old Junior at Phillips Exeter Academy in Exeter, NH, has sent in this moody night image, "Laundromat" for critique. (click on the image for a larger view)
From a technical point of view, one of the interesting things about looking at photographs in the digital age is the availability of EXIF data in the image. Looking at that information lets us know that Nate used a Nikon D70 with his zoom lens set on 24mm and the exposure set at f/2.8 at 1/50 of a second. Why does this matter? Because it lets us know whether Nate had any room to move on his exposure for this scene.
 I'd like to have seen Nate give the photograph a
little more exposure so as to open up the shadows of the image a bit. I don't want the shadows to be bright, but I'm really interested in seeing a little more detail around the building. For example, look at how the reflections in the foreground add to the interest in the photograph.
Because he sent me a JPEG image, I can't tell if Nate shot a RAW file or a JPEG. If he'd shot a RAW file, there would have been a fairly large amount of exposure latitude built into the file and he could have used software like the Adobe RAW Converter that comes with Photoshop CS2 to leverage the extra data contained in the file, allowing for a bit more detail in the shadows without blowing out the highlights.
Though it probably wouldn't have been practical, the most effective method of lightening the shadows in this image would have been to add some light to the scene with additional lighting. In a situation like this, a RAW file could have given Nate what he needed.
In terms of content, I think there is a remarkable relationship between Nate's photograph and Edward Hopper's famous painting "Nighthawks." The diffused light, the mood, the angles of the building— they all add up to having the image be very reminiscent of Hopper's masterpiece. One of the things that makes Hopper's picture so powerful, though, is the pool of light that falls through the windows onto the ground outside of the building and the way that Hopper's "camera position" places us in the scene. With the building filling the right hand edge of the frame, we feel as though we are walking up to this location; we're in it rather than observing it.
Nate's image might benefit from a bit more of that "intimate" feel. Placing the camera a bit closer and cropping in from the left side wouldn't lose the great dark sky or the reflections in the lot, but it does simplify the composition a bit by removing the small, distracting details on the left edge of the frame. I would really be interested in seeing what would have happened if Nate had taken a few steps to his right and a few steps closer to the building to put us closer to those wonderful repeating circles inside the windows.
Keep shooting, Nate... nice work!
Let Nate know what you think of his image (or my critique) by leaving a comment below. After leaving a comment, find your best work and send it to me and I'll post it here on the blog. Send me JPEGs at: pdnblog@jeffcurto.com
After an insanely long time away from the PDNedu blogosphere, I'm
back with image critiques. This is a chance for photo students to submit
their best stuff for the world to see and get some feedback on their
work. I'll post as many things as I get in my email, so send me your
best work!
This time out, we've got some images from R. Scott Victor, a freshman
at Rochester Institute of Technology studying Business Management. He's
sent along three photographs of some sumptuous, light-drenched interiors for critique. (click on photos for larger views)
The
strength of the first two images is in their composition and point of
view. Scott's taken us into these spaces and really made us feel a part
of them by placing his camera at an "eye-level" height. The light that
pours through the windows is beautiful, and the second image has a
reasonably nice balance of exposure to allow us to see both inside and
outside.
Even though Scott's balanced the exposure fairly well, I would like
to have seen him do a bit more with the light for the rooms. Both of
the "furniture" images could use some fill light to help brighten the
shadows and show us more of the structure of the furnishings and the
rooms themselves. The top image here could use a lot of additional
light to brighten up the table, which would allow us to see the chairs and give us
a better sense of what the near part of the table looks like.
This extra light could be in the form of some big pieces of foam core that reflect a bit of the existing light back into the shadows of the space or could be artificial light. One thing to keep in mind is that using tungsten (incandescent) lights will result in a color temperature (color of the light) that is different from the daylight that is coming through the windows. This is why some strobe flash would probably be a better choice than either bounce-fill cards or "hot" lights, because there would be enough intensity to overcome the dark shadows, and enough control to not let the shadows be too light or too dark.
The second image is, I think, the best of the bunch because it has enough light to show us the room and furnishings (though look at that black chair in the middle; I think it needs a little light to show us its interior) and a great composition. It has an issue, though, in that it suffers from some perspective problems by virtue of being shot from a slightly downward-facing angle with a camera that has no perspective control (like a view camera, or a shift lens on a smaller format camera). Because of this, the window frame is distorted and the room doesn't look as good as it could. This perspective problem could be fixed to some degree in Photoshop, but the best quality results are going to come by shooting it with a camera that allows for correction of the perspective problem in the first place.
Scott's third image also suffers from not enough fill light, causing his subject to be a silhouette with little to no detail in the flowers or the vase. Again, some additional light, balanced so that it fills the shadows but doesn't overwhelm the natural light from the window would be a great help here. I'd also like to have seen him choose a camera position that moves the flowers a little bit farther away from the window's vertical element so there's a bit more separation of those forms. A slightly lower camera position might have been nice to experiment with, as well, just to see if there could be more interesting, somewhat less bright reflections on the table's surface.
Scott's got some great ideas here, but he has to spend a bit of time tweaking his setup in order to get photographs that work a bit better as illustrations of these spaces. Sometimes (OK, a lot of the time) we have to "think like a client" and figure out what it is that a client would want to see in the photographs. If the client is a furniture company, it wants to see the furniture presented in a beautiful, stylish way so that prospective buyers can see how great it is. If the clients are builders or decorators, they will want to see the interior as something that is perfectly assembled and perfectly designed.
Even if the client is "just you" (as I often hear my students say), you have to be able to know that you have controlled all aspects of the photograph that fall within your control. In the case of a set of images like these, where the subject doesn't move and the photographer can spend some time getting things right, it's worth thinking about how you want the photographs to communicate how you saw the space and realize that the camera's limitations of range of brightness and perspective recording don't always match up with our human vision.
Have some advice for Scott? Post it below by using the "comments" section.
Have some photographs you've been working on? Send them to me at pdnblog@jeffcurto.com and I'll post them for the world to see and make some comments about them.
Jeff Curto is a photography professor and coordinator at the College of DuPage in Glen Ellyn, Illinois.
 Lauren Lallone, who graduated this past spring from the University of Alabama at Birmingham with a BA in Art has sent me her website address so I could critique her images.
Lauren's website is www.laurenlallone.com.
Lauren's body of work is primarily portraiture, and there are some fine images on her site. I like that her site leads off with 3 images of the same subject, an idea that lends a sort of "stop motion" look to the work. She's employed a web layout that allows her work to be all lined up in one left-to-right scroll (did I miss the memo on this one? It seems like every third student portfolio website is set up like this).
That strategy works well, but I think Lauren could use some paring down and editing to have her strongest work be seen more clearly. If you take the time to scroll through the whole "lineup" of work, it looks like Lauren has included nearly every assignment she turned in in school (pinhole, fisheye, environmental, conceptual, etc, etc). While there is nothing inherently wrong with a "greatest hits" approach, focusing your portfolio (physical or online) gives viewers a better sense of what you want and where you want to go.
It's that last part... where Lauren wants to go, that should be center stage here. What should the viewer know about Lauren? Does she want to get a job in a portrait studio? Does she want to exhibit this work? Does she want to offer to make portrait photographs of the people who come to her site? In other words, the lack of focus in the work as a whole makes Lauren's approach look unfocused.
The portrait work is quite interesting. Lauren has a wonderfully intimate sensibility about how she photographs people and she's not afraid to take her big camera (looks like 4x5 was employed quite a lot here) and get right up close to people. That proximity of view and the shallow depth-of-field it often produces makes these portraits very evocative, especially because Lauren seems to be able to coax really relaxed but intense expressions from her subjects.
After looking at her site for a few minutes, I discovered another body of work that I think is pretty interesting, but it's a little hard to get at because of how it is presented on the site. Her photo collage work is as interesting as her portraits and even seems to extend the idea of personality that she's dealing with in her photographs of people. I'd like to see more integration between these two bodies of work, perhaps even making portraits of the people whose living spaces she dissects with her collage idea.
Lauren's got a great sense of photographic style started here; some fine portrait work and some other interesting conceptual images that seem to fit in well with her ideas about photography. I'd like to see her take that next step and show us only the wheat and none of the chaff.
What do you think of Lauren's work? After you use the comment button below to leave your thoughts, send me a your best stuff at pdnblog@jeffcurto.com and I'll comment and post it here on the blog.
 Matthew Adams a senior photojournalism major at Point Park University located in Pittsburgh, PA sent in a few rock concert images for critique. Matthew says that his primary focus in his photography is rock and indie rock bands and two of the images that he sent are of a band called "I Am The Avalanche".
One of the images succeeds rather well, I think. The photograph of Vinnie Caruana, the band's lead singer thrusting himself into the audience and the audience pushing back towards him really gets at the raw energy that a great concert experience has. Caruana's red shirt and his aggressive pose give a real sense of strength and power to the image.
Another image that Matthew sent, though, doesn't have that same sense of energy. This photograph is also of Vinnie Caruana, but this time it's his hand playing guitar. The "caption" material that Matthew has sent along says that Caruana has the letters "IATA" (I Am The Avalanche) tattooed on his wrist as a symbol of his devotion to his band. My thought is that the small tattoo is too subtle and represents too tenuous a connection for a viewer of this photograph. Unless the viewer is already a fan and already knows about Caruana's symbolic wrist-art gesture, then the photograph is of just another guy playing a guitar. I'd rather see a "portrait" of Caruana's wrist, showing the tattoo in all its glory, or see Caruana playing in a more forceful pose.
What do you think makes a great rock music photograph? Do Matthew's fit that description? Use the comment area below to let us know and then send your best stuff to me at pdnblog@jeffcurto.com and I'll post them here on the blog.
 John Boal is a part time student at The Northern Virginia Community College, working towards an internship in photojournalism.
John sent along the URL for his website, www.johnboalphotography.com. His site contains several images under the "people" and "places" categories, but the most fleshed-out group of images on his site is a set of photographs about waste management and recycling in various parts of Virginia. It's a nicely realized project that not only has images of the massive waste reclamation and processing facilities, but also images of the workers who sort and deal with the enormous amounts of
trash that we produce. The images themselves are quite good; making the steam and smoke of the processing plants look both beautiful and menacing and showing the workers as individuals who sometimes seem overwhelmed by it all.
An interesting strategy that John has used is that in addition to individual images on his website, he's also included the complete waste management story on the site as a downloadable PDF file. This means that he can show how his photographs integrate with text, lay them out in a way that makes sense for the overall story and use captions to enhance the images that he has used. It's a clever way to make sure that his images get seen the way he wants them to be seen.
I'd like to see John pare down his website to just two or three really fine picture stories like this one and remove or otherwise de-emphasize the other content that he has there. The other images are good images, but aren't as cohesive as the photographs of waste management.
 Sam Pyeatte, a resident of Siloam Springs, Arkansas, is a student of the Academy of Art University, Online. Sam sent in this photograph of Magruder I, a house designed by architect Cyrus A. Sutherland.
Sam's goal in making the photograph was, as he put it, "to bring out the building's strongest design element which I feel is the 'swept' gable." Architectural photographer Timothy Hursley is one of Sam's influences and he cites Hursley's "more candid, less a glossy Architectural Record type image" as his inspiration for his photographs.
I think Sam's photograph of the Magruder I structure is effective at making this "winged" house seem to fly. By framing the photograph to eliminate the place where the house is attached to the earth, and by including a goodly amount of sky, Sam's picture makes the house feel "light." The reflection on the big front window enhances this feeling by lightening the image overall.
I might be tempted to lighten the wall on the right side of the photograph (either with on-site reflectors or in Photoshop), which would tend to brighten the image up some more, but that's a quibble. I also would have thought about removing the red flag in the image, as I don't think it adds anything to the image and competes a bit too much with the rest of the photograph's content.
Do you think Sam's image is effective? Would your approach to the subject be different? If so, how? Use the comment section below to leave your opinion and then send your own images to me at pdnblog@jeffcurto.com and I'll post them for critique.
Sean Work, a student who has just enrolled in photography courses at Tidewater Community College in Norfolk, Virginia, has sent in some photographs that he made as he backpacked through through Europe this past year. Sean plans to apply for admission to the Photojournalism program at Ohio University later this year.
Click on any of the images presented here to see a larger verrsion. To see more of his work, see Sean's Flickr site.
Sean describes himself as a "self-taught" photographer and also says that he has "adhered to a strict philosophy
regarding image manipulation, and all manipulations
have been universal" which should make folks at the NPPA happy.
Sean's images are fine, though it seems to me that they lack a depth of content and purpose. As individual images, they are reasonably well composed and exposed, but don't seem to convey the excitement of "being there" as much as they could.
The two images here that involve "music" ("Blind Street Performer- Donostia, Spain" and "Young Folk Dancers- Riga, Latvia") could have been enhanced, for example, by the inclusion of a bit of motion blur... a slow shutter speed could have conveyed the activity of playing and dancing more than the static images we see here. Getting in closer would help, too, as we'd be more in the physical space of the participants. In the "dancing" image, for example, you can get a sense of how the activity could be better conveyed by the little bit of twirling skirt that is seen at the right edge of the frame. A closer viewpoint and a lower camera angle would have helped here.
The photograph of the statue in the fog (that Sean has titled "Independence Monument- Budapest, Hungary") has an interesting angle and mood, but doesn't really show me the statue well enough for me to see much about what it is. Moving camera position might help, so that the head and the statue's "pose" would be more easily read.
What I'd like to see Sean do is to think about the story he's trying to tell. Like writing a story in words, with photography it's usually necessary to pare down the details of an event to their essence. What is it about the dance event that interested him? It may be that he can't tell the story in one photograph per event and needs to work on a short picture story project. I can imagine a set of 5 or 6 images of the dance event that would help tell the story not only of the dancers' movement, but also a bit of their cultural heritage and the bridging of the gap between the "old world" culture and the current generation's practitioners.
I'd urge Sean to keep shooting and to keep working on trying to find the essential aspects of a subject. Ask yourself questions: How do you convey the soul of a blind performer? How do you best express the enthusiasm of a group of dancers who are expressing their age-old heritage?
What do you think of Sean's work? Where do you think he could improve? Or, do you think that I've missed the mark here on what Sean has done? Let your voice be heard by using the comment box below and then send your best work to me at pdnblog@jeffcurto.com and I'll post them for the world to see.
Last week, I posted a photograph of a softball pitcher made by Gary Meidinger, a student at Emporia State University in Kansas. When Gary had sent in that image, he'd also sent in a few others, including this one of a wildly contorted pitcher in the middle of her windup.
While I think that it has some problems (the white scoreboard behind the pitcher makes for a difficult intersection of competing values with the pitcher's jersey, and it appears as though the highlights are a bit blown out) I couldn't help noticing an interesting similarity between this photograph and an image of the Hindu God Shiva.
Some of the most frequently seen depictions of the deity show a four-armed, dancing figure. Shiva's dance is usually seen as being a symbol of the forces of creation and destruction, as well as the balance that opposition brings. The four arms are seen to represent the four cardinal directions of space, suggesting Shiva's omnipresence.
So, what's that got to do with a softball pitcher? Well, not all that much in the literal sense, but I want to use these two images to make a "pitch" for the idea of a liberal arts education. Learning photography's techniques is only a part of the process of learning to be a photographer. A greater part, it seems to me, is figuring out what to do with photography; to decide what you want to say with your camera. The more you know about the world around you and the more parallels you
can draw from your
understanding of that world, the more likely you are to be able to make images that draw on bigger and more powerful ideas. Taking classes outside of your photo department - - - classes like art history, humanities, philosophy, literature, drawing & scupture - - - can help you learn more about the world around you.
So, while you are cultivating your photographic skills, don't forget that balance, grace and opposition of technical and intellectual forces can help inform your sense of what photography is for you.
Let great knowledge be your mantra!
 Randy Illum, a student at Burlington County College (and about to transfer to Rutgers, Mason Gross School of the Arts in the fall) has sent in several photographs from a current project called "America". I've included two of the series here; more can be seen at his website, www.randyillum.com and it's worth taking a look at the whole group for a sense of what this project has to offer.
Click on the images on this page for a larger view.
The concept is interesting: closely (often very closely) framed images of people engaged in the "tiny little moments" of life; a prom dress, a sporting event, a gentle embrace... the "stuff" that we don't always remember but don't want to ever forget.
The idea works well, and the content of the images nearly always hits the mark, if in a slightly overly-stylized way. The issues that I
have with the work stem from two places. One is technique, the other is scope.
In terms of technique, I want to know whether the extraordinary darkness of these images is something that is a choice that Randy is making or whether it's something that he is overlooking. Is his "America" a dark enough place that he has to bury his higlight tones so far down and lose the shadow detail that these images could otherwise have? Is it a function of scanning the original images or is it some concious decision that he is making? Personally, I'd like to be able to see the images' details a bit more clearly and that would mean lighter photographs. At the very least, I'd like to know in a more concrete fashion whether the tones in these images are what Randy wants, or simply what he's getting. Controlling your image's content means controlling every aspect of the way the image looks.
In terms of scope, I wonder if the images are a bit narrow. If you're going to use a title like "America" to describe a body of work, I'd like to see either a much more clearly defined sense of what Randy's "take" on America is, or I'd like to see something that is much more of a broad-based concept that encompasses bigger ideas than what is in this grouping so far. Perhaps Randy is planning on a much more comprehensive exploration of the idea. With any luck, he's looked at Robert Frank's seminal work "The Americans" or the culturally oriented work of William Klein, the autobiographical work of the great Wright Morris or even the more ambiguous color images of America by Joel Sternfeld. It may be that Randy has a fairly strong sense of what he is doing, but neither his email to me nor his website give me any sort of "artist's statement" (make it short!) that explains the work. It's often important to give the viewer a brief explanation of the ideas behind the images.
So, here's a project with "legs" but legs that need a bit of exercise. I think the idea here is strong, but that the body of work can be improved by some careful consideration of both concept and execution.
What do you think about Randy's work? Submit a comment below and, once you've done that, send in some images that you have been working on. Send them to pdnblog@jeffcurto.com and I'll post them and make some comments.
 Gary Meidinger, a student at Emporia State University in Kansas has sent in a variety of images, and I've selected this great softball photograph to post and critique.
At their most basic, all sports are about the elements of speed and intensity. While softball may not be as fast-paced a game as, say, basketball, the elements of jackrabbit base running, laser-beam line drives and rifle-shot pitches all make for a game that relies on speed coupled with intensity of concentration and determination.
This photograph embodies those elements by capturing Henri Cartier-Bresson-like decisive moment in the game. The expression on the pitcher's face, the sinewy muscles in her arm, the lean of her body in to the pitch and the ball captured against the infield dirt all combine to show us the fierce power of this frozen moment.
Though I might like to see the background a bit more out of focus (a larger aperture or Photoshop's Lens Blur filter, perhaps?) this is a really fine image that expresses the competitive spirit of the pitcher.
Batter up! Step up to the plate and send your best images to me at pdnblog@jeffcurto.com and I'll post them on the site.
  Cole May, a student at Taylor University in Fort Wayne has sent in this image for critique. There is a wonderful sense of mood here, and the color is really beautiful. And yet it seems like something we've seen before.
Here's a great example of how we can take an image that leans rather dangerously in the direction of a cliché and turn it into something that is really different, simply through the use of cropping. As I looked at Cole's photograph, the two things I was most interested in were the way the water, waves and reflection in wet sand create legs that have a sort of "truncated' feel to them. It's a really interesting visual effect that is worth a second look. What really hooked me in, though, was the way that the sun dappled the water between orange blobs and blue/gray blobs. It's a really beautiful effect and it appears as though Cole might have done some sort of filtration in Photoshop to enhance the nearly posterized feel of the tones and colors of the water.
So, I've taken the liberty of creating a cropped version of Cole's image. By elminating the cliché sunset (and the tilted horizon line... look out... the ocean's gonna run out!), we get a chance to emphasize the qualities of the image that make it really interesting.
Even with the crop, we still know it's a person, we still know the person is at the beach, we still know the person is in the water, but now we get to pay attention to the purely photographic things that really make the image sing.
Photographers are editors... we need to get rid of all the material that doesn't tell our story in the strongest way.
What's your best shot? Or, do you have an image that you think has merit, but you can't quite figure out what's wrong? Send your images to me at pdnblog@jeffcurto.com and I will post them here for critique!
Don't let the sun set on your best work! Send it in!
 Image Critique returns from an extended hiatus! Thanks to Rene Edde, a student at Chicago's Columbia College, who has submitted this image entitled "Rainy Day."
Rene says, "The colors and the waterspots just really got me. Sometimes I like flare, sometimes not so much. To me, this time it works."
I agree that the flare works, and adds to the mood of the image. What I really like is the set of colors that dominate the photograph. The blue bits of waterspots and the blue glow of the lights contrasts with the red stoplight and that wonderful "decisive moment-like" red umbrella. In fact, I like the triangular relationship between the red umbrella, the red stoplight and the reflection of the stoplight so much that I want to emphasize that by de-emphasizing the car that is driving in from the left. For me, this cropped image works better by eliminating some of the "busy" qualities of the image and creating a stronger visual relationship with the lights and colors in the image.
What do you think? Let Rene know what you think about her photograph by using the comment button at the bottom of this post. When you're done with that, send me a photograph for critique at pdnblog@jeffcurto.com. I'll post it and comment on it. Let the world see what you've got!
Want to listen in on conversations of judges as they discuss "The Best of Photojournalism" on the web in 2005?
The judges are ... Shawn Greene leads the multimedia efforts at MiamiHerald.com,
Andrew DeVigal is an assistant professor of photojournalism at San
Francisco State University, Keith W. Jenkins is the photography editor for the Washington Post Magazine, Maria Bunai is the picture editor at Time.com, and Dan Habib is the photo editor for the Concord Monitor.
Topics include the genre of "new documentary", the use of multimedia and audio, editing a story, and our favorite -- higher education.
View the winning submissions, which include students from the University of North Carolina and the Mountain Workshops.
Congratulations!!!
Photo © Dan Habib
 This new website has the addictive quality of a video game.
There are two ways to play --
Submit your photographs to Strumba and allow others to critique them. They can write a comment or a "constructive critique" or they can give your image a rating from .5 to 10 by clicking on a number.
Most photographs don't have any comments submitted but you can see how many people have rated the image and the average of their votes. It even shows you the statistical breakdown of each vote you've received.
Here is the second part, the addictive part --
Once you vote on an image, the next one pops up. So you keep rating and rating and rating. And it is actually fun to see how your rating ranked amongst other raters after you've voted.
And then you start talking to yourself ... Was I too generous? There can't be that many people who think that image deserved a 9; their friends must be voting! That photograph is sooo cliched!
Strumba.com has good intentions... as it was "founded to provide a friendly atmosphere to nurture the creative spirit present in all of us."
And not only are you availed critiques but also free exposure with links to your own website.
Interested in registering? Or just being a photo-viewing rating junkie?
 ___Gevorg Karapetyan, a student at Clark Magnet High School in Los Angeles, sent me several images for critique. I've selected two to highlight here. (click on images for larger views)
The first, San Francisco Bridge, is, for me, an image of contrasts. A quiet, contemplative and peaceful subject is given an edge by virtue of being bathed in weird, yellow-green light. There is something wonderfully eerie about that combination. Though I wonder if Gevorg intended the oddball color in this image, the composition is certainly compelling, combining the "known" subject of the bridge with the interesting arrangement of the foreground person. The strange color simply adds another dimension.
 Gevorg's other image takes advantage of the amazing close-up capture abilities of digital cameras and zooms us into a David Lynch- style world of minute detail. I can't tell which is more visually unsettling; the "fork's eye" view of the wasp or the glistening molecules of fat on the beef... all I know is that the image makes me feel a bit squeamish. I like that.
What I like most about these two images is that Gevorg is taking some chances and thinking in a sort of "sideways" fashion about what might make a good photograph. Keep shooting, Gevorg!
What do you think about these photographs? Post your comments below and then send an email to pdnblog@jeffcurto.com and attach your best images for critique!
 David Strohl, a student at Savannah College of Art & Design has sent this image, entitled "ebb" in for a critique.
My favorite thing here is the lack of a sense of scale. I'm not sure whether I'm mere inches from the surface of a beach or miles above the earth in an airplane, flying above the clouds. I like that sense of disorientation and the fact that I have to search a bit to see if I can figure out where I am.
That said, I'd really like to see a bit more variation in the colors of the image. I don't think it needs a lot, but a bit of a warmer color (maybe in the mid-foreground?) could help break up the monotone of the photograph. I also wonder about the placement of the horizon line. While I like the way the sky tapers off to an intensely dark blue at the top corners, I think bringing the top edge of the photograph down a bit would focus more of our attention on the cool stuff happening in the bottom of the image.
You can see more of David's work on his website: www.davidstrohl.net/
What do you think of David's image? Submit a comment using the comment option below. Your next move after that should be to send me an email with your best work and I'll post it up for on the blog for a critique!
 Nicholas Ong returns again with another great night image. (click image for a larger view)
Long-time readers might remember some other night-time images that Nick submitted a while back and this one continues in that vein.
What this image has as its main strength is the feeling that all is not right. The shadowy vision of the very out-of-focus fence and the vignetting around the edges of the photograph give a clandestine quality to our view into the supply yard. There's a sense that we're not supposed to be there and that gives the whole image a really exciting "James Bond" feeling for me. I feel like I should be waiting for my "man on the inside" to come and open the gate so we can launch the submarine and ruin the villan's plan for world domination. The puddle in the foreground that enlivens that part of the image is a nice touch of camera-position care, too.
There's not much on Nick's website http://www.nicholasong.com/ at this point, but I've got it bookmarked for future reference, 'cause I like his stuff.
So, synchronize your watches and let Nicholas Ong know what you think of his image by using the comment section below. When you're done, rifle through your portfolio and send me an email with your best stuff so I can post it on the blog.
 Debra Bronson, a student at College of DuPage, submitted this image for critique (click image for a larger view).
A misty morning in the fall forest, with beautiful light filtering through the branches, it's an image that does a pretty good job of capturing the mood of the place and time.
My sense, though, is that there is too much space at the top of the image. Not only does that extra space put the horizon line of the distant line of trees awfully close to the center of the image, but the mass of light values of the sky also forces our eye to look there more than we might want to. I've taken the liberty of cropping the image:
 This crop not only moves the horizon line up a bit and gets rid of a lot of that blaring sky, but it also focuses our attention on the beautiful light that is one of the photograph's greatest strengths. The image is now a great deal more intimate and gives the viewer a better sense of being in the space.
What do you think of the cropping of Debra's image? Use the comment section below to let her know.
Email me your best work to me at pdnblog@jeffcurto.com and I'll post it here on the blog and give you a critique!
Brenda Jones, a photo student at College of DuPage, has submitted
this image for critique. In addition to being a photography student,
Brenda is also an employee of the Environmental Protection Agency
(EPA). (click image for a larger view)
Brenda's image was recently named as one of 25 winning entries in a contest sponsored by the EPA, which was open to all; EPA employees as well as non-employees. The contest was held to celebrate the 25th anniversary of the EPA's "Superfund" - a program to clean up America's hazardous waste sites.
The photograph is of the Quincy Smelter in Hancock, Michigan; an abandoned copper mining facility and the location of an EPA cleanup effort. Contest judges noted that the photograph was a great example of the relationship between Superfund and people's recreational activities.
Though the image's horizon line is a bit close to center (tending to bisect the picture into top and bottom halves) and the photograph might have worked better as a horizontal, the light is beautiful and the blurred, speeding boat adds a dimension of movement to an othewise static image.
This is a great example of how a photograph that works to illustrate a concept doesn't always have to be the "perfect" shot. The context here of the Superfund site and the recreational use of a former industrial location makes for an image that helps the EPA tell their story.
Brenda's image, along with the 24 other winners of the EPA Superfund contest will be displayed at the Smithsonian Museum in Washington in December, 2005 and also featured on the EPA's website.
Do you have an image that's a winner? Send it to me via email and I'll post it on the PDNedu Blog!
 Bob Petersen, a photo student at College of DuPage has submitted this image, entitled The Rescue for critique. (click image for larger view)
What strikes me about this image is how different it is from many standard journalistic photographs. While most news and documentary images simply report in a neutral way on the event or scene in front of the camera, this image involves us as viewers. The fireman is glaring at the photographer and, by extension, the viewer of the photograph. This "breaking of the wall" between subject and photographer/viewer is what gives this image its visual authority.
The lack of focus on the fireman due to low depth of field forces at least some of our attention on the sharply-focused rescue victim, but the fireman's glare and his arm reaching out towards the camera brings us back to his interaction with the photographer with each viewing of the image.
So, here's an image that would normally be seen as a mere report on an event, but one that ultimately editorializes on the event in an interesting way.
Should journalistic images simply report the facts? Or, should photographers use their proximity to an event as a tool to help sway our opinion? How does this image differ from one where the fireman was not interacting with the photographer?
What do you think? Let us know with the comment option below and then send me your images via email at pdnblog@jeffcurto.com and I'll post and comment on them.
 Steve Thompson has sent this image, shot in the French Acadian section of Prince Edward Island, Canada in for critique. (click image for a larger view)
Steve is a graduate with an MA from University of Rhode Island and after that did a year of post-grad work at University of Connecticut.
The image's main strength is the color palette it uses. Steve's concentrated our view on the pale blue sky, the lime green grass and the coral pink cross on the image's right side. The dark cross on the left acts as a compositional foil, balancing out the image left to right. While the horizon line technically cuts the image into a "top half" and a "bottom half," the crosses protruding above the horizon line alters the perception of where that horizon is, making it a good "break of the rules" of composition.
It's an image that violates the idea of a "dark and dreary" cemetery with its pretty colors and treeless expanse.
You can see more of Steve's work on his website at http://www.5lime.com/
What do you think of Steve's photograph? Use the comment link below to record your thoughts about the image. Then, send me your best work at pdnblog@jeffcurto.com and I'll post and comment on it.
 Jared Rodriguez, a student at Parsons School of Design in NYC has submitted this portrait of his brother for crititque. Jared, whose primary interest in photography is portraiture, shot this image with a Mamiya RB67 camera,and the large negative that the camera makes gives the photograph a wonderful "tactile" quality. (click image for a larger view)
The photograph has a lot going for it:
- Wonderfully hard, cutting light
- The hard edge of the wall the figure is leaning against
- The figure's aggressive pose
- A slightly off-kilter camera angle
I love how the shadows that the figure casts and even the slogan on his t-shirt all contribute to a photograph that is about hard edges.
It's a really fine image, somewhere between a portrait and an editorial photograph that asks us for empathy with the subject.
You can see more of Jared's work on his website: www.jaredrod.com
What do you think of Jared's photograph? Use the "comment" link below to let him know your thoughts on his work. Then, send me a sample of your work to: pdnblog@jeffcurto.com and I'll post it on the web for a critique.
 Bernard Mataigne has submitted this image, entitled Homme au Chien (Man with Dog) for critique. (click image for a larger view)
One of the things that photography does very well is show us the world from a point of view we don't normally think about. If we had been standing in this place and looking down at this scene, our peripheral vision would show us things that were around this cropped view and "get in the way" of having us see the abstracted quality this image has. In other words, a photograph of this scene is quite different from the way our eyes would see it.
Bernard has chosen to make a fairly high-contrast rendering of this scene. Moving much of the image to black or white and leaving very few grays behind makes what is already a rather abstract image and makes it even more so. I think I'd like to see the photograph be a bit less high in contrast. It's hard to "find" the subject in the image and a rendition that didn't darken the shadows on the right side of the photograph would help that. If the shadows were such that they created their own design through shape, that would help, but they aren't like that.
Whenever I see a photograph taken from overhead like this one, I'm reminded of the work of André Kertesz and his interest in looking at the world from above. The Kertesz photograph below, entitled Shadows is indicative of his work. He used both the straight overhead camera position and the shadows cast by the people in the scene to create a wonderfully abstracted image, but one that has a great overall design to it as well.
 What do you think about Bernard's image? Let him know using the comments section below and then email me your work at pdnblog@jeffcurto.com so I can post it!
 Amanda Perkins, a photography student at College of DuPage has sent me this image for critique on the blog. This image, entitled Museo, is one of several images Amanda sent from a recent workshop she took in Tuscany, Italy with the Rocky Mountain School of Photography.
There are a lot of things I like about this image. The moment selected for the exposure is great, as is the slow shutter speed that blurs the figure moving down the stairs. The composition, with its segments of brown stone bathed in soft, gray light also works well. The image is all about time and time's passage.
What I would like to have seen Amanda do differently here is to alter the tonal values of the image slightly to emphasize the elements in the frame. I've taken the liberty of doing a few quick tonal adjustments to the image (See below; click on the images for a larger view). By making a selection of the left side of the image as well as its top right corner and then darkening the image's shadows and highlights using Curves in Photoshop, the figure's placement is emphasized.
It's not an enormous change, but by altering the relationship of
values in the image, we get a photograph that makes a bigger deal out
of what was there in front of the camera.
What do you think of Amanda's photograph?
Do you agree with the way I've adjusted the tones?
What might you do differently?
Use the comment box below to leave your thoughts and then send me an email and attach your work for posting and critique.
 Maxim Ryazansky, a recent BFA grad from Pratt Institute, sent me a link to his website: www.maximryazansky.com and asked me to critique his work. His photographs are interesting, in that they are of people whose sensibilities seem to be outside the norm (or, at least, outside of my personal sensibilities). What's interesting to me is that while the photogaphs are of Klansmen, ultra-conservative, homosexual-bashing church people and kids at the gun range, there is little sense of editorializing; the best photographs on Maxim's site simply report. (click on images for a larger view)
That plain act of just telling the story (helped along on Maxim's site by captions like "Man With His Grand Daughter at the Shooting Range" and "Imperial Wizard Ray Larson and Ku Klux Klaus Salute") gives the photographs a suggested "neutral" quality that, because of the viewer's point of view, ends up being fairly far off neutral.
Where that neutrality falls down, though, is when Maxim allows himself to editorialize. In a photograph entitled "Westboro Baptist Church protest while two men kiss", we see hateful anti-gay rhetoric on signs in the background and two men kissing in the foreground. Because of the conflicting messages of the protesters and the men, we are forced to acknowledge the social issues in the photograph and "take a stand"; are we repulsed by the protesters or by the men? The images that simply present the facts of the situation without the internal conflict of "good" and "evil" work better for me and make photographs like "Leathernecks salute on the beach at a polar bear swim" all the more interesting. 
Take a look at Maxim's site and see what you think, then return here and use the comment area below to post a comment for him.
Do you have a website or a project that you'd like to get some feedback on? Send me some email at pdnblog@jeffcurto.com and I'll post your images for the world to see.
 Scott Victor, a student at the Gilmour Academy in Ohio, has sent in this image, entitled Money for critique.
Compositionally, Scott has put his "devil" character in a useful spot; near one of those "rule of thirds"
places that force our eye to see it. Its red color in a field of mostly
dark monochrome value also helps us to see the "point" of the image. (Click on the image for a larger view)
That said, it's an image that is relatively heavy-handed in its symbolism and also in its use of Photoshop to alter the look of the photograph. That heavy use of Photoshop begs the question of "if I can do it, does that mean I should?" As I look at the image, I wonder if a completely different approach (say, the devil holding a flaming dollar bill) would have been more effective at conveying the message. It might, because it might not look so much like an image that is an exercise in using Photoshop and look more like a photograph.
Another thought that comes to mind here is the idea of "compusories" for new photographers. Having taught photography for more than 20 years, I have seen for most new photographers, what is new is really what is new to them. Though Scott's image isn't very sophisticated, he's clearly trying out the options that are available within Photoshop and experimenting with how it can help him realize a particular imagined image. Older readers will remember experimenting with darkroom solarization; something we all somehow have to do regardless of whether it becomes a part of our eventual visual repertoire.
A particular favorite of mine is "The Lone Tree." Every photographer, at some point in his involvement with the medium, photographs a lone tree, its (usually bare) branches silhouetted against the sky, its trunk most often rooted in an open field.
Regardless of who we are or what our photographic interests are, each photographer, once we get to a particular level of involvement with the medium, makes at least one "lone tree" photograph.
There seems to be some reason that we all need to make this photograph. My personal opinion is that somewhere deep in our psyches, the tree is a metaphor; our photographic rendition of the tree is, for each of us, a tree of life.
Some examples:
Carleton Watkins
Eugene Atget
Ansel Adams
What do you think? Do you think that all of us have to "learn the compulsories" before we can move on to establish our own voices? What do you think of Scott's image? Use the comment area below to post your comments about this critique and then send me your images for posting on the blog.
 This "Image Critique" is a bit different in that it really is more of a "Project Critique." Photographer Thomas Lee wrote to me and sent me a link to an online project that he and his partner, writer Laura Quest, have recently completed.
The site, Sunshine's Clown Alley, is a chronicle of an ongoing service project in which teenage girls are taught basic clowning skills and then go out into the community to perform at in situations ranging from nursing homes to Make-A-Wish groups to disabled children's centers.
What makes the project sing for me is a combination of good, solid journalistic-style photography and the words that are overlayed onto each photograph. The words are a combination of story and commentary from the teenage girl/clowns as they go through what amounts to an emotional roller-coaster as they perform their clown act for people who are often marginalized. As is often the case in service projects, the participants seem to gain as much or more than the people being served.
It's a pretty powerful piece, requiring some time to take in the entirety of the project, but that time is well-spent. The best images walk a wonderfully fine line between the colorful gaiety of the clowns and the often sad and desolate surroundings of the service sites.
The website, based entirely in flash, is a bit slow to load, but otherwise, the technology that is employed allows a more interactive experience for the viewer, giving us information for images when we want it, and only images when we don't. In some cases, though, I found myself wishing for more caption and background material on the people and places we are shown.
Take a look at Sunshine's Clown Alley and then come back here and let Thomas and Laura know what you thought by using the comment area below. Their primary reason for sending me their link was to get some response on the project and find out how people felt about both its content and its presentation method.
Do you have a photo project or individual images you'd like to have people see and respond to? Send them to me at pdnblog@jeffcurto.com and I'll post them!
 Christian Sumner sent this image in for a critique. Taken of Ashton Anders after a swim in a waterfall in Keene, NY, it's a fine portrait, combining a head-on pose with great lighting.
The headlight behind Ashton gives a nice back light (often referred to as "rim light") that separates him from the background and adds a sense of dimension to the image. Fill-light (presumably flash) illuminates Ashton's face and torso.
The only thing I'd like to change about the image is the little green lens-flare spot just to the left of Aston's shoulder. I find it distracting and a quick swipe of the clone tool in Photoshop would make it go away, allowing us to focus more attention on Ashton and his penetrating expression. Try covering it with your finger to see what I mean.
What do you think of Christian's photograph? Use the comment area below to add your opinion, then send me an image or two of your own and I'll post them for critique. Send to: pdnblog@jeffcurto.com
 Karyn Vogel of Essex, Vermont sent in two photographs for an image critique. Both images were taken at a field called "Little Fenway" during a wiffle ball tournament (really!) in Jericho, VT.
While I think both photographs offer a strange sense of "place", I think the one I've posted below as a larger image works best. There is something very odd about the place where these grown men are playing. The combination of the little scoreboard, the shortened sense of perspective (likely created by what I'd presume is a "smaller than Major League Baseball" field size for a wiffle ball field) and the absolute chaos of the mens' body positions all add up to a wonderfully goofy photograph. The men look like giants, and I don't mean the team that plays in San Francisco. I'd love to see some sort of oversized mitt, ball or bat alongside these guys.
What do you think of Karyn's images? Let her know by using the "comment" section below, then send me an email with your own photographs for a critique!
 Adam Kuehl has sent in this "Matrix-esque" image entitled "Kung-Fu" for an image critique.
In what looks like a carefully-planned multi-flash exposure, Adam has created a reasonably effective illusion of the same person in two places at one time. The slight overlap of the foreground figure with the background figure helps give the image a depth that it otherwise might not have. He's also gotten the "flying" figure up in the air enough so that the lights of the city behind don't "bleed" through the figure's body.
Still, I keep wondering what they are fighting; their attention is clearly directed to the right side of the frame, but our view stops there and we can't see the opponent. I think I'd rather see the two figures opposing one another, or at least see some bit of a "man in black" on the other side of the frame.
You can see more of Adam's work at his website: http://www.adamkuehl.com/
What do you think of Adam's image? Let the world know your opinion by using the comment button below. Once you've done that, send me an email with one or two of your best images, or a portion of a series you're working on to pdnblog@jeffcurto.com
Geeze; regular readers must have thought that the Image Critique feature dropped off the face of the Earth! Well, I'm back and with a big group of images to look at.
 Michael Gross sent in his website URL, and I've picked a couple of images I particularly liked to talk about. The first, which I'm calling "Blue Boy" is effective at establishing a mood. The combination of melancholic pose and expression and the overall blue cast of the image does a great job of giving us a feeling of despair. I love the open doors with the light streaming through them, especially because of the foil of the strong light coming from the right side of the image. Still, the subject's face isn't strongly lit, adding to this great sense of mood and atmosphere.
Michael uses a similar structure and similar lighting strategy (even the same set?) to make a strikingly different image which I'm calling "Two Guys" (clever, eh?). The closer camera point of view, the cool, "Y-shaped" pose of the two figures and the different color of the light makes a huge difference in mood and effect in this image. The change in mood is completed by having the light fall directly on the mens' faces, making it a sunnier, yet still mood-filled image.
See more of Michael's work on his website: http://www.michaelgrossphoto.com/
What do you think of Michael's images? Use the Comment button below to post your opinions.
Want a quick critique of your work? Email me your best images at pdnblog@jeffcurto.com and we'll post 'em and talk about 'em.
 College of DuPage student Brenda Jones has submitted this image, which she's titled "Old Men of the Wood" for critique.
Photographs and abstraction don't always get along. That's because abstract images rely on our ability to see shapes, tones and textures as separate from the reality of the subject. Because viewers are looking at a photograph of something, though, they tend to want to know what that something is.
Brenda's photograph of tree bark neatly sidesteps this issue by presenting an image that is not only instantly recognizable for what it is, but also depends on our ability to see differences in tone and texture to see the abstract qualities of the subject. It doesn't hurt, I suppose, that Brenda's title helps suggest a more literal interpretation of what we see, in addition to our being able to appreciate the abstraction of the tree's bark in terms of value and surface.
Let Brenda know what you think of her photograph by clicking on the "comment" link below, and then send me your work for posting and critique.
 Hey... it's summer. School's out, so you're off doing your internship or maybe workin' at the Tastee Freeze (just to earn the extra cash for that new digital camera you want), or maybe you're hangin' with your friends.
But you're still making photographs, right?
And who's looking at them? Nobody, you say?
Well, send your best stuff to me at pdnblog@jeffcurto.com and I'll post 'em up here on the blog for the world to see, and maybe make a comment or two about how well it all works out.
You know you've got 'em... send 'em along!
 Faith Bowman returns with another cool Polaroid portrait. Once again, she's used the characteristic "Pola-Border" to add a sense of the underlying technique employed. Faith tells me that her influence is in 19th Century portraiture and in the work of photographers like Jody Ake and Robert Maxwell and that influence shows, both in the "look' of her images as well as in the way in which her subjects look so very, very aware of the way the appear in the images.
I enjoy the harsh lighting Faith employs in a lot of her images (though I'd like to see her control those highlights a bit more), as well as the way in which she allows that sense of process to become part of the photograph. The "Man With Wings" photograph here is an example of this; the backdrop, the lights, the branch and the wings on his back are so obviously there; no attempt is made to make it seem like an illusion. I think this adds to the feeling of these images.
 What do you think of Faith's work?
Let her know by using the comment link below and then send me your own best images for posting and critique!
Every wonder how a photograph was technically engineered?
ANALYZED, a feature of AmericanPhotojournalist, breaks down the image to its techno-wizardry, therefore the simple and bemused cannot just appreciate the visuals but truly understand the process behind the glory.
Email robert@americanphotojournalist.com to have your own photograph exposed.
Photo by Thomas Witte
 James Martin has submitted this image for critique on the weblog.
I like the unusual perspective in the photograph; we don't normally look at flowers from this point of view, especially in the natural world.
The pointy bud that undulates towards the left side of the frame provides a nice counterpoint to the brightly colored flower, as well as providing some balance to the image.
The composition is good here, but I think tightening it up a bit might make it stronger. By bringing the bottom and right edges in slightly, we can vary the distance between the edge of the frame and the main subject. This helps to enliven the frame by making us think more about the way in which the object sits in the frame.
This is a stragegy that Edward Weston frequently used (example), especially in photographs of small, "still life" objects. Weston would even frequently cut into the edges of the objects he photographed, employing the psychological rule of Gestalt called the Law of Closure; if something is missing, our mind adds it.
Let James know what you think of his floral study by using the comment link below and then send me your best images for posting and critique!
 Holy Gregory Crewdson, Batman! Meghan Petersen
has apparently been knocking out pictures of what the other half might
be thinking for some time now, and I think her work is pretty fine.
The domestic goddess at right, posed in a kitchen with lighting that Martha Stewart would never approve of, holds her perfect plate of macaroons with angry disdain.
Maybe those cookies are to go with the tea that the winsome waif in
the too-small red room is brewing up, but our little kitchen witch is
probably just happy that she didn't end up with a mess like The Woman of
the Dripping Spoon.
Though I think a few of Meghan's images rely a bit too much on the weird psycho-drama of Crewdson or Diane Arbus,
the best images, with their matter-of-fact character, give us a sense
of what's happening on the other side of the subject's mind.
Check out more of Meghan's work on her website:
www.meghanpetersen.com
(which, by the way, is a great example of how someone can get a web
presence together with minimal time, effort or resources; it's just one
page, but it gets the job done)
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