The Mystery of the Old Castle by Marjorie Zimmerman
by agwright

Comment:
Wow, long exposure and moonlight? Awesome.
I like it how the slope of the hill leads the eye trought the frame, suddenly you struck a ruin and the imagination comes up with its own fairytale.

Wonderful exposure, colors and composition.

The Electric Kool-aid Acid Test
by grigrigirl

Comment:
Good work.
The mild misty toning, the well placed light effects, the facial expression, the color and the nudity seems to communicate the late sixties / early seventies from the 20th century.

Milk In My Coffee
by shutterfly

Comment:
Wonderful photo. The transition from highlights to shadow detail is just right. You see enough to form a picture of the scene, yet the main focus retains on the subject: milk in your coffee.

I like the lighting, the colors, the toning and composition.
The bubbles finish it off.

9

On the river Styx (Peter Matthiessen)
by rhipster

Comment:
I liked this image from the first moment my eyes caught a glimpse of it. I think this is because of three reasons:
1) Wonderful fall colors, light & well composed (reflections)
2) Peaceful landscape. It looks like a nice place to ponder about life, the universe and the rest. It is like: Stop! Take a rest........ Ahhhhhhh........... Ok, hit me with another week of work.
3) Great use of leading lines. You've got the slope of the hill, the shoreline of the pond and the lines of the paths. The eye wanders across the frame.

What really adds to this photo are the boats in front. Without them it would look too empty.

The only thing I don't like is the sky. Too white. But with the current rules you have to make a tradeoff between the sky or the foreground. It think you made the right choice. 9

A Little Bird Told Me by Ana Maria Machado
by ellamay

Comment:
Really nice profile. I like it how the background transcends from dark to light and how the foreground, aided by the bird, follows that.
The bird stands out nicely, especially because of the lighter edges.
The piece of wood, with the lighter part helps to lead the eye into the frame. Funny to see those dead beatles lying there with their paws up. :)

I do think that this pic is slightly oversharpened, the edge transitions are pretty harsh and the profile of the bird shows some pixelated step transitions. This has also led to some halos here and there.

Overall a good image. Good luck.

Modern Chess Openings
by jfaulkner

Comment:
I like it how you lightened this and toned it. Makes it look like a match of chess in an artic icehole with freezing themperature. The blue tint and reflections grab me, the way those frozen opponents just stand there like icy pillars adds to the cold feeling.
Nice work.

Holy Smoke
by amazoneea

Comment:
Great idea and compsotion, amazing swirls. I am very interested in how you did this. Like the colors.
The only dislike is the background.

''Ice Fall'' by Shannon O'Cork
by kiwiness

Comment:
Wonderful freeze of motion. The position of the water surface and the iceblock itself makes this a nice composition, the edges of the drop airhole in the water work well as leading lines. I can hear myself think "Plop" when I look at this.
B&W conversion works well here.

Midnight Hour Encores by Bruce Brooks
by BobsterLobster

Comment:
I love it how you captured the emotion on the face in combination with the motion blur of the performance itself. I have my doubts about the color and the border, but the capture of this combination and the composition is good enough to grant it a 10. :)

Queen of Hearts
by vadvirag

Comment:
Great work, love the composition and how you filled the frame. The choice of that small borderline with transparent edges is great, it helps to draw the eye into the frame.
Good lighting, good deep black background and good detail in the foreground. The red and black work great together. Did you desaturate anything but the reds or does the card look as I see it here?
Minor flaw is perhaps a bit of oversharpening on the rose's petal edges. But that could also be some jpeg artifacts, because I see some jpeg compression block patterns in the rose detail as well.
Great pic. 10.