Survival of the 'wet'est
by thekfactor

Comment:
Greetings.

A difficult challenge, "Life". You have a good idea for it. However, the execution lets this down. There is nothing really in focus in the image, although to the middle of the image things are bit better in focus than towards the edges. In my view, it would have been much better to have something in focus here, in particular, the bean with the sprout, to make it the centre of attention. It also might have been good to arrange the setting a bit differently, not so centred, not just a bunch of beans next to each other in a small group. I even wonder if photographing just the one sprouted bean, maybe somehow including some dirt or some context to reinforce the idea of life sprouting and starting to grow, wouldn't work well. The slightly pink/purplish tones of the background also do not seem to enhance the green of the beans/sprout - it might be worth experimenting with different backgrounds, for example, totally white or black.

I hope this helps.

sweep
by ursula

Comment:

Originally posted by surfinbird: Thought this was the winner. How did you do it?

Obviously not well enough, going by the many votes of 1 and 2 :)

It's a backlit closeup (macro lens), sunlight, handheld. It's turned 180 degrees. Same seeds that I've been using for a couple years for these pictures.

sweep
by ursula

Comment:

Originally posted by ellamay: Another stunning Ursula image. Congrats! Merry Christmas Ursula!

Lynn! Merry Christmas to you and your beautiful family too!!!! Come to see us in the Kootenays some time :)

Stalag-ice
by Neil

Comment:
Congratulations, Neil, and thank you.

Bokeh Everywhere
by Judi

Comment:
Nice one, Judi, I like it :)

Goldfish
by aznym

Comment:
Lensbaby I presume? Nicely done. ~7

Drop
by Tyra

Comment:
Not sure what the purpose is of turning this sideways. I like the picture otherwise.

Overlooking the valley
by renjith_varma

Comment:
Beautiful outlining of the leaves.

Fields of gold
by gys

Comment:
Nice! Wish there was a little more light on the girl's face. Beautiful composition. ~8

Frozen Embers
by tapeworm_jimmy

Comment:
If it were me, I think I would have trimmed a little off the top, to right above where the blue meets the pink area at left of the image. The backlight brings out the beauty of the frozen branch very well, although maybe just a little hot in the middle. ~6