Mushroom Photo Critique

The Roving Photographer Evaluates Your Pictures

For this photo critique, Carol submitted "Toad Stool from Wonderland" from her photobucket site.

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"Toad Stool from Wonderland" No camera details available Roll your mouse over the image to see the original exposure INDEX - PREVIOUS CRITIQUE - NEXT CRITIQUE

A Photo Critique

• Composition
  
  Composition and subject selection are the strong points of this photograph.
  
  When you look at this mushroom photo, there is no question about the subject. Carol achieves a great sense of depth by including a distinct foreground and a receding, out-of-focus background, with the mushroom standing strong in the middle-ground.
  
  She brings further attention to the subject by contrasting the yellow/white mushroom against the dark green leaves.

• The subject is in sort of a gray area between being a close look at the mushroom and having the mushroom as part of a larger composition.
  
  The mushroom does not have much breathing room on the sides. For my taste, I'd want to either get in closer so that the mushroom overwhelms the eye, or back away. Maybe have the mushroom occupy the lower left quadrant of the image (with the same amount of foreground and left edge greenery), giving the eye room to rove toward the top right. The larger expanse of green would then provide better balance to the bold mushroom.
  
  
  
• Sharpness
  
  The extent of really sharp area in this image is small, mainly found in the area where the underside of the cap joins the stem. You can see that in the half-size view to the right the in-focus region does not extend to the edge of the cap or onto the lower stem.

  While this photo does not appear to have been taken with a macro lens (or macro mode), it is affected by one of the key challenges in macro photography, which is to find a surface on the subject that can be parallel to the plane of the camera sensor. The larger that parallel surface, the greater the area of in-focus image.

  Also, if I am correct that a macro lens was not used, then a smaller aperture would have helped to bring more of the mushroom in focus.
  

• Exposure
  
  This image was underexposed by as much as one or one-and-a-half stops. Looking at its histogram in my editor I saw almost no exposure in the right-most 20% (highlight end) of the graph. That explains the dimness of the image. By using my levels adjustment, I was able to bring some snap to the image by bringing the lightest areas of the original closer to full brightness. You can see this when you roll the mouse over the full image above.

  In the field, you have the opportunity to make these corrections after reviewing the image on your LCD screen. More advanced cameras will show the image histogram so that you can get a more objective review of exposure. That way, you can retake the picture with corrected exposure, which is far easier than making corrections in your photo editor.
  

• Summary
  
  Kudos to Carol for selecting an interesting subject and using color to separate the subject from the background. With a few tweaks to sharpness and exposure, as suggested in this photo critique, she will give this type of photo the same visual impact as some of the other images on her photobucket site.
  

You can see Carol's original photograph, as well as other samples of her work by clicking here. On her page, you will see a wonderful close-up of a lightning bug taking off from a blade of grass - this is a good example of getting key surfaces of the subject parallel with the camera's sensor plane. She also includes a well-composed winter snow scene.

As with all photo critiques, these comments are mostly subjective. While based on years of experience, please take them as one-man's opinion and use them where you think they will help the most.

Cheers,

Ted