Spring's Bounty
by Judith Polakoff

Comment:
Almost completely without anythign to focus on, almost totally subject-less, this image becomes all about the muted sense of light, with even the colors downplayed (the temptation to shif them up in saturation must have been hard to resist). I like it quite a lot, but I suspect it is not faring well at the hands of the voters. From me, a 7.

Swan Lake
by Stagolee

Comment:
The horizon running downhill to the right and the strange lack of luminosity in what should, by rights, be a hauntingly luminous scene detract from this very well seen and basically very beautiful image. 6 from me.

Wind Effects
by beamsclan

Comment:
This is quite beautiful and well-seen. I have two nits, basically:

1. There's visible evidence of oversharpening all along the horizon on the left. There are zeveral ways to fix thisin PS, including just using less sharpening; I don't think the image needs to be this sharp, certainly not in the sky/tree area. You could have made a selection of the foreground dune only and just sharpened that area very profitably.

2. The placement of the tree is distinctly arbitrary, it leaves an area to the right that's quite uncomfortable to my eye. I have tried cropping out half of that area, bringing the right edge closer to the tree, and IMO this improved the composition dramatically.

Regardless, it's a strong entry and I hope it does well.

Beauty in Decay
by lyta

Comment:
Conceptually this is exceptionally nice, but there's a harsh garishness to it that isn't working that well for me. Also, the yellowish central portion of the image is out of critical focus, and yet that's the area our eyes are migrating to, so more DOF or focusing in a bit would have helped a lot here. The reddisha rea upper left is a real eyetrap also. This being advanced editing, it would have been easy to desaturate that area so it faded back a bit, and this would have been a plus. Still, a nice, strong image and a good score from me.

Amalfi Coast
by Chiqui

Comment:
Deceptively simple image that appeals to me immensely. I wish it were crisper. It's very nicely framed and, personally, I think it's quite strong. But I've always liked "busy" pictures with no obvious subject, and they rarely seem to do well in DPC, so I wish you the best of luck with this one. Strong score from me.

MoonDance
by jenesis

Comment:
This is quite lovely. I wish the ,oon weren't quite so centered, and I don't think the bright light on the right horizon is helping at all, so I'd have thought about panning left a little to get the composition a tad less static. regardless, nice and imaginative work and a strong entry.

odalisque kitty
by mycelium

Comment:
This certainly is the strangest image in the challenge. You get bravery points just for including some not-especially-beautiful feet in a beauty challenge :-) I'm torn on this one, because the image is very appealing to me in an offbeat way, but it hardly seems to address the challenge. On the other hand, who am I to judge what's beautiful? The picture brings me back, and back again, so I'm gonna bump it up, and wish you the best :-)

This from the man that entered a raindrop as a self-portrait, remember...

Rose of Fire
by bobdaveant

Comment:
Sweetly done. Compositionally, the eye of the vortex seems too centered to me. The entire area to the right lacks any real textural OR composional interst. I have tried cropping it into a square and this seems to work better, though it's not ideal. Composion aside, the lighting and the color are exceptionally nice.

Nature play
by asij

Comment:
This is quite spectacular and does bring me back for more looks; but the more I look, the more I wish there was a trace of detail in the deep shade. Probably not possible with the exposure you made, I guess. Whatever, a strong entry.

Sand & Shells, Sunset
by Bear_Music

Comment:
It's funny; I look at this and see an image that would fit right in a Sierra Club book. I see an image that would fit into an Eliot Porter portfolio if the damned thing were shot with a view camera exactly as otherwise done here. What I do NOT see is a 98th-place image in a granularity challenge.

I'm coming to realize there's no place in DPC for the contemplative detail, the textured nuances of art. I mean, I always "knew" this, but I figured "In a challenge the TOPIC of which is "granularity", surely such an image might find its home!" I was wrong. But I still like it a whole hell of a lot.