World's Best Wheat
by dunces

Comment:
Oh my. This image shows vision, talent and incredible emotion. The hint of green in the rolled bale adds tremendous credibility. I would normally say the white shirt doesn't work - but with the brighter background..it does.

There's a train to "Ribbonsville" - your destination.

the three of them
by loboz33

Comment:
Lovely, just lovely. Slim Jim presentation works very well - but I'm afraid I'd toss the border in a heartbeat.

I'll just sit right...here.
by sixmacs

Comment:
My first glance and I knew the title was going to be "Bad Hair Day!" Then I looked and you got me... Nice capture and placement. The green band at the top is a nice compositional element. Catchlight in the eye is great. The only suggestion I have is that I'd like a bit more room in front of the beak.

Open Air Stage
by mannjudit

Comment:
Emotional and a bit mysterious. The right 1/3 should be cropped though as it really draws attention away from the story.

Blond light
by Louison

Comment:
Absolutely a winner! A very unusual angle but wow! The colors you selected for the background are also perfect as is your use of two well-balanced light sources. I normally try to prove a suggestion for improvement - but I am at a loss for words. I expect you are heading for the land of ribbons.

The Dream
by flip89

Comment:
Hi Ken and Greetings from the Critique Club

Before digging in to this image, I went to review your portfolio - I'm very impressed with your skills; you do a great job on the "Chicago" theme. I especially liked "The Race" - it's perfect. And I predicted "Bowls" would ribbon - glad it did because it's a superb image.

The Dream is a real departure from your usual style - but is very effective. It obviously took a lot of post procesing - which for the most part was well done. There are still remnants of color in the sky area, a building and cars - as some have already mentioned. You may want to search the forums as there are a couple good threads on different methods of desat. For example - you could select the channels other than red - and convert to grayscale - leaving just the red.

The soft focus along with the hectic traffic make the picture appear dreamy or surreal. And, your title is simple, effective and drives home the point.

The lady in red is a perfect anchor point and adds loads of interest. You wonder, "Will she make it?" or "What if the lights turn green?" She may be better if her suit were a bit brighter.

Finally, I'm impressed with the traffic light system. It really is a dream that all the lights were red at the same time. Perhaps they have a way of doing that for emergency vehicles, or you just have perfect timing! Red from here to infinity.

I note that the image size is under half of that allowed. I don't see any obvious compressin problems though - so I assume it didn't need much space with mostly greyscale pixels.

Decaying Tuna
by Terramar

Comment:
Nice colors and good texture on the gray area. I though the extraordinary was supposed to be the visual part - but I guess an extraordinary odor works too... too bad you couldn't attach a "scratch and sniff"....

Vintage
by cbeller

Comment:
Yep - it's a classic. Compositionally - it doesn't read right for me.

Big Mouth
by boomer

Comment:
Extraordinary! Your pelican is great - but the sky did not help you. Even with the bald white sky - it's an excellent submission though.

The Elusive Blue Rose
by sailracer_98

Comment:
That is indeed extraordinary! Is it real? It has great color contrast with the deep black making the blue really stand out. Don't like the green foilage bottom right or the diagonal band of light color.