A New Year's Laugh
by banmorn

Comment:
Fine expression captured. Jester is apparently using a cellphone, pity we can't see it. I wish the point of critical sharpness were on the woman's face and the jester were slightly out of focus. A strong entry.

Or Just a Smile if Nothing Else
by strags

Comment:
In this example, the selective desaturation looks much more natural than in most cases. I think the figure behind the pole should be desatted also, though. The image is marred by not being rotated ccw to a truer vertical; it's so close that it looks accidental that it's NOT vertically aligned. I could wish for a little more sharpness too. A fine, gritty slice-of-the-streets.

Anticipation
by ellamay

Comment:
There is just a world of emotion in this. A true candid. Marvelous shape formed in the negative space between foreheads and noses, as if their whole world were there. Lovely how the noses don't-quite-kiss. I wish her ear were sharper, and perhaps a little green cast removed from the image. Wonderful picture.

Father and son
by gaurawa

Comment:
Exceptionally beautiful image. The more I look at it, the more details I see that interest me. Love the squinting right eye of the father, the detail of the wrappers, the fine hair detail on the foreheads, the perfect arc of hood around ear, etc etc.

The image is sl;ightly flawed by overuse of the USM, whch has produced a halo around the figures where the pixels contrast with the background. This can be avoided by using a selection mask to select out the figures alone, then shrinking the mask by 2 pixels all around, which woukld leave no extreme contrast at the edges of the mask and generate no halo.

On the move
by nolock

Comment:
Remarkable, out-of-the-box take on the challenge. There's a slightly distracting sliver of background showing upper left that should be cropped out. Possibly crop down also so the intersection of windowframe and extended arm of rider is at the top, not much of a crop. The critical sharpness in the reflection juxtaposed with the blurry reaility outside the window makes this picture.

Wrenchin'
by cbeller

Comment:
There's a lot to like in this image, but a number of things are detracting as well.

Good points: sharpness of, and expression on, face. It's a nice study of concentration. Also the tonalities are rich, it's a good B/W conversion, mellow and smooth.

The croppung seems off to me; the truncated head is arbitrary, the space below the elbow is not doing anything. I tried cropping most of that lower space off and bringing the right edge in so I couldn't see any of the "77" in the background, and this was a tighhter & stronger crop to my eyes. Often, with candids, the crop will make or break the image.

It's unfortunate that the mechanic's hand and the rag are not also sharp. The hand, especially, could be a vital part of the image, but it's not. It looks like if you'd pul;led focus forward a bit, your DOF would have been ample to have had hand and face both sharp.

Finally, and this is critical, the wall behind the head is too bright, and it is pulling my eye in the wrong direction; I want to be following the direction of his gaze, but the eyetrap in upper left is oulling me the other way.

San Francisco
by gaurawa

Comment:
Very "Ansel" feeling, Nice one.

Robt.

Vase
by GinaRothfels

Comment:
*** CRITIQUE CLUB RESPONSE ***

This was based ont he orange/blue, mirrored vases in "opposites", and it's about as creative an interpretation of that image as I can imagine. For one thing, no color. For another, no vertical mirroring. Thirdly, no left/right "swapping" of colors (or anything else).

Now I quite like this image, and I ranked it high in the challenge. I'm surprised it didn't pull a 6+. What was working against it?

As mentioned by me (and several other commenters during the challenge voting), The assymetrical framing of this is really hurting it. Granted, the original was an asymmetrical image in toto, with the subjects pushed to the right, but we could see all of those vases, it's just their location within the frame that was off-center.

I believe if this image had been perfectly symmetrical it would have picked up at LEAST another half point in the voting, maybe more. That's really the only comment I can make about it, beyond that it's a stunning almost-abstract image in its own right.

Robt.

Steel Lined Force
by Kylie

Comment:
Lacks sharpness, chaotic as heck.

Scramble 'em
by shamel

Comment:
It's clean and sharp, but IMO it would be MUCH better if the faces weren't drawn in. Lighting on the beater is very nice.