Delicate & Lovely
by librodo

Comment:
*** C R I T I Q U E C L U B C O M M E N T ****

It seems almost superfluous to be critiquing this wildly popular image, since it's already received so many thoughtful responses, but I'll take a stab at it.

Composition: essentially flawless. The use of negative space, the shape of the negative space, is exceptionally fluid. One might wish for a little more forehead and a little more on the bottom to better-complete the arc of the scarf.

Lighting: appears to be classic window-light. It's one of the most recognizable elements in your images. It's actually a fairly "harsh" light for portraiture, but you always manage to pull it off by careful control of the dark values in the face. I might like to see a hair more detail in the upper left portion of the face, above her right eye, but that's a subtle call. The shadow of the scarf on her chin is mildly distracting; had her raised hand been placed an inch further back, the scarf might not have cast that shadow that interrupts the flow of the line along the chin, but again this is a nit.

Color: I basically have no criticisms of the color except that I am seeing a slight cyan/green cast to the whites of her eyes and wonder if you might neutralize this?

Other: IMO, and I see by the comments that I'm not alone in this opinion, this shot shows overuse of neat image. I understand the smooth, graceful, flowing effect you are after here, but I think you can ramp down a bit on the neat image and still have that effect. Indeed, this is my only real criticism of the image; I believe the skin, especially on the hand, is overly plastic-looking.

Wonderful shot, Manny. The bottom line is that this person really comes through as "delicate and lovely", which after all is what you set out to accomplish.

Robt.

Nightlight
by RulerZigzag

Comment:
That's one fine shot, man. Rotation seems fine to me. The implied vertical dead-center is spot-on. You absolutely MUST clone green onto those white leaves, and perhaps mute the brighter greens a little bit as well.

Beautiful capture.

Connected v.1
by just-married

Comment:
That's exceptionally nice. Two things that strike me favorably are the silhouette-that's-not-a-silhouette (perfectly exposed/processed) and the very odd fact that the lighting makes it look like the girl is IN the tank, underwater, and the turtle is OUT of the tank, floating in space.

The thing I'd change (very minor nit) is to crop just a tad off top and left to get rid of that tiny anomaly of the right rear flupper behind the shell int he upper left corner.

Lightning
by elsapo

Comment:
SUPER cool shot, man. Instant fave for me.

Cosmic Energy
by Rooster

Comment:
VERY sweet image, Rooster. Try trimming a hair off the top, just down to the OOF dark green blob on the back leaf. There's just a tad too much space at the top of this image I think. Of course, I don't know how that would effect its print size accuracy for DPC prints.

Darkness & Light
by Bear_Music

Comment:

Originally posted by Joey Lawrence: Nice one bear, don't be afraid to lean a bit more toward more editing. I'd really like to see more of the foreground brought out.

If I were to print this image that's what I'd do for sure, but it was shot for a challenge, the theme of the image is "darkness & light", and I wanted a large, dark mass in the bottom and right of the image, which just a ghost of detail.

airborne
by arngrimur

Comment:
This is absolutely beautiful and answers the challenge extremely well.

elegant
by hopper

Comment:
This is a flawless B/;W conversion. My hat's off to you! One of my favorites on the more conventional side of th challenge, though there are some striking images that reach further for their edgy effect that i also love. Very nice work and an 8 from me.

Radcliffe Camera, Oxford
by postoakinversion

Comment:
This is a beautiful rendering of this fine (and famous) subject. It's very well lit, with great control of perspective. Nice B/W conversion as well. In all respects (speaking as a retired architectural photographer) I love this image. But it doesn't really answer the challenge especially well, being a full tonal range image that happens to have a dark sky and some deep sahdows on the left. The subject itself, in fact, is rather muted of contrast. I give it a good score because it's not toally off-base, of course, but I don't think it's quite as responsive tot he challenge as mano of the other images.

Do I understand your question then, is it hopeless and forlorn?
by fstopopen

Comment:
Shelter from the storm, eh? Very nice shot. Love the title.