He MAY have been taken by the living trees
by Gnarf

Comment:
Interesting you would chose to keep the tree in sharp focus and leave the waterfall behind out of focus. You usually find it the other way around. Though I spent most of my time in wilderness or national forest service land there were few trees as we know them and therefore very little shade. I was saved by the State tree of Arizona,palo verde. It provided enough shade to shield me from the strong midday sun. - Steve

Low tide
by Rino63

Comment:
The "rules" say that a horizon should not be across the center of a landscape. But that is only a guide. It all depends on the scene and where the main interest lies. In this case there is interest both above and below the horizon line that makes a center arrangement appropriate in this case. You will want to experiment with varying the position of a horizon in a frame to see its effects and decide or yourself what is best for a particular picture.
It appears your focus is set at infinity making the background clouds sharp but leaving the near foreground slightly out of focus. To avoid this you can try refocusing to make the central focal point closer, say slightly closer than the nearest waves. Then depth of field will still keep the background clouds in focus but will extend forward to keep the near forground sharp as well.
I was lost in a desert but a lot of people included bodies of water in their depictions. Those are certainly places I wanted to be, for sure. :) - Steve

Color of Nature
by thordurb

Comment:
Captures a lot of different ground colors from different minerals. This is common in arid areas like the places where I was lost. An issue for me when collecting water, even immediately after rain, was that ground minerals gave water a mineral taste. All water in southern Arizona has a high mineral content even after treatment. I worried that I could get something like mercury poisoning from it, but fortunately suffered no ill effects. There were a lot of plants where I was so it did not look as stark as this scene. - Steve

Thank God I didn't find him here!
by Elvis_L

Comment:
Curious interpretation of the challenge topic. Dark overtones work well for this image though you have to look twice to see what it is. To give you an idea what it was like... even now that bed looks a lot more appealing to me than the rocks I slept on when I was lost. :)
Thank goodness I was not in jail, but at least I would have got three square meals a day. LOL! Might be a few people wanting to put me in there now, though. ;) - Steve

Old Spruce & Sleeping buffalo
by Len Scap

Comment:
Hmmmmm... Sure is a nice peaceful place to be after a harrowing hot desert experience. I'm in Oregon right now and the tranquil scenery is very much like you've pictured here. Sunrise and suset is always a favorite time for me and makes for great pictures. - Steve

Find him? Nah. You? Who me? No you. Me? No him. Me? Yeah you - find him? Nah. Who? Shut up.
by Brad

Comment:
Very funny. You did a good job with the multple images. A classic soft focused background always works well in this type of image.
I saw a lot of common desert fauna while out in the wild. One I had never seen before is a ringtailed cat. I only saw it for a few seconds while it was scurrying across a dry wash. I think ringtails are in the raccoon family. It had a lot more red but looked like this one: //www.desertmuseum.org/programs/images/Basast04.jpg
- Steve

Oh Yessss....I see Steve!
by Sonifo

Comment:
Nice imagery, well composed and accurate challenge topic interpretation. Beautifully done, though I would like to see a little sharper focus on the hands. I wish finding me would have been so easy. :)
I thought I felt those fingers close by. I sure could have used a nice massage. I pounded and pounded on the insides of the little glass ball where I was trapped all that time but it was hard to break out. LOL!
It is of interest to note there were a number of psychics involved in the search for me while I was missing. They had a lot of input, some more accurate than others, but the one constant was that they all said that I was OK and would return safely. That matched my true feelings the entire time. - Steve

The Truth About StDavidson's Disappearance
by De Sousa

Comment:
Fantastic image and strong ribbon contender. It has the right overtone ribbon color to. ;) The humorous challenge interpretation, strong technical quality, great post processing and the attention to detail are its strong points. Lighting is terrific. The beam from the outside lamp is a particularly nice attention-drawing touch. So is the bright side lighting from the right. Notable details are the high heals, picture of the "lost photographer" hanging on the wall, and red slip (hope, hope or maybe it is a skirt).
Oh, baby, I like this one a lot! I dreamed about things like this while out tramping around in the burning desert but I'd be killed if people found out this is what we were up to. Let's just keep this little secret to ourselves, OK?

You can see lots of things in clouds...
by freakin_hilarious

Comment:
Nicely done. Good cloud detail and you put the picture in a great spot. Nice detail and superb sharpess.
When lost I did see clouds at times, many very similar to these. The main difference, though, was that all I ever saw in them were voluptuous female forms. ;) - Steve

Is that him?
by Neuferland

Comment:
So THAT is where I was hiding out. I like being surrounded by soft lighting. This is a lot more appealing place than I recall when out there. Would have been nice to have broad-leaved plants like that for sun protection. :) You can tell this is really me, though, I turned purple because I tried holding my breath the entire time I was lost. :) - Steve