Basking in the Glow
by scottieham

Comment:
I read your thread about a critique and thought I'd offer my comments. I'm no means an expert in anything, but this picture looks really good to me. I'm an avid bird fan (or twitcher as they like to call us over here). I don't sit out in fields all day trying to spot a rare bird, bit I do love to sit and watch them from my conservatory on the feeders in the back garden. I personally think this is a lovely shot. The bits in the background are a little distracting but you don't get much control over that in these sort of situations.

I think the composition is pretty central, in fact the bulk of the bird is left of centre, with the bird looking out of the frame. I personally think that a right of cantre composition with the bird looking into the frame might have helped if that was an option. To be very picky, the blue leaves/petals or whatever in the foreground are also a little distracting and perhaps a desat or changing the colour to green for those leaves might help them blend in better. The reddish line at 8 o'clock (twig or something)also draws the eye. But those are really very picky comments - but that's perhaps how free studies are judged.

You can't always pick your subjects, perhaps one of the more colourful birds in an exact same image might have scored more highly (cardinal, robin etc) as people tend to have more of an affinity with brightly coloured birds.

From a purely personal viewpoint, I think it's a really nice shot. The clarity on the feathers is really good.The lighting is superb imo and perhaps in a bird challenge it would have done much better. Free studies always tend to be very hard to get a good score in. Your "She's a Gem" photo is a much better shot (I scored that one a 9 at the time). The composition is a lot cleaner, and she is looking directly with the camera which makes for a much more engaging shot.

One Fit Granny!
by basssman7

Comment:
I'm not sure where the weights, apple and tape measure idea comes from, there are a whole bunch of them in this challenge... must be an American thing that us Brits don't get. This is the best of the bunch in my opinion though. Nicely focussed and exposed, and a nice combination of the primary colours.

Blue Steel
by LalliSig

Comment:
Blue steel = Blue ribbon in my eyes. Definitely the best of the bunch. Moody, smouldering and gorgeous model. I'd kill to have a body like that lol... except I like cheese and dislike weights. Ho hum.

Hit a homerun for health
by Sheryll

Comment:
Nice action shot. The helmet lower left is a distraction, but I realise with basic editing rules you could not do much about that really.

Pfffft !!
by Jedusi

Comment:
Fantastic shot :-)

Canada Place
by Beetle

Comment:
Great cityscape and I love the clarity and the fisheye.

The Turbanator
by ankursomani

Comment:
You have asked for more comments in the gripe thread... I gave this a six which is in line with 177 other like-minded voters, 6 being the vote you received the most times. In my scale, 6 is good technical knowledge and composition, just a bit lacking in some areas.

Upon a revisit, I find that the object in the lower left hand corner to keep drawing my eye, stopping me from actually "looking" at the guy. So to improve the shot I would clone out, or crop out that part of the image. Also I find the girls behind the shoulder to be a distraction, but removing those might require a bit more work. I would have scored it more highly with those amendments as my eyes would remain fixed then on the main subject, which is a good one. Some of the other comments also mention a tighter crop which I presume is for the same reason as I suggest, the lower left corner.

National Geographic!
by kbhatia1967

Comment:
Came back to comment after the gripe thread... for me the border completely detracted from the image as it is really "in your face". I also felt that the lighting was harsh, and the girls eyes lacked focus and sparkle and the shot as a whole lacks some clarity (which I guess is a byproduct of the nature of the camera). Colours framing and subject matter were fine. I scored it a 5, which appears to be the most common viewpoint with 185 others also voting it a 5. Your tags have it as "snapshot" and "candid", and I think that is a fair self-assessment. A nice enough shot but it just didn't wow me. I would probably have given it a 6 if it didn't have the yellow border.

Blueberry Splash Redux
by h2

Comment:
I revisited this after your gripe thread comment. I gave this an 8, placing your shot within my top 100. I also agree that it is better thsn the other two variants on this image. But photography is subjective. There will always be people that vote higher on dog shots, those that vote on landscapes, those that vote higher on bugs.

Total Lunar Eclipse
by marbo

Comment:
Oooohhhh, so sorry you didn't ribbon for this awesome shot. I gave it a 10, and had it pegged for the blue.