Arcades
by h2

Comment:
Love the variety of stones and shapes here. Great shot!

Frozen Reflections
by ryand

Comment:
Interesting... still trying to figure out exactly how you got the reflection. Wish you'd added some photographers notes to explain. Nice shot!

You would not... WOULD NOT !
by roba

Comment:
Congrats on the ribbon! Glad you shared the setup with us in your photographers notes... it's always fun to read about the efforts that have gone into these creative shots! As for my poem comment... I figured it would make voting less monotonous :)

Truffula Trees
by Rissa

Comment:
Oh the coloful truffula trees,
Was the one on the right already made into thneeds?
The wispy and wonderful colors abound,
And the stripes on the trunks go around and around.

Interesting idea and the color treatment makes it easy to see these as truffula trees. Really feels like one is missing on the right, especially since you had plenty of room to not leave the left one cut off. If you were going for that idea of having one already cut down, perhaps holding something up just a bit into the frame to serve as the chopped down trunk would have been helpful? Just an idea.

Hooray For Diffendoofer Day
by rosiehall

Comment:
If Geisel had chosen to use photos for books,
Children probably wouldn't give them so many looks.
"I'm scared!" they might cry, if they turned to a page,
Where a face like this took center stage!

A great photo with crisp detail, though I don't associate the shot or the feel of the shot with the book you've chosen.

'I Can Read with My Eyes Shut!'
by littlegett

Comment:
The Cat in the Hat with a big white bow,
How he reads with eyes closed, nobody knows.
Perhaps it's because the book in his hand,
Has no title, no pictures, it's really quite bland.

I like the high contrast and the idea here. You really needed a dark covered and simple book to make this shot work, but the first thing I noticed was the lack of title on the book.

F-clef for big F
by silverfoxx

Comment:
Big F, little f, what begins with f?
A floor, some feet and fingers,
And a clef made out of Steph!

I'm guessing the bucket etc. is supposed to be the note to go with the clef? Took a bit of figuring to work this one out for me. Interesting idea though. I'm not sure about the lighting... seems too uneven and blown out in spots, and you can see through the bucket, yet I like how it's simple and sort of creates a silhouette type look.

Green eggs and ham! Yummy!
by snaffles

Comment:
Oh dear, not more of these green eggs and ham.
If I ate these I'd need a medical exam!
The colors you made, they could not have been easy,
But looking at this, makes my stomach quite queasy!

Love the fork, it's a nice touch to give it more of that Seuss-y feel, but really, that is some of the most unappetizing food! I don't know what Geisel was thinking when he wrote that! The lighting here is a bit harsh for me with that big shadow but at least you weren't using the onboard flash to make those greens even more unappealing! :)

Sparkling & Vanishing
by korpen

Comment:
Greetings from the Critique Club!

My first impression: Unique and sparkly... but what is it. Ice?

It's difficult to give much feedback on what you were going for and how that compares to my reaction to the photo since you didn't comment on the making of the photo in your comments, only on the processing. I like how the one piece to the right is just about to fall off with the bright spot of sunlight there to melt through it.. gives some tension to the shot.

The shot is a nice abstract shape (which I do like abstracts), it doesn't feel cramped in or too empty, perhaps a bit too centered though. There are a lot of blown out highlights, which is bound to happen when you're shooting towards the sun, and the color that is present isn't very interesting.

From looking at your voting breakdown, it seems that most people found this to be just average (to which I would agree) and rated it a 5, and a good number of people probably found it average, but just didn't get it, so they clicked a 4. I must say, that personally, I was shocked to see that it was in 511th place, but this was a free study, and I think people tend to expect more, as this is supposed to be the best of your shots for the entire month.

The lack of comments probably comes from the fact that people just don't have anything to comment on. There are no glaring technical flaws, nor is there anything that really stands out in a positive way for me. No subject to really comment on either.

I think to increase the score on this one, perhaps doing some more advanced editing between the shadows and highlights might have been interesting. Other than that, I think it might just be that peoples' personal preferences didn't include this type of abstract shot.

That's a lot of rambling, but I hope something in there was helpful. Please feel free to PM me if you have any questions. Good luck in your future challenges!

Riding The Wave
by yakatme

Comment:
Greetings from the Critique Club!

My first impression? Simply WOW!

After reading your comments... does that mean that you didn't even compose this shot, but that it was just luck that the shutter happened to click at that 5 second interval and this is what it captured? If that's the results you can achieve with that method, perhaps I better stop looking through the viewfinder, and start randomly clicking! (And after looking at your profile and your highest scoring shot, it seems you weren't looking through the viewfinder THERE either!)

The composition is lovely with the lines that draw you in. I don't want to see more of any one part, or less of another. The colors are wonderful, though as one commenter noted, the blue sky is almost too flat. But what can you do when there is nothing in the sky to bring out? I find that one spot right where the blue goes the lowest to be a bit difficult to focus on, since the contrast of the colors is so bold. But really, such a minor nitpick.

You did a fabulous job on this one... and the voters all agreed! Only 18 votes under a 6, and 13th place out of 572. Impressive.

Please feel free to PM me if you have any questions!