Safe Harbor
by edmeng

Comment:
Very sharp reflections. Nice.

there really was a spoon
by SherwinJames

Comment:
Nice reflections and shadows.

Afternoon Reflections
by dfstevenson

Comment:
Cool swamp!

Love birds
by SoulMan1978

Comment:
Nice colors and sharpness.

Road side peace
by Quigley

Comment:
Wildlife can be terribly uncooperative! I think they enjoy teasing photographers.

I have a place that clears my head, too, and sometimes it just isn't showing itself well in the big picture. I think that's kind of what you ran into here with the bright sky and snow. When that happens I start looking for something smaller, like a particular tree or clump of grass or puddle or something that looks interesting. One of the things I enjoy about returning to the same place over and over is finding new aspects of it to show. I look forward to seeing some more views of this place from you.

Golden Pond
by Budya

Comment:
The NI did create a sort of dreamy effect, assisted by the light and the palette. Depending on the type of challenge and the particular voter that dreaminess would work well or not ;-) I kind of like it, although I would like to see a bit of detail in the eye area.

I might play with different crops but there's nothing that bothers me about this one. Looking out of the frame makes me wonder what was over there, but that's not a bad thing.

Butterfly 02.jpg
by jan_vdw

Comment:
I saw a butterfly like that yesterday, only it was in an enclosed exhibit in a museum. I'll take natural light over museum light any day of the week!

I like the color palette you have here (OK, I'm partial to purple so I'm a little biased). I like the light tips on all the flowers, too, and how the light illuminates the butterfly on an angle. DOF is nice and the butterfly looks sharp.

There are a couple of things I would do differently to better emphasize the butterfly. He's a bit too camoflauged to me. One is crop tighter, particularly on the right. The bright bit of grass/weed just to the right of the butterfly really draws my attention. That would also put the butterfly off-center, which I tend to prefer compositionally. Looking at the scene, I think I would put him on the lower right ROT intersection with the crop, but everybody has their own preference where that's concerned ;-)

On the butterfly itself I would probably burn the body more and increase the saturation on the orange and brown to make it stand out a bit better. I can see eyes, which is very good, so I think you have good detail to work with. If you've got any bit of catchlight in the eye I'd be sure to dodge that a bit. People are always impressed if there's a catchlight in a little bug's eye.

All in all a nice capture IMO.

Fish Kaleidoscope
by redeyedfrog

Comment:
Interesting subject but a bit too OOF for me.

fog settles in
by ErinM

Comment:
Nice subject. I like the fog, tree, and curving road. I think I would have cropped out most of the foreground and just kept the reflection in the puddle and the crosswalk connected to it (some road engineer had a twisted sense of humor if that puddle is there very often!).

Basking
by toddgray

Comment:
I've never seen a butterfly with those markings. Pretty little thing.