You're right - it's a bit unfocused as it is. I suppose I also wanted it to be a shot of the ski centre itself. Maybe it can't be both things the way it is.

Looks almost tame. Our deer are jittery critters.

Another possibility might be to have the change in the foreground (from sharp to blurred) less abrupt and more gradual. Or maybe soften the foreground with a bit of de-noise.....

You're welcome. If your deer are as shy as they are over here, shots that close must be quite rare and (usually) hard to get (getting it from the comfort of your own home sounds like an unusual amount of luck :-) ).

Nicely blurred background (no small achievement for a small sensor camera). 172 mm indicates a fair amount of zoom for an HS50, which I think explains the fairly shallow DOF despite what must have been a fair distance to the subject. The shallow DOF was good for blurring the background but it's left the subject a bit soft in parts. If it was mine I'd sharpen the deer and soften the background with a bit of de-noise (it's plenty soft enough but it's a bit on the grainy side). And I'd be tempted to turn the reflections in the eyes into more conventional catchlights.

You're right about the horizontals and verticals. Minniev would love this one . The camera's tilted up quite a bit and I forgot to correct for convergence. I think I went by the corner on the right of the building but the chairlift still didn't square up very well. I forgot my usual rule of using a vertical close to the frame's centre-line and reducing but not removing the convergence. Hopefully it doesn't distract from the feeling of emptiness and not being used that the mist gives it.

Mist is the Scottish equivalent of tumbleweed. This is just a part of the Glenshee Ski Centre - which gets quite busy in winter.

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. Now if I can just get my sat-nav to show me where Charles Dickens Lane is....

Could you please tell me where you got the sky hook. I've been looking for one since forever . Somebody once told me they're sold in the same sort of shop that sells hen's teeth and rocking horse manure. Maybe I'm just not looking hard enough........

It's an interesting combination. You have lots of blur in the trees but the stuff on the ground is relatively sharp. Not sure how you managed that .

You're right - "scathing" is an emotionally charged word that has negative connotations which may apply only in a small number of cases. Most such criticisms aren't given with that intent. I should have found a better way to accentuate the possibility of getting such a criticism from somebody who over-stresses the importance of technical issues, sometimes to the exclusion of what really matters. But I do feel that such people have the potential to become a very negative and misleading influence.

#6

#3

Technical shortcomings have the potential to spoil a shot, or in less extreme cases they can diminish the image's impact or story-telling ability. However, beyond that we should always be querying the significance of the technical aspects of a shot.

This is an issue that the art community is already acutely aware of. There are those who can paint or draw with an amazing level of realism, but most in the art community would argue vehemently that realism is not what painting, drawing or art in general are all about. I believe that the same thing applies to photography. If a photo's technical shortcomings aren't sufficient to spoil the shot or to distract significantly from the shooter's intentions for the shot (as far as impact, story-telling etc are concerned), those technical shortcomings deserve only a passing comment at most, and that comment should come only after the shooter's intentions for the shot have been discerned and commented on first.

Wading in with a scathing criticism of a shot's minor technical imperfections before the photographers intentions have been discerned and commented on is to my mind missing the point and showing a distorted set of priorities. They say the best camera is the one that you have with you - well, there have been many times when I took shots with compacts whose technical performance was way less than perfect but I was glad that I had something with me to take those shots while my DSLR sat at home too big to carry around with me at all times.

As far as these issues are concerned, I think we need to differentiate between a professional photographer and someone who does it purely as a hobby. A professional needs to be far more concerned about the technical aspects than a hobbyist needs to be. However, having said that, there's no shortage of professionally-produced photos that are less than perfect but still have huge amounts of impact and story-telling capability. But a professional has to be ever mindful of the customer's desires and expectations.

In #1 the log and the far side of the lake form parallel lines. That feature is lost in #2.

In both I'd say the foreground shore is too shadowed and needs lightening.