Pressure Valve
by amonteforte

Comment by jmsetzler:
I think this is a well done shot, but the louvres in the background on the right are not the best choice of background possibly... good shot :) - setzler

Chrysalis Fungi
by amonteforte

Comment by lisae:
Seems a little overexposed, but that purple leaf is just amazing! This photo has a great alien quality to it. I love it.

Marco
by amonteforte

Comment by LanSnake:
Greetings from the Critique Club --

amonteforte -- beautiful photograph for the Free Study challenge! Your model's eyes and skin tone are amazing! The lighting is fantastic. Focus on the subject is great, depth of field (DOF) is excellent.

The composition is also excellent. I like how you've placed the subject to the right-side of the frame. I might like to see the subject not so close to the top of the frame, but this is a minor point. There are a few distracting elements in your background (the horizontal blue lines, and the dark area in the lower left), but I feel this is also a very minor issue. You could minimize these elements with a few tweaks in Photoshop, if desired.

Excellent work!
LanSnake

Chrysalis Fungi
by amonteforte

Comment by HBunch:
This appears kind of grainy to me. Overall a nice shot though. The bright yellow leaf really stands out and draws in ones attention. The little flowers are cute, and the fungus makes an interesting pattern. Looks untouched by man to me, but too grainy for my personal tastes. Good luck in the challenge.

Chrysalis Fungi
by amonteforte

Comment by Swashbuckler:
The purple leaf is fantastic! For some reason, the fungus seems grainy or less distinct. I do like how the flowers seem to be growing up around the tree.
Cool shot! 8 Swash

Chrysalis Fungi
by amonteforte

Comment by Gracious:
I've seen this fungus a lot but never have I seen such a purple leaf! I love how the veins show. I would actually like to see a close up of it, or the fungus. They compete with each other for attention To capture the detail on the leaf the fungus is a little over exposed in places.
Overall nice.

Chrysalis Fungi
by amonteforte

Comment by alanfreed:
Seems a little oversharpened, but I like the subjects! Might have been tempting to move in a little closer on just the purple leaf and a couple of the growths.

Chrysalis Fungi
by amonteforte

Comment by autool:
If the fungi is the growth on the tree, then you missed the most interesting big blue leaf. Not knowing for sure which is your main subject it leaves me kind of empty. I think the big blue leaf would make a great shot by itself.

GYM
by amonteforte

Comment by amonteforte:

Originally posted by jmsetzler: Greetings from the Critique Club :) This photo does an excellent job on capturing motion. The mirror is an excellent touch in this photo as well. I am at a bit of a loss on exactly how to provide a detailed critique on this image. I don't really see anything wrong with it. I scored this photo a 7 when I voted last week. Going higher than that would have probably required some higher level of 'artistic' merit in the image. This is one of those photos where I would need to 'know' the girl in order to really go high score with it. Keep up the good work :) John Setzler

Thanks a lot for the comment, John. This is my 6 year old daughter Teresa (one of my twins from "Reflections without mirrors"), who actually had just won a gymnastics competition half an hour before, so I took advantage that we were still in the gym and asked her to pose for this one. I have to confess it was very easy. I only took two shots; the first one was not straight up enough, and this is the second. I knew it would be imposible to stop people from walking across the windows, and I couldn't blur the background or else I would loose the image on the mirror.

Best regards,

aldo

Chrysalis Fungi
by amonteforte

Comment by jjbeguin:
Nice collection of specctacular vegetals, well composed, my favorite so far. was the colorfull leaf skillfully displayed by the hand of photographer?