The secret judge has reviewed all the Day 1 entries and here is what he has to say:
capescafe
Interesting idea. I see the Sitepoint logo and backslash. It doesn’t create a well-composed photo though, when looked at overall. At a glance, to someone without prior knowledge of the Sitepoint logo, the objects just look randomly placed.
For this competition I’d prefer a more organic and less abstract approach.
Datura
Fantastic composition skills, as expected from Datura.
Lovely visual balance; The items arranged in a triangle between the card, the handle of the magnifying glass, and the tape on the left side. The story of sending 4th of July via Express Mail is well expressed. Maybe less emphasis on “office supplies”.
The photo is slightly blurry, perhaps because of a slow shutterspeed. You might consider resting down the camera of something sturdy, like a chair or on the table, or use brighter light so you can get away with a flaster shutterspeed.
emeryswanson
Fun idea, albeit a little gimmicky. For this competition I’d prefer a more organic and less abstract approach; Something that looks as though it might be found in real life, but looking better than real life.
gryffyn
Nice try. Good lighting, good focus. Nice, straight angles. Well done there.
The crop is a little tight though, making the photo look choked up. Consider shooting from further away. Across the street, maybe. Or from the end of the parking lot.
jcwacky
“A webdesigner at work,” clever idea there.
The items look a little too free-floating. Play with your composition, consider overlapping elements, and shooting a tighter angle to crop out all the empty space on the desk.
I love the use of a directional lightting, but try to get a more even lighting across your photo. Some areas on the left side are going too dark in relation to everything else.
KamiQuasi
Lovely idea of a nighttime shot to bring out the glowing signs.
Work on framing your photograph. Lower your angle slightly, and point a little more to your right, so you get that building filling up your entire frame.
kaybee57
Impressive collection of there, kaybee57.
A little off the topic of office supplies.
If you position yourself more directly in front of the bookcase, you’d be able to keep your lines straighter throughout the whole frame.
ParkinT
Good going, ParkinT. Good exposure, photo is on-topic. Loving the clouds in the window.
Consider the time of day you shoot, some parts of the day offer far better lighting than others. It can make something that would look dull or plain ordinarily, suddenly become stunning.
If you’d done this at sunset, for instance, with those orange clouds reflecting in the windows.
pixelfuze
Evening shot with a longer exposure. It looks beautiful. I’m loving the glowing signs and that highlight off the front pillar.
Work on keeping your vertical lines and horizon straight. That can be corrected in an image editor, but best of all is to line them up as best you can while shooting.
sbarrat
Good experimentation with shooting angle.
The idea of “office suppies” is lost though, as the Ctrl key becomes the dominant idea of the photograph.
Play with a composition from scratch, rather than shooting what’s already there.
sGrossman
Clearly this is a busy office!
The overall image looks a little dull though. Perhaps that is the lighting, the pop-up flash isn’t doing you any favours. I’d prefer a composition set up from scratch. You can pile it on the same way to give the idea of “busy office”, but you’d also have the freedom to move around and shoot from different directions to find what looks best.
simonnz
Great! I like this a lot. Nice use of a wide-angle to give us that enormous field of view, and a very interesting subject that I find myself just staring into the photo to see all there is to see. Good going, keeping your vertical lines straight.
Work on your colour balance. You can adjust that in camera or with an image editor afterward.
WarpNacelle
Interesting idea. It’s a little forced maybe, but interesting none-the-less.
Photo is on-topic, and good focus on the subjects. I’d love to see you try a more real-world-looking composition.
wenchbabe
Interesting shadows. Is this Pizza Hut afterhours?
This photo makes me think of an airport more than a restaurant for some reason. Try shooting from different sides of the room. Maybe get more of the counter in, or food, or people eating, or dishes and wares. Elements like that will help add to communication of the idea that, “This is a place where people eat.”
My favourites are Datura and simonnz. It’s difficult to compare their two photos, as the topics are like comparing apples to bananas. Datura has outstanding compositional skills.
But today’s prize goes to simonnz for his photo skills. Long depth of field, good sharpness throughout, and nice angle. Whether he shot this with a point and shooter or SLR, I think he can benefit a lot from the knowledge in the Photography for the Web book. I’m hoping he keeps at it, continues practicing, and hones what he already can do.
