By the stone bridge in the swamps.
by jjbeguin

Comment:
This placing really confuses me - and the score. I suppose I'll just never get the hang of the mass voters opinions here. Congrats on another top shot JJ.

Romanic Architecture of the 11th Century
by Harz_Joerg

Comment:
Nice shot - challenge met, good tones, could have used a touch more depth to the texture, but I think that comes from this being low resolution - or from too tight a crop, perhaps. One thing - it's 'Roman', rather than 'Romanic', but that doesn't cost you points.

surreal stairs
by MattOz

Comment:
A few things have grought your score down a touch from me: I think such a simple composition needs to be horizontal in frame; the pipe on the right is pure distraction - without it those stairs would sit perfectly in the stronger area of the image - and that brings me nicely to my third point, which is that the 'stairs' (quite apart frm being the title of the picture) are the subject despite the focus being on the nearer angle of bricks. Put otherwise, I think your DOF and composition clash with the demands of the subject. 7

By the stone bridge in the swamps.
by jjbeguin

Comment:
Extraordinary - just extraordinary. Must surely win. I rarely give out tens strsight away ... but here's one.

Paris Sky Lighter
by puya

Comment:
Good work - and excellent distribution of the weight of the image within the frame. The toning is interesting, and appropriate - connects with the ironwork of the structure. Such a familiar subject ... not quite sure if that adds or detracts for me though.

Just the sound of your footsteps.
by jjbeguin

Comment:
Like this very much ... with a couple of reservations: the sheer quantity of black to camera right - I appreciate the element of mystery, even of fear that it adds, but I wonder if some gentle illumination of that area might have added depth, especially given the edge lighting to whatever object that is that lead the eye into that area somewhat: I see the faintest impression of a wheel there, but it seems raised above the street. Not sure that information is what you were after conveying. Heaos more intersting tthan most images here though.

To Touch Is To See
by Imagineer

Comment:
Excellent DOF trick - and an excellent image all round, though perhaps not really within the idea of the challenge (you get a 9 nevertheless, just for its being wonderful). I rather think it might be too odd an image to score well, even if it fit the challenge perfectly - this comment is really only to explain what I'm presuming will be a poorer score than i personally think this deserves.

Energy Sources at sunset
by bgartside47

Comment:
Basically a great idea for a shot, badly let down by the technical work: love the sun through the steam from the cooling towers, but the processing artefacts, the tilt of the image, the strange framing (why so much at the bottom, and why cut off the top of the steam clouds?) lose you points from me.

Mesquite, Mistletoe, & Merlin the Magician (Great Horned Owl in the wild)
by scrum8

Comment:
cool shot - though a pity you couldn't have isolated the thing a touch more against the background. And a brief note about the title ... it actually makes me doubt the 'in the wild' element of the shot and look for teltale giveaways of this being faked more than I would otherwise.

Tableau
by zeuszen

Comment:
Nice work. Not sure about the sheer amount of the silhouetted foreground - losing more than half of it would give you a stronger compositional shape across the frame from the tree to the table to the very parallel lines between ground and horizon ... just a thought.