The Strong, Silent Type
by indigo997

Comment by mjcecil:
Excellent composition. Boost the saturation and sharpening a little bit, and you are going to have a picture that snaps!

WINTER by Tori Amos
by indigo997

Comment by Azrifel:
~~~~Critique Club Comment~~~~

Composition (content)
Nice composition. The tree and the person add depth and scale. The most striking part of the stream is in a nice position in the frame and it runs to frame well. The crop as it is, shows its natural surroundings. The blue cast adds cold.
Good choice of aperture and shutterspeed. The whole scene is interesting, so it benefits from a large depth of focus. The .3s shutter gave a nice flow motion blur to the water, a silky touch.
I get the feeling that the image is slightly tilted to the right tough.
It would have been nice when the lady in red would have looked at the stream, instead of the rock. The red of her coat adds some color, which is nice in my opinion.

Background
The snowy treebranches hold very little detail at this resolution, not a problem as it transfers the focus to the right side of the frame.

Camera Work (Technical)
See comments at composition. Exposure is ok, it tends to a little bit of underexposure, but that enhances the darker feeling of winter. No problem. Focus and sharpness seem to be ok (it looks like it is sharpened / USM'd in the digital processing as well). I wonder how a bit softer looks.

Digital Processing (technical)
No further comments.

My opinion
Perhaps it sound stupid, but I like the lower half the most. At this resolution the upper half looks busy and clutterd, I am sure it balances out at a higher resolution. Nice work, deserved to score this high.

WINTER by Tori Amos
by indigo997

Comment by indigo997:
I cropped this out of a larger shot (there wasn't any more room on the right side though). The girl stepped into the shot just as I was taking it and left before I had a chance to move the camera and reshoot. I personally liked the addition so I chose this one instead of one without her. Of course, I would have positioned her differently given the chance. I was pretty far away though (using a tele lens) and not about to chase down a girl and her boyfriend to ask if I could take her photo.

WINTER by Tori Amos
by indigo997

Comment by joshua:
a lot of tori amos fans around here. i don't know if you intended the person to be in the picture, but I think she somehow needs to become a bolder part of this picture. upon first glance i didn't even notice her being there

WINTER by Tori Amos
by indigo997

Comment by Kavey:
On first glance at this one I mentally scored it a little lower - it wasn't until I looked again and saw the lady in the red coat that it really clicked for me as a stronger image. I like the water flow (slow shutter speed thing) as the whites it gives in the water complement the white of the snow. This is almost monotone and the red of the woman pulls it back into colour. I like that contrast. I think the position of the woman isn\'t ideal - she vies for attention with the tree trunk. 7, Kavey

WINTER by Tori Amos
by indigo997

Comment by Annida:
I really love this picture... except for the lady on the right hand corner :( I give it 9 regardless. -Annida

WINTER by Tori Amos
by indigo997

Comment by ambaker:
I'm a sucker for long exposure flowing water shots. However, this is certainly a beautiful, welll done exposure. I can feel the gentle stillness of the cold winter day in this one. 9

WINTER by Tori Amos
by indigo997

Comment by Martin:
Beautiful. - 10 -Martin

WINTER by Tori Amos
by indigo997

Comment by Gotcha:
There's not much that can be done to improve a shot like this. My only effort would be to make the girl stand out just a little more from behind the tree. She is a valuable addition to the shot, but looks like she wants out of it. - 10

WINTER by Tori Amos
by indigo997

Comment by grahamgorman:
Very good composition and I like the movement in the water. One of my favourites this week.