James Moore <jtm### [at] bellsouthnet> wrote in message
news:web.3eaabcdfc9565bf905d3b00@news.povray.org...
> Thanks for the comments, I still have much to learn and I really
appreciate
> all the feedback I can get.  I haven't added much to the discussions as
I'm
> a pretty lousy communicator, but I've learned alot from reading them.

Learning is communication, and lousy communication is better than none...
Thanks for joining in!

> I wanted to do something that was
> becoming "old" in our lifetimes so that hopefully the viewer would find a
> connection with the image, but I think I failed miserably.

Not at all!  I have a large box full of cassettes, some that the machine has
eaten, but all no longer used, so I instantly identified with your topic.

 I really
> enjoyed modelling the cassettes, but as the picture progressed, it seemed
> to get colder and more mechanical than thoughtful.
(snip)
> I decided to add the pencil drawing to take the focus off the cassettes
(snip)

Which it did...  although IMO  the main subject here is the cassettes and I
generally don't think its a good idea to draw attention away from the
subject.

I think the only weaknesses to the image are lighting and composition,
because both also draw the eye away from the subject.  The pad, being white
and right under the light, becomes the focal point for the scene, while the
tapes and tape player are shadowed and dark, and the eye keeps wandering
away from them and back to the light.

My mentor when I was learning photography used to always say to think of
shadows, subject geometry, etc, as little guide arrows directing your eye
around the frame, and that good composition was achieved when the arrows
moved over the whole image but always led back to the subject.  Here, the
arrows lead to the notepad.

Hmmm, looking at it, I think that just moving the camera a bit up and to the
right would help both the lighting and composition.  It would remove the
direct line between the light, the pad and the camera, thereby toning down
the brightness of the pad, and conversly make a more direct line between the
cassettes and the deck and the light which would give them more specular
highlights that would provide visual interest to them without making them
actually brighter.  Just a thought...

Modelling and texturing are excellent.

RG

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