Heart Woodby
LeeDComment: *Critique Club*
First let me say that I think this met the Wooden Challenge topic well. I am surprised you didn't receive more comments though, given its final score.
Composition
Okay to good. Jutilda is right in that a dead-on shot with this type of theme can work. The heart is a nice, fairly clean shape and the negative space could work, but I think there's a little too much of it - a closer crop might have helped. Compositionally, it's okay, but I think it got mired down with the technical execution.
Lighting
Since you chose to "mask" or "frame' the main subject of your shot, the lighting for it needs to be great. IMHO, it's too harsh on the left and too soft on the right. I realize you may have been going for a 3D kinda feel with the shadows to make the heart appear to jump out of the screen, but if so I don't think it worked. The color of the light is fine, but I think you needed more than the single light source to illuminate your subject adequately.
DOF/Focus
The lighting hurts you here as well, as there's not enough of it in the right places to allow the detail and textures of the wood to show up very well. The focus also seems very soft around the heart frame (which I think would work better sharp) and in the upper left part of the wood.
Overall
I think it was/is a neat idea, but the execution pulled your score down. It met the challenge just fine, but wasn't pulled off well enough to hold the viewers' interest. Perhaps if you had shot & lit the wood in both the frame and the heart it would have done better.
Remember, this is just my 2 cents... You can take it or leave it as you please. :-)
Jimmy
Photographer found comment helpful.
