Fern Furled
by Pangurban

Comment by Cyrilda:
Awesome shot.

Fern Furled
by Pangurban

Comment by bmartuch:
I like the way this creates a diagonal.

Herb Seller
by Pangurban

Comment by Lydia:
I'm not fond of the flash on this image. I like your composition (although taking a bit off the top would make it much more intimate) and her beautiful smile... but... it's ruined by the flash, in my opinion.

Jaipur Juliet
by Pangurban

Comment by Lydia:
Wow! What a composition! Wonderful!

The pop of red of the girl's clothing is magnificent among the palette of yellows and browns. In my opinion, it makes the whole image.

I love the diagonal of the whole of it and the vertical breaks in it.

The only thing I can see that made your image not score higher is the focus. There is nothing in focus and I really wait for the girl to come into sharp focus to make this image... SOAR.

It might be the rule constraints that made her not in focus as shown here, if she is in focus in the original. If so, perhaps try Save For Web to get more details in focus while staying within the rules.

In all, this is a beautiful image that you should be proud of, Ellie!

Fire In Its Belly
by Pangurban

Comment by Jules1x:
Greetings from the Critique Club.

First thoughts - this definitely met the challenge. Hot air balloons always make for a good subject imho, and nice work catching the flame. That flame definitely added a bit of something special. The colors seem realistic, and not overly saturated. Nothing wrong with the light, although nothing particularly special about it either. (Darn the morning not having been a nice pink sky morning huh?)

For me, I suspect I might have enjoyed the shot either with more of the scene or isolated in the sky. The bit of trees just did not add much to the overall feeling about the image. Had the green coordinated with a color in the balloon, I might have felt differently but as it stands the green of the trees just seemed to pull my attention away a bit from the balloon and cluttered up the scene a bit without giving me feeling for what the surrounding area was like.

All in all I feel like this was a solid entry for the challenge, just maybe not as compositionally as strong as some of the higher scoring images in the challenge.

Hermitage
by Pangurban

Comment by snaffles:
Greetings from the Critique Club!

Heh, well I almost guessed straight off the bat what this was, my first guess was some sort of handmade Christmas ornament :-) I had hermit crabs as pets when I was a kid. (Not very cuddly, but fun to watch.) Anyway, a good image that meets the challenge requirements, it's both a thought-out macro and the pattern of the shell definitely give that abstract quality.

Like you said, the devil is in the hotspots from your light sources. It looks like 2-3 directional lights aimed at the shell; I also used to use floods simply because I had nothing else to use. If you're stuck with only an on-camera flash, wrapping it up in many layers of small bubblewrap could have helped to diffuse the light so it wouldn't have given that *on-camera flash* look.

Otherwise a fine image, and everyone knows that reflective surfaces are the very devil to shoot. But there are ways to do it, I picked up a book called Light: Science and Magic which is a terrific book to help you learn the basics of lighting.

Hope this helps!

Susan

How Many?
by Pangurban

Comment by snaffles:
Greetings from the Critique Club!

Good composition, great textures and lighting, though a little surprised that you used the settings you did; a faster shutter/lower ISO/larger aperture is more the way I think most would go. Still, it did the job, and in the end that is all that counts.

I don't quite get the title, though; I'm not familiar with the brand so not sure if Barbour is known for having several layers and/or multiple zippers or teeth.

Hope this helps,

Susan

Kite Capers
by Pangurban

Comment by snaffles:
Greetings from the Critique Club!

Woohoo! Ellie, so glad to see you in the top ten with this image and even happier that some of my advice helped! You caught a very sweet and joyous moment here with mum and little boy both having a great time flying a kite. The kitestring leads us right to the heart of the action without distracting, and they're both having a great time and not noticing you at all. Simple and uncomplicated background, we see enough to get a sense of place and the ambient lighting shows us it's a nice sunny day.

Very, very glad and honoured that you set your inhibitions aside and took a chance. See how being sneaky can pay off? :-) Keep up the great work!

Susan

Kaleidoscope
by Pangurban

Comment by sidpixel:
Hello from the Critique club

An interesting image that meets the challenge

Well, I have to commend you for attempting to inject some originality into the presentation of your entry but I'm sorry, it doesn't work for me. Also attention to the small details is always crucial, your rotation is not level it is leaning to the right and symmetry is important here, your crop is not equal left to right. Having said all that I do acknowledge and welcome your creative vision in looking and seeing beyond the norm that you have before you. You ask if the inclusion of wildlife would have enhanced it, in my opinion, yes it would if it were a normal presentation but in this form, no, I think it would have been a distraction. For this image to work at its best you need a very strict symmetry throughout.

Well done for your originality

Kaleidoscope
by Pangurban

Comment by mitalapo:
good use of the challenge matter.