Congratulations Alex Vincent, March 2024 PFRE Photographer of the Month! The theme this month was "Kitchen". Alex Vincent - #906 Yvonne Raaijmakers - #909 Peter Wingfield - #902 Here's what Alex has to say: Thank you for the award of Photographer of th ...
much to like! love the windows and general treatment! my issue stems with the foreground... the chairs of the table block the eye from moving around the left side completely... and also the interplay between the second chair from left abs the stools behind are also a place of friction for me... so i think taking a second look at those easy to move elements just before you shoot would have improved this image a lot! maybe taking it the stools just behind the table? or at least one of them... also moving the foreground table chairs a bit like the one falling off the edge abs especially the one square in the middle of the passage to the oven side of island would help... in fact, i may have even just carefully pulled the dining table back and out of the shot all together since this was all close... don’t think it really adds much to the overall besides cluttering the foreground... only other thing would be to double check coloring on wood over fridge abscess pendants... orange seems to have too much red in it or yellow has too much orange seems a little off ... i do like the over all angle
I think Garett is right on about that dining area in the lower left corner causing some problems. Pull the chairs out and you'd still know there's a table there. Or like Garett said, pull the table out of frame. I think that cabinet over the fridge is supposed to be the same color as the other cabinets? Needs work. Strong composition. Although the view is a tad darker than I like to see, at least there's some great stuff to see out there with the outdoor kitchen and mountains! The light on those four large drawers in the island is MONEY and looks great with the shadows on the stools! I might have thinned out all the stuff on the window sills. That part feels a little heavy handed. I also sometimes throw some hidden dish towels in the bottom of those types of vessels on the island to elevate the items in there and make it look more full. Good texture captured on that tile backsplash. Maybe a smidge higher on the camera height? Focal length looks great. Great directionality of light. Lots of stuff done well here. Keep it up!
This is very nice. I agree with just about everything Garett and Michael have said. So much of the light here is really lovely, and I think the treatment of the window view is just gorgeous. At the same time, I’m finding it kind of hard to reconcile the light outside with the light hitting the right side of the island (and the refrigerator too). The light hitting the island is quite nice, but I’m wondering about its source. It’s very bright and the shadows are hard, so it feels like it would be a result of direct sunlight coming in from the right. But the light outside feels kind of hazy to me...bright, but diffuse. And I get the impression that the sun is more to the left in the sky than to the right. I could be totally wrong though! Maybe there’s a large window out-of-frame to the right that's letting in direct sunlight? So I guess, as much as I like the look of the windows here, I’d be very curious to see what effect it might have on the overall feel of the scene if the windows were brightened a little. Would love to have seen the table at lower left moved out of the shot. Or as Michael suggested, possibly remove just the chairs? That part of the frame is so dense…I’m finding it a little hard to get past it. Also, completely agree about doing some color correction on the cabinets above the refrigerator. And maybe a little desaturation of the upper part of the refrigerator as well?
Garrett, Michael and Julie, thanks so much for taking the time to provide feedback on my image. I had a feeling that the foregound would be an issue but I Liked the way the rest of the image turned out so I thought I would submit and see what kind of feedback I might get. I don't often use exterior flash but the light in this room was actually a little flat so I decided to expose for the windows and use an exterior flash through a window off camera right. It did add the kind of contrast that I was looking for, but it didn't really match the direction of the sunlight, which Julie pointed out, although I felt it was fairly believable. Totally missed the color of the cabinet over the fridge and the nearest hanging light. Thanks again for your time and comments!