Bald Eagle
by missysue78

Comment:
This is an excellent portrait of a bald eagle. The composition is fantastic and the background helps set the bird off nicely. I typically don't comment much on the technical aspects of a photo but this one has a couple very noticeable elements that stand out for me. Since I have a little background in framing, this particular composition is going to run into a minor problem if you decide to mat and frame the print. The beak is going to be right up on the edge of the mat unless you have some additional image available that was cropped off to make this composition. There is also a prominent halo around the bird that may be a result of post processing either as a sharpening artifact or possibly from adding additional blur to the background. At any rate, I gave this photo a 9 because I like the subject and overall approach to the final image... nice work :)

heian
by bspurgeon

Comment:
I love this image and I hope others in this competition can take a moment to explore it as much as I have. It's fantastic in more ways than I can really put into words myself. I have come back to look at this image several times and I see something new and/or different each time I look. This might possibly be my personal favorite of this challenge... Great work :)

Ric
by HarveyG

Comment:
This is a great character portrait... very nicely executed and the black and white treatment adds a lot of feeling and texture to this image. I'm a personal fan of this type of shot and yours is one of the best I have seen lately. When presenting a shot like this to a DPC challenge, it's important to find a way to connect the viewer to the image. Even though I don't know this person or have any link to him, this photo makes me want to know him. Drawing in an unconnected viewer is hard to do, but I think you have done it well here... a definite 10 from me... nice work :)

A Darkened Day
by KenzieKupcake

Comment:
This photograph has quite a few issues that cause it to fall in line as one of my lowest scoring photos of this challenge. To begin with, there is no reason that everything in this image should not be sharp and in focus. The level of focus and sharpness in this image do not seem to indicate that it was intentional. Secondly, a landscape image needs to have one or more strong points of interest. This image lacks that element in my opinion. The foreground and tree are shaded and the field behind the tree is brightly lit which causes me to look in that area for the primary point of interest, which is never found. Better luck next time :)

Stand The Test of Time
by hesitant

Comment:
This is one of my favorite photos in this challenge. The composition and framing of the lighthouse is excellent. I can't really offer you any suggestions for improvement, but I might offer an alternative toning idea along with some support for the idea...

The warm toning you chose for this image looks nice but it doesn't seem to fit the mood of the image. As I look into this image, I feel a sense of cold coupled with some possible wind. For me, that feeling conflicts with the warm toning. I personally think this photo might be equally, if not more, appealing with a cooler tone in the blue range somewhere while still maintaining the mono/duotone concept. Just some food for thought... Keep up the good work!

Delicate
by Adz

Comment:
I'm not voting in this challenge so I'm not passing along a score, but this photo has missed the mark when it comes to Edward Weston. I can't recall ever seeing a Weston image that was done with a shallow depth of field. That was definitely one of the hallmarks of his style... deep depth of field...

Addendum per request:

In the spirit of the Edward Weston challenge, I would have probably scored this photo a 3 or maybe a 4. In my humble opinion, as I stated earlier, this photograph missed the mark quite a bit when considering the style of Weston. While it's mainly because of the shallow depth of field, it goes a bit beyond that. I don't believe that Weston would have chosen this subject material either. (Once again, this is all MY personal opinion of what Weston might do based only on my experience with his images.) Weston worked a good bit with still life situations, but he seemed to always work with the subject in its entirety rather than taking an abstract view of the subject. His subject choices outside the realm of landscapes always seemed to focus on the beauty of interacting shapes and forms which created appealing harmonies within the composition. Your image here has some interesting shapes and forms but they don't seem to interact in any specific or special way.

In a free study, I might have given this photo a 5 or possibly a 6 depending on how I felt on that particular day :) I believe that your execution of this image was exactly what you wanted it to be, so you accomplished that part. As for appealing to me, the viewer, I'm not finding a personal connection or appeal in the subject or composition. If I was judging the photo on technical qualities alone, I would score it higher, but in my opinion, technicals are just a small part of photographic art. The subject choice and the photographer's approach to that subject is 85-90% of the goal. What this means from me is that there are a lot of photographs out there that are technically poor in some people's eyes that strike me as fantastic images. If the subject and theme of the image overwhelm me, the technicals don't seem to matter so much. When a photographer manages to captivate me with the subject and approach AND managed to be right on target in the realm of technical achievement, it's a sure winner in my book :)

Graceful Mission
by SandyP

Comment:
This is an awesome photo. It makes me jealous, not only because it's a great photo that isn't mine, but because I don't have easy access to such beautiful birds :) Nice work...

Quackers
by briansmith246

Comment:
Nice capture of the mallard in flight here... The water spray and the slight motion on the wings creates a good sense of action in this photograph. You also managed to be in the right position to catch this duck in excellent sunlight which helped out tremendously for the color.

As for the composition, I believe this might have been a great image for a square crop rather than vertical. Since the action is moving left to right, the unused space at the bottom of the frame becomes slightly irrelevant in the greater scheme of things. A square crop with the duck in the center of the frame would work well here because the duck itself would create opposing diagonals with the body and wings in their positions of flight. Just some food for thought :)

Ascension
by hihosilver

Comment:
This photo has a lovely texture and feel. The contrast is superb and the tack sharp focus on the bird's head really sets this image off nicely. This photo does convey a lot of motion but I think it would be even stronger in terms of this challenge if the entire bird was included in the frame. At any rate, its a beautiful piece of work :)

Osprey
by weheh

Comment:
This is a fantastic photo. It's unfortunate that it didn't score better. The warmth of the light here is completely awesome.