Land of the Buck
by AlexSaberi

Comment:
Ill bet you a buck this ribbons. nice job witht the colors, it must have been tempting to really push the color to sell this, but I think you understated it just enough, The profile of the elk is just wonderfull with a dramatic sense of a leader and his followers.

Buzz Off Birdie!
by nidici

Comment:
Beautifully capture, well framed and you caught some rich light here. The backround looks a bit muddy and uniform, like an abuse of the highlights and shadows tool, which knocks it down a bit, but it is still a top five.

THE BIRDS!
by melismatica

Comment:
A rich and lovely abstraction, witht the burst of color in the bottom left providing a textural anchor to the cool blur of motion. This is one of my top three, just a lovely peice.

Get Off My Back
by yakatme

Comment:
Yup this is the one, my pick for the top spot. The ivory of the croc and the green of the alge work like magic, witht he strong diagonal of the snout working well with the crop: good DOF provides plenty of detail on the subject while minimising distractions in the backround. It might have benfited by a bit darker blacks to bring up the pop factor, but this is the best of the crop.

heron landing
by coolhar

Comment:
Shame about that clump of weeds breaking the BG into such a two tone affair, but the Nice DOF doe a decent job to minimize the problem. Thw color palate works well and the exposure is very nice. The framing is the best part of the shot, with the wings and the fet all bringing in the eye from the conrners, allong the neck to the eye. The bird itself is just about nails, with the feet being prefectly picked out off the BG. One of two nines in the challenge, ought to ribbon.

I'll Take the Red Pepper
by talmy

Comment:
I saw your note on Larus' message and secided to up the @ comment shot.

OK I gave this a 5 though it could have gone to a six. The table seems to be running away from the camera, and the BG is not evenly lit, so the spaces between the spices and around your subject take up nearly as much real estate as the subject. If the bottles had been pushed closer together so as to slightly overlap, you would have ended up with a more square, and therefore larger picture, with less dead space.
The lighting, DOF and colors are good, but the glare off the glass is a bit much ( wiping the glass with slightly soapy water can give a more matt look to glass ) and for no good reason the two green caps of almost the exact same color really pull my eye off to the left, and acentuate the V of empty space above the jars. I have mostly complained about the issues I see rather than compliment what is right, this isn't a bad shot, just not a strong one.

Daylight
by Napalm Nymph

Comment:
Nice technique, feathery fill lighting, wether bounced or augmented it works well. The framing is nice the rigidity and centerness of the window sets up the curves of the model. The color with the exception of the over red thigh,( incandecet bulb as fill? try using a full spectrum bulb if so, you wont get the orange tone to the light) is nicely handled.
How this fared so poorly is beyond me. Had you replaced this beautiful woman with a fresh bell pepper you would have garnered many fewer votes below five, but some subjects blind certain viewers to the quality of a shot.

Ansel
by drake217

Comment:
I wish there were some brighter whites here, nice shot otherwise but with Adams missing the zones is a killer.

The Road Less Taken
by Rikki

Comment:
Congrats rikki

F15
by kawesttex

Comment:
sweet vapor pop. great capture