Land of the Giants
by train

Comment by Sammie:
How cute! I used to watch "Land of the Giants" years ago - this picture really reminds me of it. Perhaps a little more direct light on the truck would have been nice.

Blue Moon
by train

Comment by melismatica:
Hi there from the Critique Club!

This is an interesting and challenging image to critique. Having spoken with you in the past and seen the quality of some of your nature and landscape studies I feel you probably intended the soft focus, fuzzy quality of this image. Or, at least, having seen it, decided it was a happy accident and chose to be brave and offer it up for DPC voters. ;-D

I applaud you for sticking by your creative guns. You've certainly entered enough challenges to know the mind of the average DPC voter and that this was likely to suffer in the voting.

Leaving aside the soft focus for a moment, let's concentrate on the composition. I feel it is quite good and shows a skillful eye for using the foreground to frame a far away subject to draw the viewer's eye. This view through the shadowy branches creates an almost eerie 'watcher in the wood' like mood. Very likely not the intention but effective nonetheless. The casual viewer probably did not notice the lovely pale blue ring around the moon so you probably suffered from 'doesn't meet the challenge' voting. This blue,combined with the extreme glow of the moon, creates an interesting confusion in my mind. It could be the sun shining in a twilit sky. Very surreal. There is a vignette effect created within the frame of the trees by the darker clouds which I find heightens the surreal mood. I have to admit, I quite like this shot. If I had not been critiquing for the CC I may have dismissed it as 'too blurry' but having the time to really peruse it, I find it has a dreamlike quality to it--much like the images created through a pinhole camera. It is not the type of image that will ever win a ribbon on DPC but I rather like that you saw an opportunity and went ahead and made the image despite the lack of a tripod. Certainly, the pioneers of hand-held photography attempted similar 'experiments'.

So, in closing, I find I enjoy the eerie, dreamlike quality of this image which I attribute to the combined factors of the pale blue sky and glowing moon, the soft focus, the vignetting of the clouds, and the 'watcher' like mood of the framing.

Thanks for sharing it.

Land of the Giants
by train

Comment by whatdewuc:
Great shot. Can't imagine how many shots to get that look on the cat.

Blue Moon
by train

Comment by doctornick:
Nice impressionistic shot. I think the blurriness works well here.

Land of the Giants
by train

Comment by oferashel:
THE CAT IS COMING THE CAT IS COMING!!!!! AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH

Land of the Giants
by train

Comment by coolhar:
meets the challenge well but more depth of field would have made it better by bringing the cat into focus

Land of the Giants
by train

Comment by goodhart:
Great concept! Looks just like the old Godzilla movies where the monster is so out of focus and unrealistic, though! Could be a good thing or a bad thing to different people. I would have rated this image much higher if there were models of people in the car, adding to the drama.

Blue Moon
by train

Comment by skylen:
Interesting shot. It's pretty abstract since the moon is so blown out and everything else is blurred. Nice blue halo around the moon.

Blue Moon
by train

Comment by Brad:
Though fitting the challenge, this image needs help in my opinion.
I don't know if you intended on this being a soft focus shot or it was just blurry, but in my opinion, it hurts the image. Good subject.

Land of the Giants
by train

Comment by dwolff:
The cat is blurred, but thats good because it looks like she is attacking the car. Very original idea for the comparison and I love your title.