hi guys welcome or welcome back thanks so much for joining me today
we're going to go through your march challenge entries and pick a winner
sorry just like normal we're going to sit and go through these entries but a lot has happened
since we last spoke so the last video the the was a challenge review went out at the start of
march right and then news happened that we had to cancel our in-person april workshop which
is devastating so i spoke to all of the students booked onto that workshop and most of them have
transferred over to the online version which is basically an online course but just has everything
in and a bit more more info on that really soon so uh yeah hit the subscribe button and the bell
icon if you want to keep up to date those of you who are part of our email list will be aware of
the fact that we are opening for pre-orders very very very soon along with some nice little bonuses
for people we're going to go through these 97 entries which have come in for the march challenge
best photo of the year i'm really excited to look at these they look freaking amazing and it's been
amazing as well to look through and read all the descriptions of these which i have done
it did take me a long time to like crop them all
that took a while so um yeah should we just get started uh if you wanna just skip towards
april's challenge which will be at the end of this video then that's fine but it might be good
if you sit and watch this because then you might do better at april's challenge okay it's probably
worthwhile me noting here at this point in time that it's unlikely that i'm going to be able to go
through every single person's image and critique it but you can submit a critique and tweak on
the facebook group and on the website again just just all of the links are
happening aren't they so what we'll do is we'll switch over into lightroom classic and start
okay cokey so we're in lightroom we've got no people's names nothing that is an identifier
and we're going to just go through and do a quick appraisal i'm going to try
and keep this as short as physically possible we're looking for clipped highlights shadows
normal things sharpness in the right place but it's instagram so we do the best we can colour
white balance composition composition is like a major one but then for me composition is life so
oh also like i've totally that reminded me so
sorry that reminded me i'm a fellow now so i'm like a fellow of the master photographers
association i submitted my fellowship panel in march and i passed with a really good score so
that was amazing so i'm now fmpa after my name which is really cool and one of
the comments which is why it reminded me was that the composition of all of the images was
so anyway let's jump back in here so we've got some beautiful images to work through again
instagram on a 5k screen never going to be good so we'll just do a 200 view on that clipped highlight
shadows this is fine like i like this shot i do like it i think it's really cute i would just say
watch that highlight so you've got one like super bright highlight over here
just watch that and this one here so it looks like your rim light or the light that would have been
the rim on the side here um is actually brighter than this light over this side so i would just
watch that next one ignore the black strips it's because we've got side panels on here oh my god
this is gorgeous i just think this is amazing and you also have your socc
straight out of camera on this one um i really like it beautiful control beautiful toning love
the blue the blue works really nicely it is just gorgeous okay so we've got this one here this is
super cute i really like the background i love the the backlight coming through i like that you've
retained the greens it's all really nice i would just say compositionally probably would have been
stronger if the you had less space to the left hand side like this that would have given you
a better composition because your eye reads the image uh slightly differently so that would be my
only thing for that one this is lovely really really nice i like it i think that maybe you
could have had a little bit more saturation but i'm not here to pick apart styles so
also like i don't use a lot of saturation i like it i think you could have lost a fair chunk of the
top just in terms of you've got this warm bokeh and then you've got cool bokeh if you just lopped
that off that would have given you a much more powerful and impactful shot that is much better
balanced composition is something we go through in the online workshop course thing that will
be coming soon composition life and this is like i love this shot this is awesome the vibe coming out
of this is awesome i think the focus looks like it was good it's hard to tell on an image this size
um of course you've got some super bright highlights coming in i know they're not clipped
but they look like they were clipped so just watch that i just think it's a beautiful image
in terms of the emotion that it portrays this one is interesting because there's like a blue
tint coming over the composition is pretty much bang on perfect but the
the deer is just a bit blue that that would probably be maybe a bit more accurate um in
my opinion based on the deer that live outside of the house i think this is a really creative shot
well done on this one for not chopping off the toes or the tail in terms of
this top down crop this is freaking terrifying but also freaking amazing
holy hell i don't want to look at it but like but i want to look at it it's like oh but wow you know
i would i would have liked this t tag to be clear if we're going to keep it in if not
it would have been good to have out but i love your foreground i think your foregrounds great
i think your background is beautiful your horizon doesn't chop the head of the dog
i like the the fact that you've got some of these daffodils in focus so that we've got
a little bit of context over what these flowers actually are because it could have been tulips
or daffodils or whatever i mean probably that would be really obvious if you know flowers but
i try and keep my ivy plant alive that's about as good as i get
this is lovely beautifully composed i think it's really nice this is really grabbing my eye
but that's again me being quite picky i think colour is good because
why weimaraners are so hard this is cute af i really like this shot i think it's great uh you've
done really well with your isolation there the only thing i would say on this one is
firstly if you did have an extra light a rim light behind would have been great but obviously
not everybody has that so that's fine and then the second you just watch this highlight here and then
the third thing i know instagram makes you crop 10x8 but just a little bit more space above and
below would have made all of the difference to the impact in this shot i like this just watch
your highlights this highlight on the ridge of the nose is super hot so choose to keep eyes on
that i think your composition is nice i like the interaction everything's good just this highlight
is is super super hot there also just noticed a mask edge just watch your mask on the leaves
this is a really nice i love the colors and the angle of the shot that you've chosen to take
but we're chopping an ear off when you have flowers again because we've got no flowers
here when you have flowers again go re-shoot leave a little bit of space above um and maybe a little
bit more space to this side that's all i'd say this is an awesome shot i really like it i'd
watch the color of your whites because obviously i know you're retaining the white the blue for
the snow but just watch your color of the actual whites because they also look a little bit blue
so just watch your whites there i think it's slightly too blue always providing solid images
for challenges love it so this is an example of when you've got the most amazing subject
in amazing layers and amazing i've seen this straight out of camera because it was on instagram
and i just really really would have liked a little bit below because at the moment your frame stops
and it would just be nice to have that frame carry on great shot great control of the focus
brilliant almost a matching background to mine on the action photography studio video
yeah awesome expression great shot all round ten out of ten okay so well blown
highlights and bridge of the nose again that's something you just want to watch
and then composition on this one probably could have been done a little bit differently
but great work with the pose great work with the focus on the eyes i think you did really well on
those points just watch your highlights in your composition beautifully composed beautiful shot
um just yeah good job great it's really nice watch that band highlight in the background but other
than that that is really very very nice beautiful reflection shot beautiful reflection shot this
is a really nice shot beautifully processed great masking just watch that green cast coming back up
on the underside of the dog's chin lovely dark golden fox red depending on your affiliation
labrador here if you look at this shot the eye is like straight in the center line okay i think i
mean it's pretty much straight in the center line so just to see if you can if your dog's looking
to the left leave space to the left therefore the dog is positioned to the right or you add
space to the left always better to shoot right in camera but it's always there as an option after
this is kind of like an emotional one i don't know why i got hit in the feels with this one i think
a different composition would have worked nicely remember your subject is looking to the left
you've got loads of space to the right do you need it probably not this is again another kind of
emotion shot love this i love the fact that you've kept your water edge off of the edge of the shot
just watch the highlights again it looks like we've probably had some clipped highlights at some
point this is a beautiful shot lovely composition you probably could have lost a tiny little slither
off of the top there again another creepy one that i don't want to look at but i can't help it
beautiful really nice i like this shot i think it's great compositional side of things if your
shadow had been held in the shot that would have maybe been a little bit less
kind of drawing in terms of that direction but brilliant really terrifying this is funny i
like this shot i really like it really nice image probably could have pushed it a little bit more on
the exposure there just to get a third of a stop this one i just want to pick up on for a second um
the highlights are bright but that's not the point the point is the composition so the dog's kind of
sat on the center the eyes are like almost on the center line if you just shifted that so that the
eyes were about here in the image and taking off a little bit of space at this side we would probably
end up with a more balanced shot like so this is a great shot just watch your negative vignette
it's just taking off a little bit too much at the bottom there i think it's a really
nice studio shop potentially a little bit dark like a little bit more just just just just
a quarter of a stop that is awesome great control of everything involved
interesting processing choice but really good this is beautiful nice straight forward
well done portrait there is so much going on in this image and i don't want to get into the
whole political stuff because as i've said so many times before we keep it about the photography here
i don't want to get into anything else but look at this photo in terms of the photography involved
what is happening in the image so we obviously can see very clearly what's happening at this side
but he we've got somebody who's just graduated okay so he's just graduated this person has
in terms of the photography side of things we can tell we're on a pretty important bridge um i would
i would have just watched your composition turns your edges there because i just think that would
have helped um to portray this story but as far as documentary photography goes that tells a story
very clearly again landscape's not my forte but as far as i can tell with what i do know this is good
i would question your horizon line i think that we're tilting down to this side based on our c
here maybe half a degree oh my goodness we're at the end
wow okay right i need to do my first pass hopefully that was helpful for some people i'll
meet you back at the end with whatever i end up with oh can i just give everybody it so much easier
right come on okay we're gonna do normal things we're gonna do gold pen silver pen bronze pen
and um no oh my goodness you guys brought it like legit oh is so hard this is so hard
what the heck there isn't one like stand out they're all great for so many different reasons
which one of these has the least that i can pick at and it's actually gonna have to be the snail
oh no
i think your signature says monika monika you've got a keeper out oh no moniker
0.46 of a degree all of them all of them i can't do all of them but i can't do all of them
i'm gonna go for silver it's gonna have to be whatever kind of bug this is i
don't know what bug that is but it's a bug and therefore we have our gold silver and bronze
and that was by far the hardest one i've ever had to do if you want your pins
drop me an email put a link to that somewhere down below let's look
let's just move on from this because we're like an hour and 20 minutes deep into a recording
april's challenge actually has come about because of the workshops so obviously it's
not workshop now it's the course now but when i was when we were filming the shoots for those
for one shoot like nearly all of the images were in portrait as in not landscape
portrait and um it got me thinking so the the challenge for april is portrait as in vertical
so like like these two are vertical this is landscape so portrait i want you to try really
hard to do composition now instagram entries will be the same as normal but i'll link to the full
blog post below just remember that instagram you cannot go narrower than a 10 by 8 a 4 5 crop
so you might need to do what snail picture's done here and add a little bit of something
around the edge so that we can see all of it or go ahead and make sure that you're working towards an
by ten four five crop i'm not going to sit here for any longer than that this is just blowing
my brain so thanks so much for blowing my brain and i'll see you all again really really soon