Why?by
PetRockComment by NiallOTuama: Nice subject and textures. I like that branch--what an odd direction it's going in! I like the lines that the branches make. Especially the 'why'-ing branch. How bizarre nature is sometimes, eh? Interesting subject, and well captured. It's nicely in focus. Sharp. And black and white suits this quite well and encourages texturing--definitely suits the criteria of the challenge. No question in my book.
Critiques (these are my personal feelings about how I might have done things different... it doesn't mean they should be done or that they'd make it better--I'm far from being an experienced photographer myself--I just know what I like, and my critiques will tend to suggest editing towards that direction):
Somehow this image doesn't seem to... pop for me. Not saying it doesn't, but I don't feel as much depth in this as I think I could/should with the branch that's going backwards so far. That might have potential to seem really deep. If I was to try to get this I might run the image through topaz adjust. That does a really good job at it, in my opinion.
This is more of a personal thing, but I dig high contrasted images so I personally would have liked to have seen more contrast. Maybe just over the trunk though, because if done on the leaves it might make them too dark.
The crop doesn't do much for the image for me... were you to crop just to the left of where the 'why' branch branches off from the main left trunk (somewhere between a third and quarter from the left) it would have given a spiral effect on the tree which would have probably encouraged higher scoring.
It's a fine image. The leaves do you credit because if they weren't there I'd imaging the tree would be quite twiggy which would make the image far more difficult to look at and discern details.
I can't decide between 6 or 7 for this one. I'd say probably 6. But certainly 6.5 if it was there :-)
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