A Celebration of Fall
by banmorn

Comment:
Nice still life. If I had to crit something it would be that there isn't enough space around the edge. The leaf stems almost touch the edge of the frame and I would prefer them to be a little further in.

Breakfast Meeting
by RN Patti

Comment:
Good record of an natural phenomenon. Difficult to give it any artistic or technical merit though. Maybe I can force myself to see a nice sweep of wire from the top left, but apart from that I really am struggling to find much worth saying about this image. Sorry that sounds hard, but to be honest this is my current vote for brown ribbon.

A child is worthliving for.
by moore8

Comment:
OK - pets, kids and toys, unless they are especially good then they tend to look like snaps. This has very obious 'snap' giveaways - the dark shadow from onboard flash, the taps half in frame and half out of frame, the sloping and very plain background.

Now, for an example of how good kid photos can be go and check out some of Jacko's images. He used directional light either from an off camera flash or from a natural light source (window). He makes sure that the background and setting do not distract from the baby. Well worth studying some of these techniques.

I Won!
by suemack

Comment:
Nice, two minor crits - the girls right hand is just cropped a little close to the edge. It feels to me as though it needs just a little more space around it.
Secondly if you had been able to get up just a little more then she wouldn't have broken the skyline with her head.

Its the little details which count.

Lots of Loving !
by TheresaA

Comment:
Hmmm - dogs cats and kids - a lethal trio at DPC.
Pet shots have to be something really special to make it, and to be honest this one isn't in that small select few.

Take a good look at this and ignore that its your pet. Just imagine you were not emotionally attached to the dog. What do you see?
Its a snap, face on, flat lighting, blown highlights probably taken with an onboard flash which tends to give this effect.

Try an image using some directional light from a window without the flash, you will see such a big difference. My guess is you are running at around 4 to 5, and thats probably fair.

Tied The Knot ?
by hideout

Comment:
Different - nice abstract, love the shadows - they really add an extra element

Friends
by Brad

Comment:
Nice, love the close crop and the way the background is nicely blurred. Only one small crit and thats the old lady in the back, just a second later and she would have been out of the image. As it is she pulls the eye away from the main subject just a little too much.

Be in awe of nature - You're part of it
by saintaugust

Comment:
I guess you are pushing the envelope here, for my interpretation of celebration anyway. I can see what you are trying to say and appreciate you are trying to differentiate your interpretation from the majority.

Unfortunately the image you have decided to use is fairly lacking in a main focal point, which means the viewer can safely skip over this without having to really look at it. My guess is its probably running at 5 to 5.5, and thats probably fair.

Celebrating a Goal - Jumping for Joy
by brens29

Comment:
Very strangely structured image. Your title makes me think that the kid jumping is whaere I should be looking, but he's placed too near the edge of frame to be the real subject. The other two kids have faces turned away and so neither of them can provide the main subject for me. So that leaves the ball, but that tends to get lost against the complex background.

Nope my eye still keeps jumping around all those places it just won't rest.

Try to keep an image simple, provide one place for the eye to rest on. In this case simply the kid jumping in close-up would have been my choice of image.

Hope that means something, and you don't see it as simply dissing your image.

Celebrate all 16 years of youth and punk rock
by 4forfun

Comment:
The place where my eye comes to rest on this image is the houses in the background. Thats the most restful place, and I guess not what you wanted.
Botton of the image has a solid black shadow which could be cropped off. White areas have blown out and could do with some detail (I know you probably meant this to be contrasty, but it doesn't work for me)