Street Performer - tough man for a tough crowd.
by Nobody

Comment:
Excellent teeth; this is the kind of thing i think cries out for a B/W treatment - the background colours become less of an issue then, and the purer tonality works to emphasise the character in his face. And the face really is the point of this shot, no?

At Your Feet
by commendatori

Comment:
Good work; I would have been slightly disappointed with the background figures and clutter, would have liked more separation between this scene and those people; it becomes the more of a problem as I don't get a particular dynamic in the relation of the statue and the photographer, possibly because the 'extra' pair of boots seems to be his subject.

Reflecting Memories
by petrikleynhans

Comment:
I think you just needed to hold this for a split second longer before shooting - let that guy get out of the way behind her; also the leading line of the recession of trees has become weakly placed in frame - leading attention away from her and not toward anything useful. However, you've done well to get close, and her pose is an interesting moment.

Harbour Sunrise
by GIS_boy

Comment:
Excellent work Matt: dead chuffed for you.

Flood Tide & Cattails — Sunset
by Bear_Music

Comment:
Congrats Robert - this is going to be so popular a win :-) Watch those comment numbers soar ... ;-)

E

"Strong is he who masters his own spirit"
by egillbjarki

Comment:
decent portrait - though there's something about the facial shadows that suggests the unreal - I sense a bit of heavy-handed dodge and burn, perhaps. Detail and conversion excellent though; can't make up my mind about the pipe - especially with the dent in it.

"On a bed of daffodil sky" - Lord Alfred Tennyson
by esdarby

Comment:
I think I would have tried to get more depth of field and some foreground daffodils - they're just too indistinct at this resolution. Nice tonal work and detail otherwise though.

Letters Home From Iraq
by acoppola

Comment:
Colour balance needs fixing - that woarm tone has made the blue black, amd the red indistinct. Not sure it really meets challenge, actually, but I could understand the confusion.

Sunset In St. Tropez (Danielle Steel)
by GolferDDS

Comment:
I wish there were a bit more control of the dynamic range of your image - either in conversion or processing, but for me the brightest part of it has lost detail, and the darker areas just aren't competing.

The Amityville horror
by crayon

Comment:
from the eyes behind the portrait of the Critique Club

AH hell, I'm not sure which approach to take. On one hand I completely loath this over-processed supposedly 'creepy' kind of stuff. You know? Take an image of something broken and dodge all hell out of it and call it 'gothic' or 'grunge' or whatever the term of the moment is. It seems to betray an urge toward the darker end of the war photographers' art; well, damn it, get yourself a ticket out to Kabul and do the real thing. But it also, in only a small way, but nevertheless of significance, betrays the real work of those guys, of Norfolk, Nachtwey, McCullin and the rest, who did it to bring those things to our notice and did so more profoundly than any writers.

On the other hand, of course, it's just fun - just making a larking-about dark image, not taking yourself too seriously: and there's something here that betrays a smile as it is made - perhaps the only real moment of inspiration in the image, which is that out-of-focus foreground framing - beautifully done. It adds also a touch of the impression of hyper-shappow depth of field, making the house appear like a model.

The burnt-out sky is kind of a shame: whilst it adds a sense of lurking darkness to the house, it's perhaps such a blat of whiteness that its overall effect is to drag the eye away from the subject. The tonality is fine, though I would think you could have brightened the whole thing without losing the intensity of it and just made it sit a little happier for those with dark screens already - might have won you the few scores to get into the 6's, which it would be my feeling is about what this deserves.

Technically accomplished stuff. Whether or not I think it worth thee effort is beside the point, maybe.