Black Charcoal
by ScantyNebula

Comment:
While I like the way you did set the light and how you arranged the charcoal, I wonder why you did put them upside down! It moves the viers eyes away from the image, because he/she tries to read what is written on them.
Anyway, a very godd submission. Good luck to you.

As the Crow Flies
by soup

Comment:
I like this very much: the angle of view with you on the same hight as the flying bird is awesome and seldom seen. The background works great too. Also like the cropping. The bird could be a bit larger though. Good luck.

Mysterious
by crabappl3

Comment:
Wonderfull! One of my very favorits! Very mystic with great clarity. The selective decoloration works like magic her. Hope you win. good luck.

Plumage
by amsmyth

Comment:
Hi Anne;

I do have to admit that I didn't vote your image very high: I'm not so much a flower fan. But that's my personal view and not important when discussing an image with respect to composition and technique.

What I really like here is how you worked with the light, the colors and the background: the variation of blues is great and putting the yellow flowers in the back adds a nice contra-point (I hope this term makes sense in English). I like the reddish-brown parts of the background too. Only the bright part at the very upper left disturb me a bit: the light does come from the right side (at least for the foreground) and thus one gets surprised when seeing a bright region on the left.
I think that the exposure is OK, although it might appear a little dark. But I tried to adjust the levels and then the colours do not turn out as good as they are right now. I do think that some commenter saw it as being too dark was because the left part of the flower with the orange portion (which is somehow the focal point) is a bit too dark. However, the right part of the flower is on the bright side already. Maybe the flower should have been turned a bit.
Regarding the composition of the foreground I have to say that I do not like the crop at the top: that part of the bottom leaf of the flower is cropped away is fine and do not disturb me, but the cutting of the upper leafs makes the image unbalanced.
I do not know if this always holds, but I would say that one should avoid to crop the main object of an image on two opposite sides. If it is cut at two adjacent sides it's not so problematic.
Technically, i.e. regarding the noise, the image is a lot better than others we discussed. However, the file size is still rather small: 35 kB is a bit more than 20% of the allowed file size.
The sharpness is fine, although one could sharpen the image more without loss in quality (i.e. production of noise, too bright edges). However, more sharpening would reduce the softness produced by the subtle variation of the foreground colours.

Jörg

Hoar Frost and Holly
by dsidwell

Comment:
Also congrats form my side! Well deserved!
The great leaf would have work for texture too.

Jörg

Temptation
by stickylizard

Comment:
Congrats to your first and well deserved ribbon!
It's one of my favorits as you know. Pretty tight race, wasn't it?

Jörg

Nadel und Faden
by FranziskaLang

Comment:
Greetings from the Critique Club[/b

[b]Initial thoughts/My opinion
Great clear concept well executed. Like the shininess of the thread. The needle suffers from artifacts. Was surprised to see a German title!

Content/Composition
I do like how you arranged the few elements of your image: very clear and right on the topic. The way you set the light is just great: the reflection on the thread make the image. What amazes me is the levels curve of this image: almost only dark black and just a few bright elements. There are not many shades of gray in it. I do like that.
As mentioned by you, the needle does stand back against the rest and it suffers from jaggiest coming from the down-sizing.

Camera work -technically
You know how to handle your camera, can't see anything to need mentioning here.

Digital Processing - Technical
As already said, the needle does not come out too good due to the jaggies on it. A tighter crop might have worked here; however, the image balance would have been disturbed.

Fits the challenge
Yes, it fits very well.

Good luck for your upcoming submissions

a corking idea!
by MikeO

Comment:
Took me while to get it, but I like it: nice texture and well on the challenge topic. The crop is maybe a bit tight. Good luck.

Grape on a Knife
by drgsoell

Comment:
I do like the composition and the colours very much. Maybe the DOF is a bit too narrow: parts of the fruit are out of focus too. A little wider DOF might have been better. Good luck.

Temptation
by stickylizard

Comment:
LOL! I know that kind of look of a dog. However, I would never use a fork: it would be eaten too. Also our Kaja would not sit still for long.
Very well done regarding the composition and light. a 9 from me.