The Owl
by JPBergin

Comment:
Greetings from the Critique Club! Wow, what a find and what a capture. Composition is decent for this shot, as with wildlife you never know when they're going to do something. There is a little bit of flatness to the whites, but seeing that you shot at such a high ISO I'd imagine you had some NR work to do. Glad that the owl was able to get themselves dinner after the shoot! All things considered you did get a pretty decent score, but had the owl been in flight (or about to launch) etc the score would have been much higher. Still an enviable capture and look forward to seeing more of your work.

Susan

Art Overlays Art
by Lustre

Comment:
Greetings from the Critique Club! Well that is definitely an unforgettable building ....at first I thought you had just pushed all the sliders as far as they could go, but your commenter makes it clear that those pretty much are the real colours. Vivid palette aside, the roof of the building shows that it is listing to the right - if you're going to enter a (pun aside) straight-up architecture shot, you want it to be as level as possible. Perhaps shooting a bit wider to include more of the street scenery, and help minimize the in-your-face colours, may have worked to your advantage. Your settings make it look like you shot handheld; a tripod would have been a tremendous help here.

Hope this critique has been of help and look forward to seeing more of your work soon.

Susan

E Y E S
by Ja-9

Comment:
Greetings from the Critique Club! This is an absolutely gorgeous shot and certainly placed well in this challenge. Love the *eyes* on the birches in particular and the fact that there are so many of them only adds to a nicely spooky feeling of being watched. The textures of the snow are great. The composition plays a little close to the bone, because the only break in the trees is that wedge at bottom centre with a hint of a trail curving to the left, but it works. Again great work and glad to see it did so well.

Susan

Cactus
by clickodak

Comment:
Greetings from the Critique Club! Perfect settings for captured fireworks and smoke in our national colours, and indeed the result does look like a cactus. I find the silhouette of the bridge to be a minor compositional distraction, but otherwise this is a nice little pic. Only improvement I can thing of would have been to shoot wider to give a sense of setting. Ah well, c'est la vie!

Susan

Himalayan Man Meditating.
by JayneRyan

Comment:
Greetings from the Critique Club! A very interesting image, the first thing that caught my eye was the *window* (or cross(?) painted on the boards. Then I noticed the man by way of his red cap, and the huge rock imitating his posture, or vice versa. There is a sense of tranquility here, and the comp is ok, but the lack of comments during voting and the histogram show a very lukewarm response. A square crop to draw the viewer into the scene could have done wonders. That, and/or making this a study in b/w and desaturating it to make it more about line and form. As always, just my .oo2 cents worth.

Hope this has been helpful,

Susan

LoVe under the SunSet
by gintay

Comment:
Greetings from the Critique Club!

Love the tones in this pic and the feeling of calm and love you have captured with the strolling couple, and even the turbines add a little something extra. Great textures, and it did well in voting, but there are still a couple of little nitpicks: first, the horizon is exactly 50-50. Just doesn't do anything for the image. However if you crop out either the bleachy clouds in the top right, or the dark stick poking out of the mud mid-bottom centre, then your image looks a lot better because then the horizon is NOT dead centre. Go more towards the thirds.

Otherwise a very good image that did very well in a tough challenge. Keep up the good work!

Susan

Kitchen tools
by clickodak

Comment:
Greetings from the Critique Club! Never would have guessed this as one of yours, Marcel :-) Very intriguing image and clever with the knife between the tines of the fork completing the fork's reflection. Definitely tools, it might have helped to add a little more, possibly something to provide a hit of colour as there is so much grey in this image. Maybe even just a carefully placed sprig of parsley? I see you shot quite fast for slowing down the speed a lot and using a tripod should have helped to bring in some light and perhaps add some contrast to the tools in question. The basic idea is brilliant, it just needs a little more work.

Keep up the great work and look forward to seeing more of it soon!

Susan

Precision in the Right Hands
by jbirkman

Comment:
Greetings from the Critique Club! I can see what you want to do with this shot, show a wide array of all types of tools, probably near and dear to your heart. Indeed, each tool on its own is well-lit and shows detail. But comp leaves much to be desired, though, it looks like the early stages of a catalogue shot for man-cave toys. This is a case of trying to jam too much into an image, and as a result every tool competes with all the others. Esp as three of the four have red on them, a strong signifier colour. Red needs to be used sparingly, as it immediately draws attention away from everything else. It would have worked to just focus on one tool and put all your skills to work on it.

Hope this helps, feel free to PM me

Susan

A Hard Day's Work
by Denise

Comment:
It is a bit staged-looking, but at least someone scruffed him up a tiny bit. Would have liked to see more dirt or soot on him, and that hat looks way too new. Nitpicking aside, very good shot and congrats on the HM!

Showoff
by aliqui

Comment:
Greetings from the Critique Club!

Dang I wish you'd had a bigger lens up when you saw the dolphin(?)...it could have been an amazing shot. But with only 50mm to play with I am afraid that the beastie got lost in all the waves. Not sure what could have caused that line, probably just light shifting around a bit. Composition is only OK in my opinion, with the horizon perilously close to level and beastie close to centre. Still a respectable finish for a FS entry.

Feel free to PM me with any questions,

Susan