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Mac Leitao
Member
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# Posted: 6 Dec 09 22:45 - Edited by: Mac Leitao
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IF YOU WANT TO TAKE PART IN THE WORKSHOP PLEASE READ CAREFULLY THE RULES BELOW:
1. Join the workgroup in this link: http://www.woophy.com/forum/12_4440_0.html . The of members list will be open all the time (to get in and to get out).
2. Each member of the workgroup agrees in being a critic for other members (not necessarily all them) and being criticized by the rest of members (not necessarily all them).
3. The main idea is to make a critic of a whole work from a photographer and not only of a picture. It’s aviced to browse to the whole collection of the photographer under critics (but it’s not obligatory, specially considering that there are some very large portafolios).
4. Nevertheless, a sample around 20 pictures selected by the photographer will be posted in the appropriate forum thread in order to highlight which pictures the photographer considers as the best examples of his/her photographic work. The critics will take specially these pictures into account, but all the collection can be browsed and used for the critic’s work.
5. All opinions must be accepted by all members, like it or not. The only limits for the critics is to be sincere, to be polite and to be constructive. This is supposed to be a workshop to learn... if you want flattery just have a look at the normal comments in your pictures.
6. All aspects of photography would be under critics: quality, quantity, originality, subject, composition, light, colour, white balance, edition, etc... But this doesn't mean that you must criticize all these things. Concerning the critics, you will find a very good summary in Miguel's blog here: ".Elements of Analysis
7. This workgroup doesn't intend to be an "exclusive club for experienced photographers". All members are wellcome, with all photographic levels... (If you don't know about white balance, depth of field, ISO, etc... just tell us "I like your collection or I don't like it at all and try to explain why with your own words...)
8. The strategy "you scratch my back and I scratch yours" is not accepted in such a workgroup... Let's be serious...
Now some ideas about the way to carry this out:
1st. Join the group in the forum linked before.
2nd. You will be in a queue and you will have to wait to your turn to post your own gallery in a new forum topic. There will be 4 members showing their collections at the same time for one week.
3rd. When it's your turn post a forum topic with the title: "CRITICS WORKSHOP: Member’s nickname gallery". In this topic you will cut and paste these rules and those written above and post around 20 pictures selected from your own collection. It would be nice also if you could write few words about your photographic work: what are you interested in, what do you want to transmit with your pictures, for how long you are a photographer... and whatever you think it’s important to consider for a critic.
About me:
Photography is a hobby since my 15's when my father give me a camera. In school I learned how to make black and white photos in a studio and lab. In holidays, always a minimum of 30/40 photos per week...
Sometimes I don´t have patience to wait for the moment, sometimes I prepare a lot and the moment flies... sometimes I catch it... sometimes in a good angle.
I'm starting a learning course and with the honest comments, talking with friends and with people from a local association I hope to increase my skills.
I work in quality management and (maybe a professional disease...) I like to have more quality in my photos. I have always my camera with me but my job in these last months give me a lot of work so the time to concentrate in woophy and give comments to all the galleries is to little, so please excuse me for the delay in my comments but I promise to give my opinion to all members.
My gallery:
I divided my photos in two groups DETAILS and VIEWS. In the first one we can see two photos in a PREPARED SCENARIO. I think this collection represents all the portfolio I show here in woophy. Photos with more comments and photos with less comments.
They are here submited to your critic comments. Thank you in advance.
PREPARED SCENARIO
DETAILS
VIEWS
Mac Leitao
Manuel Leitão
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Cloudbuster
Member
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# Posted: 7 Dec 09 11:00
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Mac Leitao, hi. I do not think I've noticed your photos before. A shame, since there are a lot of nice photos! 
You have an eye for good motifs and except for  because of its tilting, the're all wonderfully composed and the color looks good.
In small size they all look very good tecnically, but viewing full size reveals in some cases noise and burned out white. There is no ISO shown in the EXIF so, I do not know if it is too high. Turning down the EV slightly may help if the ISO is okay.
Cheers
Vidar
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Jan Hemels
Moderator
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# Posted: 7 Dec 09 23:09 - Edited by: Jan Hemels
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Hi Manuel,
What a coincidence. I have been working in quality management in IT development the last 12 years of my active life!
I have taken all the time to go through your portfolio and appreciate the great variety in subjects.
My comments on the pictures you selected read as follows:
a very creative concept; the grainy effect works lovely
Absolutely my favourite , excellent sharpness and perfectly captured
Nice scene, the strong sun/shadow contrast causes some overexposed spots that can be corrected
a very attractive interior scene, the strong incoming light, the noise and the cropping of the right side could be done better
well done ( but not my piece of cake)
a great image! However personally I would suggest a crop of the left part that is not adding anything and is a little too grainy too.
Another wonderful scene of daily life, a pity the long exposure time caused some motion and there is some noise too (legs f.e.)
A splendid muscial scene very well captured under difficult circumstances
A charming scene well composed
Nice subject, as Vidor said the noise devil is present
the scene is well captured but not so interesting
A fantastic morning view with a great diagonal , I like it!
I do not know if it is only the editing but it is not a successful result.
An imposing Rock coast but the composition could be improved by cropping the empty foreground
a very attractive shot, I would suggest a crop to portrait format focusing on the left
an almost impossible backlight shot! The noise in the sky is forgivable.
An impressive seascape, it is a little tightly cropped and it is a pity the boat is partly hiding....
A sublime Mata shot in low sunlight! A little correction of the tilting makes it perfect!
An interesting city view, the elevator is a little too close to the edge in my opnion
a very nice scene
Summarising Manuel you have a very attractive portfolio but please pay attention to the composition and the postprocessing. Do not exaggerate the sharpening and light, it does create unnecessary noise.
I have been honest and critical and hope you can appreciate my suggestions.
I cannot wait to meet you in Holland next year!
Jan
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Mac Leitao
Member
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# Posted: 9 Dec 09 20:25
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Thanks for comments
I had look with other eyes for the pictures and I understand what you mean.
Always learning...
Best regards
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TBM
Member
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# Posted: 10 Dec 09 22:38
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Hi Manuel,
What I like most in your pictures is the excellent light control. Pictures like
(but the same can be said for most of your photos) have a particulat brightness that captures the eye and gives the image a strong mood. This is the most important feature in a photo, and is not very easy to find among amateurs like us.
I think that you should be a bit more concerned about what happens before and after taking the picture.
As regards planning the shooting, you should try to get rid of potential disturbing elements. Their presence or they absence makes the difference between a "nice" picture and an excellent one. For instance, your snake dancer would be much better without the blurred crowd in the backgraud. Generally speaking, your compositions are good, but often too "crowded": the lighthouse scene is great, but one does not know wheter to look at the man, ot the lady in red, at the boat, at the lampposts, at the boat.... From this point of view, I must say that you have done a great work with the 1st two pictures in your selection, where only the main subject is in sight. Please remember that "less is better"!
As regards editing, well, they have already said: tilts can be corrected, noise can be reduced a bit, some pics are overshapened.. but you can easily fix all this.
I am sure that paying more attention to these two elements you will make a big step further in your experience as a photographer. Please let us see!
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la rafale
Member
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# Posted: 11 Dec 09 10:26
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Hello,Manuel,
looking at your pics, I'm quite each time attracted by them but not often comment them ; and there is a reason : i only comment after looking at the large version ...and it does not really work for your shots ; too much noise and too exagerate brightness due to an oversharpening,imo.
for example, this scene (congrats for the super caption!) that had to be very serene and that hurts my eyes 
meanwhile, I like a lot your compos, various, generally well framed and taken from a good angle ;
for me, you have two strong asset : you make as good landscapes or cityscapes than portraits or sceneries and you have a good eye for details , so you just have to improve some technical details as previously said by others and .... you'll get perfect pics
my favourite from favourites of your work will stay your that really deserves congrats ( i just obey to the rules but would like to post it in large!!)
regards,
brigitte
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zoidberg
Moderator
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# Posted: 11 Dec 09 12:24
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Olá Manuel,
One of the things I like in your pictures is your good eye to find a beautiful compo. Specially in your VIEWS pictures. I really like this one , where light, compo and sharpness are perfect imo. I also like very much this one , but after reading Brigitte's comment I've noticed that she's right saying that there's noise on the sky. I'm sure if you try to edit with Photoshop some pictures (it's not necessary a great knowledge of this software) you can improve a lot a pictures with a few and easy steps as noise reduction, sharp mask... Other pictures with same noise problem (a fantasitc action picture but noisy and not very sharp) or (great compo, but the darkest zones of the roof are very noisy again).
Other improvable pictures are a beautiful stage scene (you know I like them  ) but with poor sharpness, obviously due to lack of light, same problem as in where the girl's hands are not sharp although in this case this detail gives movement to the image.
On the other way, there are some pictures that seems too much edited (if my eyes don't confuse me) as and .
Some other pictures, even if they are nice, they have some disturbing elements... For example in this case the view is wonderful, but I think the main subject is not clear. In this one , apart of the tilt, I think there's some noise on the sky and there are too much things to see.
There are some other pictures in your selection that I really don't like. For example  where the scene it's not special for my eyes, and also there's noise and it's not sharp, that I think it could be better with a different pov catching more sea for example.
My favorites in your selection are (simply perfect!) (excellent catched, perfect sharpness and wonderful expression of the dog, this picture is "alive") and where you had a very good idea for the challenge.
Other pictures I like very much and you didn't selected for this threat are  ,  and  (yes, I like sunsets!)
Um abraço!
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Dieuwertje
Member
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# Posted: 11 Dec 09 17:33 - Edited by: Dieuwertje
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Hi Mac, I can see you are for a long time a photograph, your photo are all of good quality and original too.
The detail pictures are very good, the compo the light and so on.
but this one is a topper as is said by others too.
But I even like the landscapes very much, go on this way.
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geert geenen
Member
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# Posted: 11 Dec 09 21:19
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hello manuel,
there are some beautiful photo's in your selection. with good colours and light, a nice subject and well composed and presented. for instance:
and this one is very clever and funny:
humour in your numbers 2 and 3 too. i like that.
other photo's i like are the numbers 6, 8, 13, 16 and 19.
there are two photo's, 17 and 18, where there is in my eyes too little space/sky in the upper part. too narrowly taken or cropped. and number 4 has a tiny but irritating tilt.
the numbers 5, 11, 14 and 15 are rather uninteresting for me. a bit dull. as are more photo's from your collection, not presented in this topic. especially some animal-, flower- and detail-photo's. this might be a question of taste. anyhow: i'd like to see some more surprising and unexpected things. and as you have an eye for details and humour, i think we can expect more of this kind of photo's.
i like two of your 'newsphoto's' very much:
 
it would be a pleasure to see more of this stuff from yours.
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chevylady
Member
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# Posted: 17 Jan 10 18:39
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I like youre view shots they make me wanna be there . Details is not wat i call all those pictures and some are good compo but some i agree with others crop a bit more
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chevylady
Member
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# Posted: 11 Feb 10 11:08
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Hi Mac,
well now when i still have chance to do it slow
1. I love this one great art work
2. I always wanted to make such shot but never made good one Great shot perfect
3. nice details from old building i would love to do these in HDR
4. great picture would love to go there
5. Little more crop i would do but think thats personal
6. Would have taken this in portrait style so you could see whole dress and no background
7.Nice double but not intresting subject
8. crop the topside a little so we can see him better (my style ) you will see i think later
9. Great picture nice evening shot
10. nice little tower nice sky but not telling me anything
11. Great picture Is it in a cave or just a wall?
12. I love this one for me perfect
13. Well maybe borring but i am cary about sea ocean and specialy sailing boats perfect
14. nice seneree would be nice if something catch youre eye in there make it special
15. Nice picture not specialy attractive to me
16. This one attracts me a lot more then the one before great
17. O yes wonderfull the water the colors an the action
18. I wanna go t this kind of places but think i would only make pictures and pictures.
19 I think wonderfull building but to far to see what you wanted us to see i think
20. Nice using the grass in the front to create dept
well done ty for sharing
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Dieneke Boonstra
Member
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# Posted: 21 Feb 10 16:59
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Hi Mac,
I'll find your portofolio attractive, various and good!
Photo 1 and 2 are original and very well taken.
No.3 I like the details and the dove in the middle.
No.4 I think the composition is great but like all the others said it's a bit noisy.Cause you know already that's a problem with more of your pictures, I won't mention it again.
No.5 I like very much, you captured the sadness really well!
No.6 Could be better cropped, but it's a happy scene
No.7 I like the mirror look, but otherwise not a very interesting scene.
N0.8 Gives a good impression of the atmosphere.
No.9 Superbe shot
No.10 and 11 Doesn't do anything for me.
No.12 and 13 Are really beautiful! The composition are great and the colours superbe!
N0.14 and 15 The compositions are not that special, I think.
N0.16 Great light on the water and good silhouettes!
N0.17 Good impression of a seaview!
No.18 Impressive building and good composition!
No.19 Good cityview!
No.20 Lovely image of a lovely place.
I had fun looking your portofolio and wish you lots of joy making more great pictures!
Best Regards Dieneke
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