I took these this afternoon in a gravel pit behind my apartment. It's basically a dumping ground for old heavy equipment and materials, as well as peoples unwanted garbage.

Anyways i'd like to hear some advice and suggestions from the other resident photographers.

~MF

some of these are really good.

the first shot strikes me as either too light or too bright and i feel like some level of detail is lost. i do, however, like the stark contrast between the bright white and the almost black of the leaves.

the second shot is nice. i like the contrast between nature and man-made things. the only thing i'd suggest is removing the large branch that comes up from the right side.

the third and fourth photos are practically the same. i like the angle of the third shot better. i don't know what that black thing is, but it's at the better angle in the third shot. in the fourth shot, i can see more of the black thing, but it's kind of out of focus, and i'm focusing more on trying to figure out what it is than the actual photo.

really love the fifth shot. the detail on the rust is very good. focus is good too.

sixth shot is nice - again, really nice detail on the rust and worn paint. i might, however, play with cropping it. i'm not a big fan of the stuff at the top of the shot. i like the seventh shot much more. the angle is more interesting, and i can see more of whatever it is you're shooting. the shot isn't perfectly semetrical, too, which adds interest.

the eighth shot is fantastic. i love the angle and the very subtle change in focus towards the back of the shot.

the ninth shot is fantastic, too. it's definitely my favourite. you took a picture of a very artistic pile of junk. you framed it very well, too - the curving piece of metal frames the shot and adds interesting lines to the shot.

the tenth, eleventh, and twelvth shots are good experiments with angles and such, but they're really nothing special when compared to the ninth. the standout from this group is the twelvth, but i'm not keen on the big, empty space on the left side of the shot.

i'm assuming the thirteenth, fourteenth, and fifteenth shots are of the same thing. i don't like the thirteenth at all. it's sort of boring. there's nothing technically wrong with it, but there's just not a lot to focus on. the fourteenth shot reminds me of, well, a bunch of rusty dicks. it's a more interesting shot than the previous one, but it's still not great. the fifteenth shot is my favourite out of this bunch. there's still the interest of those rusty whatever they ares, but there's a nice contrast between rust and green.

nice, I like the close-ups

what type of camera do you use?

Thanks for taking the time to critique these, I appreciate it. When I went out today, my goal was to play around with depth of field, so I agree with you when you say some shots are a bit boring .

This one was purposely overexposed. What you are looking at is a tree with a bunch of audio tape draped on it. I wasn't able to capture what i wanted with conventional lighting, so i tried a drastic approach. I'm on the fence as to whether i like it or not. It's vaguely Sigur Ros-ish.


I agree. I was a bit dissapointed to see it when i took the pics of my camera. I think i may crop it out of there.

What you are looking at is a window handle from a car door, but the rest of the door is buried in leaves.

Thanks, this is one my favorites too.

It's a toddlers bike, i took a few wide angle shots of it too, but it wasn't as visually striking as I had hoped for, so i left it out.

Again, thanks. This one turned out far better than i had anticipated. I was really just trying to get some interesting angles.

You hit the nail on the head with these ones. This is a shredded mountain bike, which I rearranged a few times to get the most appeal out of a pile of junk.

, I was hoping somebody would pick up on that. I wanted to put one in that would get that reaction. I had another shot that was B&W, and just had one of these objects, but i figured that was too easy. Anyways the dicks are actually the teeth on the shovel of an excavator. There were dozens of these buckets just laying there rusting.

So yeah, thanks again for the input.

It's a Fuji S5000. Nothing too fancy, it's only 3 megapixels.

Nice shots Mike.

This one was part of the same set, but i jazzed it up it Photoshop a bit.

I don't think you should have jazzed it up. I think for the set, that it's one of the best shots in and of itself as a black and white.

As for the rest, only the eighth one really stands out to me. That is a truly beautiful shot. Perfect on so many levels. And it is beautiful in and of itself, set apart from the rest. It doesn't need the rest of the pictures to be great.

Which is one thing that I think takes away from a project or set like this. As a whole, they are nice pictures. But set aside, do they amount to much?

On a lot of these shots, I sort of feel...lost. Even as a junk subject, which can be awfully interesting, I just feel removed. I wish I knew what I was looking at. Because I don't know what I am looking at, I lose interest. I'm a simpleton remember. This makes me ask myself, do these subjects really matter anyhow? I dunno.

I feel the blurring also has a tendency to draw away from some of these shots. For some reason, I just feel like it removes me from the subject. It's as if you are focusing on a chunk of rust, which in and of itself is uninteresting. Personally, I like the big picture, and I think these are just not macroscopic enough to appreciate.

I will say this, I love how you have captured certain textures. This does a fantastic job of that. Composition wise and symmetry wise, I love it. Everything is well balanced, something that I have found is really hard to do with "junk." Some of the angles are just great. Your capture of color is also splendid, bearing the last three.

awesome photos well done