Macro / Close Up - hand in 11th April. Digital only

Judge: Dave Simpson
Digital only - Your image can be re-used for the up and coming 'Hay On Wye' international competition.

This topic is in preparation for our international competition with Hay On Wye / Wales. Results from this topic will be available Thursday 9th May. Then you have time to edit the image and then you can submit it for selection for our MCC club set of 20 images.

Topic is Macro or Close Up.

Get up close and personal with an 'anything' and make the photo question teh viewer as to what it is, or WOW them with your unique prespective.

MCC Club will have workshop / sessions to ensure you know your camera and what you can achieve. Also get some practice.

Introductory Remarks
Thanks for inviting me to review your wonderful images.

I’m Dave Simpson, a photographer from Auckland. My work primarily involves capturing music events for Getty Images, teaching street photography, and being commissioned for various corporate events. I’m a member of the North Shore Photographic Society.

I’ve really enjoyed looking at your images, all of which were to a very high standard.

Please consider my comments and grading as mere opinions: You alone are privy to the thought processes and effort that went into creating your image, and we all interpret images through our own experiences. Therefore, I apologize in advance if I overlook something evident in your image or criticize something you intentionally included.

I hope my comments will be of help, but feel free to disregard them if they’re not. Photography is an art form without definitive right or wrong answers. Ultimately, it’s your image, and your satisfaction with it is what truly matters.

General Comments

The set subject is ‘Macro / Close up’ with photographers encouraged to ‘get up close and personal with an 'anything' and make the photo question the viewer as to what is it?? or WOW them with your unique perspective’. There were definitely a few ‘wows’ as I went through and I’ve enjoyed seeing how you’ve interpreted the brief.

Please note that I’ve reviewed all images in the context of the set subject / open categories, including images of birds, insects and plants. My comments on some images would be different if they had been entered in to a specific ‘nature’ category as opportunities for post-production in this genre are limited. Instead I’ve taken a more open approach with my suggestions. As always, feel free to ignore anything you think is not relevant.

One final point – I noticed a few images were quite small, and could have benefited from being presented in higher resolution (more pixels) to really show off the quality of the image. I’d encourage those photographers to check their export settings with other club members to make sure they are maximising their potential!

Image Of The Month

I found it very hard to make a decision for image of the month as there were so many deserving candidates. In the end I went for ..... you'll have to wait till our club evening

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Open

Set Subject

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see above for the Introductory Remarks comments from Dave Simpson - the judge.

Please note there is/was not enough space allowed for all critique. So I've sent a PDF of the below - that includes the A grade critique. .

Title	Rating	Critique
C Grade - SET Subject
A friendly fantail (Piwakawaka)	Honours	I love this plump little bird looking at the camera. You’ve presented nice muted tones with the brown of the bird against the greens in the background. While well-exposed, perhaps consider allowing more space on the right to give the bird more space to breath. The catch light in the eye are an excellent touch.
Bellbird	Merit	A lovely composition of the bellbird sitting on the purple flowers. The flowers provide a firm base for the image. However, the image feels a little soft so that's an area to work on. The shallow depth of field isolates the bird well from the background.
Black Swan	Merit	I enjoyed this simple image of the black swan’s head, with the red beak against the blue background. I wonder if showing more of the swan’s neck and leaving a little more space around it would create a stronger composition? Good exposure with the black feathers showing detail along the neck without blowing out the highlights on the back.
Blueberries	Honours	A well handled close up shot of some blueberries which really makes us study their details. Nice use of close up and a shallow depth of field. There are a couple of things that could be cleaned up in the image (eg the vertical mark on the brown background, centre top) but for C grade this is excellent.
Bumblebee in flight	Merit	A nice capture of a bee gathering pollen, its legs laden as it flies to its next collection point. I find the purple flowers compete with the bee for my attention so you could try cropping in on the left a little and, if possible, leave a bit more space behind the bee. A nice colour pallet across the image combining the oranges and purples.
Dandelion	Honours	A delicate capture of a dandelion showing the details of the seeds. I enjoyed the interesting angle of the stalk which draws us to the head of the flowers. Watch for distractions in the background such as bright area along the bottom of the frame. This could possibly be avoided by moving your viewpoint, or the subject, or even putting an artificial background/plain backdrop behind the dandelion. An excellent handled image though. Well done.
Earina autumnalis	Merit	A simple image of the flowers against a clean grey background. I wonder if the image would be stronger if the lighting were a little more dynamic (eg soft lighting from the side). Well presented and I like the arrangement of the flowers on the stalk which creates a circle in the centre of the frame.
Humidicutis sp.	Honours	A beautiful picture of a beautiful fungi. The shallow depth of field captures just enough details of the fungi while separating it from the background. The lighting is perfect to show texture and depth, and the smoothness of the fungi contrast nicely to the blades of the grass. Great stuff.
Inner Space	Honours	A dramatic image of what I presume is the inside of flowers. The lighting, colours and angles create an otherworldly scene as hinted by the title. I love the movement in this image, with the yellow areas (the centre of interest) off centre and every thing exploding out of it. There is a spot of burnt out of detail in the middle of the frame which is a shame, but the image is so strong I can overlook this.
Oyster Fungi	Merit	A lovely fungi picture. The soft overhead lighting and the low viewpoint shows the fascinating structure underneath the fungi while allowing us to see the swirls of the top on the top. I wonder if a slight reduction in saturation and the additional of a vignette would help focus the eye more on the central subject. A nice natural image.
Ramalina celastri, Lichen	Merit	A different look at a familiar subject is always to be commended. I like this sideway perspective of the lichen tendrils which to me look like waves crashing on the beach. The long thin aspect ratio and the clean background works well, but you could maybe crop in a bit from the right to avoid the dark bit on the far right and similarly on the bottom left. Nice use of shape and colour
Seagull at Pollard Park	Merit	A fun closeup headshot of a seagull, looking directly at the camera. I like the clean background and the positioning of the eye and beak in the frame. Watch for halos when editing around the beak. Great catchlight and details in the feathers.
Southern Green Sheild Bug, Nezara viridula, Nymph	Merit	Nice spotting of the bug. The shallow depth of field and strong shadows provides some interesting shapes. I wonder if a stronger image would be achieved by trying some lower angles or side view to give a more unique perspective. I like the clean background and foreground caused by the shallow depth of field.
The Nose Knows	Honours	A great fun image of the sniffliest part of a dog. The image is perfectly composed with the nose slightly above centre and the little mouth below. The relatively smoothness of the nose balances the details and movement in the fur. This image made me smile. I hope your camera survived the loving lick that inevitably followed this photo.
Viola	Acceptance	An interesting subject and I love the purples and yellows and the backlit leaves. However, watch out for exposure as I found the very bright stalk at the bottom the image a bit distracting, and there are blown out highlights in the white in the middle. These things can be improved with practice so keep at it!
Walnut unopened	Merit	An interesting detailed shot of a walnut. Nice lighting and colouring. I found the background a little distracting and you could try tidying this up to avoid the lighter area top right (and the line halfway across the right). By the way, if the background top right looks fully black on your home computer it might be your screen is set too dark – I like to preview my images on a number of different screens (eg my computer and my phone) to see what they look like and adjust if needed.
Wasp	Merit	A good shot of a wasp holding on to a leaf with a nice cohesive colour pallet of the yellows and greens. I wonder if the image could be cropped in a bit more (or cropped vertically) as the main interest is in the central slither of the picture. Good spotting and I like the detail in the fur on the wasp’s back.
Xanthocnemis zealandica	Honours	An incredible macro shot of a damselfly. There is so much detail in this shot, and I love the composition of the bold shape of the head against the clean green background. Exceptionally well handled.
Zealaranea trinotata	Honours	An amazing macro shot of a spider spinning its web. It seems to be floating on the strands. My eye is drawn to the leg on the left side which is tack sharp, pulling out the strand. Nice work.
C Grade - Open Topic
Clover-bask	Acceptance	Nice spotting of the bee on the clover. I wonder if it would be a stronger image if the flower were slightly to the left of centre so the bee had room to move in to. The image could also benefit from being a bit sharper – this is something you can improve with practice. Love the colours!
Dusky Dolphins, Lagenorhychus obscurus	Acceptance	I’m sure seeing these dolphins was a great experience. Capturing fast moving animals is always tricky and you’ve done well to capture one ‘in flight’. It can be tricky to create good composition when you’re photoing from so far away, but I wonder if you crop in around the dolphins on the right it might be a stronger image.
Gangster of Aphids .	Merit	A really interesting scene with all these aphids. It took me a while to work out what I was looking at. I find the out of focus diagonal branches in the foreground cut across the image and are a bit of a distraction from the details of the aphids. You could have perhaps held those out of the way to get a cleaner shot. Nice spotting of this curious scene.
'I see you'	Merit	Good composition with the flower offset and the fly near the centre. I think it would have been a stronger image if the fly was in sharper focus. You’ve handled the exposure well in what looks like quite bright daylight.
Little Seeds .	Honours	A lovely still life of the ball of seeds. I enjoyed the details in the seeds which look to me like little insects. The soft tones of the background works nicely.
Mr Good Looking .	Honours	A scary image of an insect that appears to be emerging from the background. The shallow depth of field adds to this effect. I wonder if the image would be a bit stronger if it was desaturated slightly (especially the purples) but the point of interest is of course his face and I like the grungy effect.
Tonalcraze	Merit	An interesting still life of a plant in a vase. I enjoyed the shallow depth of field, but found the shadow of the vase on the ground a little heavy and therefore distracting. Nice colour palette and an interested subject.

B Grade - SET Subject
Dandelion Pappus Glorious	Honours	An intriguing image of a dandelion. I don’t really understand what I’m looking at or how the image was created, but I’m enjoying it all the same. The yellow outer circle creates a window to look through at the dandelion seed with the water drop standing out against the black background in the centre. And the whole image then seems to be repeated in the water droplet. This image broke my brain, but in a good way. Excellent!
Flax Seed Afterlife	Merit	A nice portrait of decay. Lovely soft lighting emoting calmness. For me the image needs a bit more of a story or interest, such as a beetle walking down the flax seed. I like the horizontal structure across the top of the image and the small bits of spider webs but be careful they don’t compete for brightness with the main subject.
Its been raining	Merit	Good spotting of an interesting pattern with the repetition of the water drops and reflections. I found the empty triangle at the top left a bit distracting – you could try cropping this out slightly. I enjoyed the broader patterns of bright and dark reflected light on the red surface.
Snack Time	Merit	A nicely timed picture of the wax eye grabbing some lunch. I found the bold structure of the feeder distracts from the little bird and you could try cropping the top third off the image to better keep attention, and maybe brighten up the bird very slightly. Love the detail of the orange piece in the bird’s mouth.
Sunflower	Acceptance	A nice picture of a sunflower showing the various parts that make up the flower head. For the set subject I would have liked to have seen you get even closer into the subject and explore the details. The image shows good exposure and control of highlight.
Tangled Web	Merit	Nature can be quite messy at times and you’ve captured this well. There’s lots of detail in the centre of the image but I found the background very dark and I wonder if it would have been a stronger image with a bit more background for context. Well done for tackling a subject most people would have ignored!
The tuning end	Acceptance	A still life of a guitar head, taken looking down in flat lighting. For this set subject I’d encourage you to get in closer and explore the instrument in more detail. For example, you could get really close to the tuning pegs, the strings going over the bridge and fretboard etc. Also try experimenting with more directional lighting. The image is well exposed and I like the diagonal angle of the neck.
B Grade - Open Topic
Golden hour at the coast	Merit	A nice image of the sun dipping behind clouds in the evening, with the hills silhouetted in the dark foreground. I wonder if this would be a stronger image if you cropped so the sun is closer to the lower third of the image leaving more sky and the hills in the foreground only covering the bottom third of the image rather than coming half way. A lovely scene seen.
Our wake between the islands	Acceptance	An impressionist style picture showing the movement of water and sunlight. I found it difficult to find a place to rest my eyes in the image as it is all a similar texture and I wonder if the image would be more effective if there was a stronger point of interest in the image. Keep looking for these natural patterns and explore different compositions when you see them.
Spanish dancers	Acceptance	I like the idea of the image and there’s some great details in the boots on the bottom right of the image. However, I feel the post production treatment is a little harsh for my liking and has lost too much detail in the highlights of the picture. With strong post production techniques like this it can sometimes be more effective to blend them in with the original photo so they are less subtle. But well done for trying something different. Keep experimenting!

A Grade - SET Subject
A Close Encounter	Merit
Autumnal Flight Path	Merit
Blue Damsel	Honours
Coral Fungi	Merit
Daisy Drama	Honours
Gardeners Woe	Honours
Guttation covered fungi	Honours
Honey Bee	Honours
Hotlips puffball	Merit
Inside a flower	Merit
Marigold	Honours
Pinot Noir	Merit
Potential	Honours
Red Waxgill Family	Merit
Silver Rosette, Alpine Celmesia	Acceptance
Smithie at Work	Honours
Stinkhorn Fungus	Merit
Weed or Wonder	Honours
Yellow waxgill	Merit
A Grade - Open Topic
Arnarstapi Church	Honours