New Year's Eve Fireworks
by banmorn

Comment:
You can't hardly do fireworks any better than this... WTG, Rob!

Winter Wonderland
by cowtownmom

Comment:
A bit too much foreground in this, but not seriously so. There's a lovely, sentimental mood to this for sure. It was a very hard exposure to balance, and you did it pretty well, all in all. I'm left with the feeling, however, that you could have found a better, more dynamic way to shoot this tree, a better angle. Still, in a sense the pure, serene *centeredness* of it may be the ultimate expression of the coming of our Savior into our lives, of His taking up residence in our hearts, so who am I to say...? :-)

SeattlesSprirt
by cowtownmom

Comment:
I wish it had been squared to vertical, that makes a big difference to me. I see the tree, but in the context of the "challenge" that's just a token nod at Christmas IMO. It's a good picture, though :-)

Lonely
by cowtownmom

Comment:
I get the sadness, that works. The bottom left corner is bothering me, it's an eyetrap; cropping the foreground would strengthen the impact a lot.

A Christmas Evening
by cowtownmom

Comment:
Composition is adventuresome. Tones are luscious. The OOF curve in BG is very mysterious, light falloff upper right leads us into a void, all very strong. It's as if these ornaments are in orbit around a moon or something. Alien stuff. The image doesn't actually speak of the spirit of Christmas to me, as a matter of fact, despite that the ornaments are specifically themed around that. Your choice to use BW instead of color, for such a colorful subject, is brave :-O)

Sydney Harbour Bridge NYE 2011
by JanieNews

Comment:
Way to make an entrance, Janie :-)

Thinker
by LevT

Comment:
Nice work, Lev. Hell of a beard. He would not look out of place next year, in Jerusalem :-)

The Terrace View
by AllenP

Comment:
A lovely image and a fine finish. It felt just a bit too sharpened to me, the scene seems to want to be a little softer, so I ended up giving a 7 instead of an 8...

Where was it taken? Looks vaguely familiar. PM me if you wish.

beach
by bspurgeon

Comment:
Very nice, Ben; I like how the dark wedge on the left waveline throws a tiny sense of tilt into this scene, hinting at the hurtling-through-space that underlies the absolute stillness of the scene-as-seen. I was one of your 8's.

Message edited by author 2011-01-08 12:17:20.

decanting
by zeuszen

Comment:
Shamefully poor finish for this serene and lovely abstract; hell, I practically matched it with my "juicer in frypan" shot, and that of course is not even int he same league :-)