Bringin' the Heat
by jenesis

Comment:
Congrats on your first ribbon. I'm a big baseball fan and I even have two baseballs and a glove sitting on my desk right this minute yet I didn't think of doing this shot. Great execution on this. Even without motion blur this thing looks like it's humming across the frame.

Water and Light
by alfresco

Comment:
Pretty cool looking. The colors work. The only thing I'm not too fond of is the gray cloud. I think it would have looked better if you made that blue like the rest of the cloud cover.

The Sculpture´s Dome
by gsal

Comment:
Super!

Clock Tower [high key]
by SDW

Comment:
LOL @ you pointing out that this is high key. It shouldn't be needed but you're probably right taking no chances. As for the photo I really like it. My only nitpick is you should have burned that lower window so it's like the top one.

Careful...beverage...extremely hot
by Melethia

Comment:
I've had coffee that felt this hot. Congrats on your top 20 finish!

Afternoon Tea
by SJCarter

Comment:
I've tried shooting something similar since I have deer that like to sit in my yard but they almost never do that with this type of lighting present. Super shot. Just food for thought, think about cloning that one strand of grass that stands out a little too much.

Waterfall on Dark Hollow Falls Trail
by SJCarter

Comment:
Silky smooth water. The tonal range is excellent. Like what ArpeggioAngel said, I'd think about cloning out the twig at least just the part that crosses the water.

Red Eye
by SJCarter

Comment:
Very nice macro. I love the DOF. The detail and the background blur is fantastic. Just as a minor tweak I'd blend in those hot spots on the leaf so that it blends in with the rest of the color. I'd probably use selective color to adjust the whites with the fly masked out to preserve that.

Don't Bug Me
by SJCarter

Comment:
This came out great. It almost looks like you painted him on the spot! One thing, have you tried rotating the image 90 degrees counter clock wise? It may look better the way you have it but since he's looking down I'd see how the rotation looked.

artist
by biggis

Comment:
Greetings from the Critique Club!

First off, great photo. I like the oddity of this shot a lot. What hurt you the most was this being a bit of a stretch on the challenge theme. Chaimelle said it perfectly in her comment so I won't go further there.

Technicals:
The color was captured well from the sky on down. The lighting on the main subject is also good. Although I wish the crowd was better exposed. That might have been difficult to accomplish in-camera but in post editing it could have been improved using masks and curves.

Subject/composition:
I like the choice in subject. You definitely captured him in his element but as mentioned before it feels more like a candid than portrait. In terms of the composition, I liked the choices made. I only wish the build on the left wasn't there. Maybe a different angle would have eliminated that or minimized it to the point it could easily be cloned without any worries of a DQ. Personally, I think you could have gotten away with just cloning out the building as is since it takes up so little of your shot. However, to be safe I'd ask an SC about that first before doing that in the future. Just something to consider.