Agave Blue
by sherpet

Comment:
I wanna do one that good!

NICE one, Sherpet.

Alice

Balcony to the country life
by alexgarcia

Comment:
Greetings from the Critique Club

What a magnificant site for a photograph. I like the foreground fence as it leads the viewer into the panoramic view presented below. The image is a bit too dark to really understand details, but that's okay with me, because the darkness is explained by the clouds above. The white table acts as a much needed foil for the darkness, anyhow.

As a suggestion, the one thing that stands out here is the enormous amount of the frame devoted to those ominous clouds. When I recomposed this very nice image on my monitor, it seemed to glow when about 1/2 of those clouds were removed. Try it, and see if you like the result.

Anyhow, it certainly is a good rendition of Country Life, and while a bit dark overall, it's a great scene.

Good luck in your future DPC Challenges.

Alice

DEVOTION
by Rikki

Comment:
Vermeer or maybe even Caravaggio could have fun with this one.

Nice work, Rikki.

Alice

Inhabitants
by shabbychic

Comment:
Greetings from the Critique Club

Hmmm, cattle pictures seemed to average in the 5.6 range in this Challenge.
;>)

You've got a good one and I very much enjoy the coloration you gave the image. The nice dull browns emphasize the 'cattle drive' aspect well. I wonder if a slightly less tight crop on that lead animal's horns would have been helpful to the composition. You blurred out the background well, so that the potentially distracting change from the slanted line of bright white to the darker horizon works.

Unfortunately, without any information on your settings and no comments in your "Photographer's Comments" areas, it's difficult to go much further with a critique than the above.

When you request a Critique, it sure does help the Critique Club if you provide this information.

Good luck in future DPC Challenges.

Alice

Constable Country
by KiwiShotz

Comment:
Greetings from the Critique Club

Hello,KiwiPix. We meet again. It's always fun to critique one of your images; you show me new things.

I very much like the foreground fence. Any higher and it would have blocked the viewer from the remainder of the picture, as it is, it acts as a leading line and introduction to the rest. Good shadow control. (much darker would have been disaster)and lovely soft colors.

I do see your dilemma on the water and background mountains. Actually, the biggest problem I see in this very nice image is the bald, bright sky. YOu've been through all this already, I"m sure, but my suggestion would be to crop out the mountains & sky and just leave that heavenly blue water as the final backdrop to this gentle, peaceful photograph.

again, very nice. And good luck in your future DPC Challenges.

Alice

February Dawn and Fog
by bacchus

Comment:
Greetings from the Critique Club

From one fog connoisseur to another - you have a fine photo here. The diffused light one can sometimes find in dense fog makes it all worthwhile. You saw this and made the most of it. Composition works well with the nice horizontal from left to right and good interest in the sky and filigreed branches.

You received a good, if not great, score for this exceptional image. (What no cow?) So, perhaps it was that some people considered it a loose tie-in with the Challenge, or perhaps some folks thought you used a filter that caused your score to be (imo) lower than it might have been.

Ma Nature does make the best filters of all, and you found one.

Continued good shooting and capture some more snake shots.

Alice

Planting Rice
by davidus428

Comment:
Greetings from the Critique Club

What an interesting country you live in. This rice field picture gives great clues to the agricultural area where you shot it. Unfortunately, for the viewer, they are just clues.

I'd suggest moving in very close to some of the action. In moving your image around on my screen, I find an interesting composition in the lower right corner: the three clustered people and the three people standing behind them. I wonder if, with that nice 200mm lens of yours, it would have been possible to isolate them and their activity. Of course, you could have been too far away, and certainly you can't go back to try again. I'm just bringing out the idea of trying to present the most important and easiest to understand part of the story.

But, after checking over your portfolio and looking at some of your amazing close-up work, I realize you know all this, and certainly your competency with a camera is right up there.

So about all I can say, is continue to enjoy your DPC experience and I'll look forward to seeing more of your very nice images.

Rustic Cabin
by swallace

Comment:
Greetings from the Critique Club

This is a nice, competent, image that certainly meets the Challenge, showing as it does, country life a century or so ago. I very much like the effort you took to capture this image at a good time of day. The soft, sunset colors, work well to bring out the textures in the wood. "The problem" as I see it, is that this is just a nice image. Now, if you had granny on the bench and a dawg on the ground, this would be country living as it is stereotypically perceived in the urban world. Of course the last sentence was a joke, but what I'm saying is a little life, or color, would make this image sparkle.

I wish you continued success in your DPC Challenge entries. You have a good eye!

Alice

"Oliver"
by blanceric

Comment:
Greetings from the Critique Club

From looking at your portfolio, I see you like to look at the same bridges I do. You have some nice interpretations there.

But now, to the image at hand. I can see this nice, almost generically Bolinian tractor very easily in my imagination. YOu've had a bunch of comments on oversharpening, and I won't add to them, although that was the first thing that caught my eye. What did bring me up short was the absence of strong values in this very nice image. I'd love to have seen more darks and real lights in this photo to contrast against the dull, rusty (broken) tractor. I have not personally used the sepia effect (although it's on my list) so I don't know what one would adjust to get more value change. (Or even if you want to. After all, it's your image and you might not agree!)

But I'm trying to figure out why this nice image didn't score much higher. And that may well have something to do with it. In any event, it was a nice find and the compostion works well for this Challenge.

Continued good luck in your DPC entries.

Alice

Lusty Snails
by PhilipDyer

Comment:
Congratulations, Philip, on your Blue. Fabulous image.