As Life Passes
by Artyste

Comment:
I'm reading your comments on this image, and wanted to pop back in to say that "leaving the flowers" is possibly the best single decision you made in this shot :-) I crop the flowers out, and it's "nice"; I leave them in, and it's "WOW": they add an unexpected note that's almost surreal. The more I look at this image the better I like it.

History
by Tej

Comment:
Beautifully done. Congrats on your top 20!

Centrum of the middle of nowhere
by steinar

Comment:
Congrats on top-5 for this perfectly framed shot.

Old Pier
by IceRock

Comment:
This is very, very nicely done. Not sure I've seen a shot with no 1,2, or 3 votes not ribbon before :-)
Congrats on 4th!

Silencio
by kiwiness

Comment:
Good grief, Kiwiness snapshot wins ribbon! We mortals cringe. Congrats, Gary!

daydream
by CalliopeKel

Comment:
Fine job, Kelly! So great to see you among the ribboners!

As Life Passes
by Artyste

Comment:
Yee Haw! Arty got the full set now! Great work, Glen, just beautiful!

Old Man
by arindam_thokder

Comment:
Somehow I never got around to this image (the challenge was one of the few I have not voted on) but I want to register how much I like this, and make one small suggestion.

I like it because it's intense and rich and real and doesn't try to blow me away with any sort of artificality or attention getting devices, compositionally or in post-processing. The image has DIGNITY and I appreciate that. The tonalities of the figure itself, and the face , are beautifully expressed. I'd personally wish for more expanded tonal range in the surround, but that's really an artistic choice and I can't fault you this one.

The one think I don't like, and it's a nit, is the faint haloing that shows where you have dodged the head. The feathered brush has affected the sky slightly, I think. When next you do something like this, make a selection of the head itself, and your dodging/burning will not affect anything outside that selection. You can use the magnetic lasso and then in the select menu shrink the selection a few pixels to be sure its feathering doesn't overlap to the sky, and that will work just fine.

Again, conmgrats on a first-rate piece of work!

Out of Order
by carlomuscat

Comment:
This is really very nicely seen, and it well deserves its high finish. I do have a couple of issues with the processing of it, but they don't take away from the quality of the essential work.

First and foremost, the frame seems way too heavy and restrictive for this image. Secondly, the burning-in of the water upper right is not very smoothly done, and it looks very artifical. If you did this by hand, you might want to know about how to do this kind of thing with gradient overlays. Feel free to PM me for an explanation of how, if you wish.

Finally, I wish there were a trace of separation between the boat and the wall/pier in the lower left. Not much, just a hint, to have that area come alive.

VERY nice work!

Yee Haw!
by Jutilda

Comment:
One last pass. This one just cracks me up, no kidding! Such joie-de-vivre! I find very little to fault, really, except that the square cropping is vaguely constricting and centers the subject (centers YOU) a tad too much. I'd try adding back maybe 10-15% on the left, assuming you cropped from there. If you cropped from the right, then this is about as good as you can do. I wouldn't go along with Tikki, because I don't think cropping into the middle of the ivy on the right is a good idea.

One more bear hug, and I'm off...