waltz
by pointandshoot

Comment:
I don't like to be able to work out what I'm looking at. How boring. Consequently, I like a lot of your stuff. And I love goats. So you're nearly always starting with two cherries minimum on the centre line for me. Leads to plenty of 'Ka-ching' sounds.

Message edited by author 2014-12-20 14:13:16.

Niagara's Horseshoe Falls
by aliqui

Comment:
I scored it 4 . Not for any of the mild quibbles raised about composition or focus, etc. but because it is simply a boring picture. So for me, the only way to make the photograph better is to not take it at all.

That's harsh, if your intention with this picture is solely to practice the technical aspects of photography. But even if your intent was limited to that, why point the camera at something of which there are already fifty thousand photos taken every hour? Especially from the same angle, at the same time, and same point of view? It's going to be a cliche and boring, no matter who takes the picture and with what.

I can anticipate that you (and many others) would resent my feedback, and say ''But I'm just trying to learn to be a better photographer'. But the point of owning a camera is not to be a photographer, it's to take pictures. And if the pictures are standard views of standard subjects, they simply can't be interesting. And if a picture isn't interesting, nothing else matters.

Of course I'm not much of a photographer, by popular acclaim.. But it wasn't what was popular you asked about, it was what (about your picture) was unpopular. And that's my view.

If it's any consolation, some of the most popular and successful photographers at DPC seem to take nothing but boring pictures, presumably having become afraid to do anything different.

Don't do that. Let curiosity be your guide.

The final breath
by Judi

Comment:
Dare to be different.

The barren soul
by Dennisheckman

Comment:
I have seen this before (by which I mean superficially similar pictures) but this is a beautiful example. Its Spartan composition is what makes it a standout for me: so much fine detail made irrelevant by the overall effect. It's a found Zen garden. 9. Thank you.

swing
by bvy

Comment:
An absolutely wonderful example of the photographer's transformative art. Part hint of Rothko, part spoor some other painter whose name I can't remember. It's an elegant, beautiful, deeply absorbing canvas that never existed but for your brief intervention, and continues to not exist even now, but for your photograph. The tonal blocks are perfectly harmonious, like a musical chord made visible, and the yellows link all the parts into a whole. I really can't recall any photograph in my ten years at DPC that approaches this as exemplar of photography as art.

10. Thank you. Add an Order of the Thumb to the many accolades that I expect this picture to attract.

thrust
by jagar

Comment:
What a picture of delights, wit & whimsy!
So many wonderful connections; the boy and the truck comparing horsepower (and emissions!); the woman and the man balanced on their concrete see-saw; the perfect triangle of the three players.
Then there's the grid. And of course the shadows making each of them into two people, two personalities.
Then there's the score, which is a 10. And then there's the Order of the Thumb, which is compulsory here. Thank you.

where the sky ends
by posthumous

Comment:
Improbably beautiful. Perfectly judged tones; perfectly judged everything, really. You have made a virtue of everything that would have failed to attract and stimulate a lesser photographer. The result is a singular and thrilling picture. Thank you. 10. And the Order of the Thumb slipped under the wire.

fugue
by skewsme

Comment:
If all botanicals were as interesting and absorbing as this, I'd be a lot more appreciative of the genre. What a beautiful, captivating image this is! 9. Thank you.

Dreamer
by insteps

Comment:
Very nice photograph that's more complex with each moment's appreciation. The girl and her guardian are the obvious play of course, but the supporting cast are all right on their marks, adding another layer of pleasure for the viewer. Imagine if any one of the minor players (including the flags) was in a different spot, or doing something else other than what they are doing. The photograph would be diminished. But they aren't, and it isn't. 9. Thank you.

the telling of it
by jmritz

Comment:
Yes, that's good stuff. Sidesteps all the usual mind-numbing constrictions of 'good' photography, and arrives deftly at a good photograph; at an interesting, dynamic photograph. It's one of those contrary pictures that thumbs its nose at convention and carries it off comfortably. 8. Thank you.