Peaceful Serenity
by tjbel05

Comment by Judi:
Very pretty composition.

Peaceful Serenity
by tjbel05

Comment by smardaz:
title seems a little redundant

Whats your sign?
by tjbel05

Comment by Artifacts:
Positives:
Good selective desaturation concept and the tall framing works well.

Technicals:
You did a good job with the color boundaries, they look pretty natural and the colors don't appear oversaturated. You did well with black and white tonality. Sharpness is centered on the signs as it should be. (You'd be surprised how often we see images where that main subject is not properly focused)

The wire near the top of the sign is a distraction. The composition might be just a bit off with the positioning of the background tree.

The Challenge:
Duh! Meets the challenge all right. LOL!!! Does so with an appropriate use of selective desaturation to make a point.

Voters scored this smack dab in the middle of the road with a 5.4 score matching both the challenge average score given and DPC's overall average score given for all challenges.

Voters thought yours average for the challenge. I scored it a "7" which in my scheme of things means I think it is average as well. So in that regard I pretty much agree with the voters. For me, an image that meets the challenge and doesn't have any serious technical flaws will get an average score of "7" or it will get a higher score it does more than that. It is rare for me to find an image that flat out does not meet the challenge.

Suggestions:
Photography 101 - Always clone out distracting wires!

You can try some of the DOF suggestions I made above to see if you can achieve the effect you want.

Since you will have to re-take the picture to do that anyway then also try moving further to the right and recompose the shot. The reason for that is better placement of the background tree. Moving the sign more to the right of the tree will result in a better composition of image elements. Looks like you can position the sign right in front of the more distant branches to its immediate left so you still have the main part of the house unobstructed and the big tree will be further right.

Getting closer to the sign would be a good idea to and perhaps even necessary for shallower DOF.

The falls at Goodwins Mills
by tjbel05

Comment by littlefish:
ok

The falls at Goodwins Mills
by tjbel05

Comment by emlbaker:
Nice shot and good luck. Only criticism I have is that it might have been more impressive if the river actually flowed from corner to corner through the image. 9

Whats your sign?
by tjbel05

Comment by Haneck:
Neat idea! A little shallow depth of field might have been nice here, just to cut out all the distracting background details... but otherwise, this is pretty cool.

Whats your sign?
by tjbel05

Comment by liberty:
wow, very interesting, 9.

Whats your sign?
by tjbel05

Comment by WeatherGurl:
what a neat pic! i like it!

Warming up
by tjbel05

Comment by cryingdragon:
Greets from the Critique Club

This photo is perfectly in focus and very crisp. The colors are spot on.

I'm not too sure on the crop. I'd like to see some more space on the right hand side. As was said earlier there are better body positions to capture than right at the start. I'd like to see him either in the blocks or on his first stride for this shot.

Hope this helps.

--Mike

Warming up
by tjbel05

Comment by bananashay:
Nice timing to capture the very beginning of his start, though in my opinion there are more flattering body positions a little bit later when he's started to move his legs. Aside from that, the dof and sharpness are excellent, and the composition doesn't detract from your image. Perhaps you could take a little off the bottom, but it works as it.