Norway Spruce macro
by d410

Comment:
Greetings from the Critique Club!

Nice macro, I think I have one of those Norways kicking around in my front yard. To be honest you didn't do all that badly for your first entry on a highly competitive site, and kudos for entering a pic that is straight from the camera. You could do really well in Minimal challenges!

Now onto the image. I like the colours, and the care that you took in getting out the tripod and using manual focus, but there is some borderline glare on the lower sprig of needles at the bottom right. Presuming you didn't want to lose any dof, simply lowering your ISO to 200 or possibly even 100 would have helped a lot with adding some contrast and giving those needles more definition. Especially if you don't use post-processing; even though I try to keep tones as natural as possible I still use vibrance in PS just to give that little pop of colour. Love the bokeh and the little 'rose' there.

Again, a very respectable entry, and please continue to enter challenges.

Susan

The flying "B"
by docjonny

Comment:
Greetings from the Critique Club!

Lovely idea, and very good subject choice for this challenge, but there are a few areas you need to work on. You did an excellent job of avoiding glare, which is always very tough when shooting such a reflective surface; nor do I see you in the reflection either. Very good! :-)

Now, what you need to work on...I know this is a challenge where you are meant to crop tightly but even so I wish the top of the B and that wingtip were in the shot. As noted, the focus seems to be more on the front part of the base on which the B rests as opposed to the B itself, and it's meant to be the star of the shot. The reflections of the flying B are fantastic btw! Finally the tilted horizon is one of those things that voters either love or hate, along with things like vignettes and heavy use of HDR. FWIW most voters seem to like their horizons level, so keep that in mind.

Hope this helps

Susan

151220 PLAN SERRE
by chloefr

Comment:
Greetings from the Critique Club!

The basic concept here is ok, with the shallow dof drawing us into the centrally located eye, but the execution leaves much to be desired. Yes, the eye is in focus, but the somewhat odd choice of white balance and the darkness makes this image very difficult to figure out. My French isn't great, but the title tells us nothing about this person or his situtaion.

For example, why is his skin yellow? What is he supposed to be seeing, to be feeling? Bluntly put, the voter has a very hard time trying to decipher what's going on here, so they will just give a low vote and continue to the next image.

You need to put a lot more work into the idea you are trying to convey or you may not do well here.

Hope this helps somewhat

Susan

Eyeing The Competition
by WonderDude

Comment:
Greetings from the Critique Club!

It's always much harder to critique an image that's on the front page, but I'll try :-) Being a cat owner, I love the subject matter; it's certainly meeting the challenge with that nice tight crop to the face, while leaving plenty of room for the cat to gaze into. The colours are realistic.

I have to admit though that the processing on the eye, though interesting in almost a watercolour effect, is just a little too much for my personal tastes. Had I voted this would be a 6. Still there are enough fans of more obvious pp work here who saw and rewarded you with higher scores.

Keep up the good work and look forward to critiquing more of your images in the future!

Susan

Gautam Buddha
by doctabrez

Comment:
Greetings from the Critique Club!

This image could be much more closely cropped and some thought put into the available light and composition. Once again this just looks like a snapshot, taken without any effort to get a well-exposed and compositionally interesting photo. There is handshake evident meaning that you shot at far too slow a shutter speed - if you read any of my previous critiques on your images, you would know that I mentioned shooting at a faster shutter speed for handheld work. Any slower than 1/40 or so handheld and it shows.

Lots of blown-out white on the sash and tons of noise everywhere except on the eyelids.

Susan

finish what I start
by Ecce_Signum

Comment:
Congrats on the ribbon! And you thought this would only finish in the high 5s :-)

I want a body like... Steel.
by Lydia

Comment:
Wow, if that's your daughter, then good on her! I thought this might be an entry by FromDaRock, who once mentioned to me that he wanted to re-create lallisig's Blue Steel.

Congrats on the HM!

Family time
by sarampo

Comment:
very clever idea.

Domestic pleasures
by Kroburg

Comment:
hehe,love the bowl of nibbles next to the tub! The bubble bath is priceless.

Please Knock
by DistantColours

Comment:
very Big Brother-ish