Window to Her Soul
by spydr

Comment by closer03:
nice photo..common photo.. 7

Buzz
by spydr

Comment by adine:
Interesting angle - more original approach than straight-on, but I'm not sure it show off Buzz's heroic qualities very well. If I didn't know what the character looks like I'd be a bit confused by the proportions. Also the strange rock-like thing is a bit distracting.

Buzz
by spydr

Comment by coolhar:
kinda dark, might have looked a little better if we could see a bit more detail

Susquehanna River B&W
by spydr

Comment by gruvin:
Nice.

The Wasp
by spydr

Comment by Artyste:
Hello! I see that you haven't received any after-challenge comments, so here's one from the Critique Club.

Initial Thoughts

To be honest, my initial thought was, "I've seen this before". However, this shot, while popular (insect macros always are, especially wasps/bees), has a wonderfully original use of complementary colors in the purple and yellow, which one doesn't see so often. Another initial thought after, "I've seen this before." was, "but still, wow." :)

Composition / Content

I really like the composition in this shot. You've got the wasp itself centered instead of it's face, and this creates a nice strong triangular look between the wasp's head, and the branching of the flower. Having the wasp look directly into the camera is a little chilling, especially for those of us with phobias :) The content, while not unique, is still put forth extremely well.

Background

I can't find anything wrong with the background. It's nicely OOF, the color is good and complements the image well, and it isn't cluttered. Good job.

Camera Work - Technical

Focus is crisp, DOF is great, and the exposure is practically dead on. Your camera work is really nice.

Digital Processing

This photograph *looks* a little over smoothed. The antennae and the eyes just have a kind of "plastic" look. The color work you did is really nice, giving it a beautiful saturation, and you said you did a little burning, but it wasn't entirely noticeable to me at first, which is a sign of a good burn job.

Fits The Challenge

Being a Free Study makes this part easy on me, how can it not fit the challenge? :)

My Opinion on the Photo

An absolutely wonderful photograph, that got high marks from me in the challenge (9). As I said, I was put off a touch by the plastic look of the wasps eyes and antennae, but everything else was beautiful. This is a work to be proud of. *edit* Oh, and one last thing. I think that you may have suffered in voting a little bit, because of content. As I also said, people tend to see a lot of insect macros, and it probably played a part in voting.

Message edited by author 2004-11-14 18:07:20.

Window to Her Soul
by spydr

Comment by Ricky Cleave:
in this case I think the nose is a distraction

Window to Her Soul
by spydr

Comment by SandyP:
There are several eye shots, but that's okay because they each have their own look to them. Tis one is really neat looking. Very striking eyelashes!

Window to Her Soul
by spydr

Comment by Cantique:
So many eye photos... this is one of the best. I like that so much of the important part is sharp focus. I also like how the composition pulls your eye to her eye. Nicely done.

Window to Her Soul
by spydr

Comment by mosesm:
Of all the eye photos this was my winner. You captured a lot of detail along with that catch light. Nice Job!

Window to Her Soul
by spydr

Comment by moswyn:
Good focus and nice lighting!