MMKK
by hesitant

Comment:
The palace was beautiful. As he sat down in front of his easel, his pastels laid out beside him, he smiled a sad little smile. Mankind was capable of such beauty sometimes, so why was it that they were also so capable of ugliness? How could one gaze at something like this, created as a monument to imagination and other-worldly power, and then go off and start and fight in the constant wars that humanity seemed always to be engaged in?

He sighed and shook his head. Perhaps there was no answer. Perhaps humanity needed the ugly in order to appreciate the beauty even more. It was not for him to decide.

For him, his only decision was in how exactly to capture this beauty and make it his own.

He began to sketch.

Once Upon A Rose
by IndigoButterfly

Comment:
The wilting petals she arranged just so, as she wiped a tear from her eye. They were her mother's favorite, these flowers. Their hues had always filled her eyes with a shining happiness, and so she had brought them to her daily to replace the ones that began to die, as much to see that brightness in her mother's eyes as because she could not replace her dying body.

She arranged the petals, and kissed her fingertips, and touched her mother's urn and said a final goodbye. She then turned and placed a new bouquet beside a photograph of her mother in her younger days and touched a kiss to that as well.

As long as she had these, her memories would never fade.

Watkins Glen, NY
by smichener

Comment:
She stood there and looked into that place, and remembered a time when the world seemed a little more magical. Less filled with worry and care. A time when wonder and beauty and imagination ruled.

She stood there and closed her eyes and listened to the music of the water as it played its forever song, and her mind took her back to a time when that music wasn't just a sound, but a concert being played by the fairy folk that she had so fully believed in. Not just water, but a symphony of ethereal strings on instruments plucked by the gossamer fingers of peoples living only just on this side of reality.

She stood there and smiled a sad little smile, and opened her eyes, and the concert became mere water once again, the fairy folk flitted away and became the falling leaves, the world returned in stark and unforgiving clarity, and the inner child that had returned to her so briefly ran off with a laughter that drifted away on the breeze.

Then she turned and walked off to her adulthood.

Wolf Dissection: inside the skin
by skennon

Comment:
I can only imagine the reaction you're getting.

Finger Print
by bobonacus

Comment:
The FBI would like a word with you.

;D

Surface to Sky
by photomill31

Comment:
I really don't know what to tell you on this one. Yo_Spiff is correct about the tilted horizon, but I'm really not a landscape photographer, so I have very little to add.

Just from what I've read though, there is one main thing here you want to avoid. A centered horizon. The better landscape shots have the horizon less centered in the shot. There is either more ground, or more sky, and there's always some kind of focal point. Something to look at, which is offered in a way which leads to viewer to expand their vision to the rest of the photo.

Look around in the ribbon winners gallery for landscapes that win ribbons, and compare your shot with those. I'm not saying that you'll need to suddenly find amazing seascapes and such all at once, but try and look at what they are doing compared to what you are doing and maybe see if you can start applying some of the basics to your future shots.

As for my thoughts on why this scored so low, for my money it's just a plain, flat, boring photo when compared to its competition in a free study. It has some nice play in the sky, but there really isn't much there to grab someone making a fly-by on the vote. It's dark, and there is no point of interest compared to the shots that do better on this website.

Apocalyptica
by cmtc

Comment:
I can't find anything truly wrong with it, but neither can I find anything truly right with it either. It's a 6 image in my head, and what I would suggest is that it was simply the wrong image for a Free Study. In another context this might have stood out, but surrounded by 400+ photographs, your bell curve says everything. It didn't stand out for the majority of people.

Sometimes that just happens for no real reason at all, especially in the Free Studies. Our work just gets lost to the masses.

Take comfort, however, in the few that enjoyed it, and 8 in-challenge comments on a mid-5 shot is a wonderful achievement.

A space oddity
by Melethia

Comment:
I can't believe you beat me out by one place! I needed a "21st place" for my collection!

Losing It
by violinist123

Comment:
I still can't believe how fantastic this is.

HUH?
by charliebaker

Comment:
This was my only 10.