Early Morning Balance
by LVE

Comment by Konador:
Very nice reflections in the water. A great tranquill photo :)

Early Morning Balance
by LVE

Comment by whiteroom:
beautiful!

Early Morning Balance
by LVE

Comment by hutch699:
They decided to keep building on the delta, even though the rest of the city had sank...


Clean and crisp. Nice reflections.

Early Morning Balance
by LVE

Comment by shudderbug:
I think a rule of thirds composition would have had this score higher from me.

Big Gator
by LVE

Comment by bacchus:
Persuasive indeed!

Good looking alligator, LVE. They do rule, don't they?

~ bacchus

Mother Swan Protecting Her Young
by LVE

Comment by ursula:
From the CC:

First impression: where are the babies?

On second looking: three things jump out:
(1) beautiful feathers!
(2) water looks sort of murky;
(3) the border is distracting.

Composition: Quite nice overall. Maybe you could consider giving the mother swan a bit more "breathing room" - the crop is not tight enough for it to be a closeup, yet you are cutting off part of her foot and boxing her in very close. The colour scheme on the swan is beautiful. I would personally like to see the picture without a border in this case.

Technical: Your shallow DOF worked well here - the focus is on the swan, feathers, beak, eye, and the reflections are blurred. You mention clouds, yet their reflections are barely visible. The reflected vegetation looks nice. The swan's head looks to be slightly too bright (maybe increasing the shutter speed just a tad?). The water looks a bit muddy, and I wonder if a slightly different angle might help, hard to tell. The detail on the feathers is very nice.

Challenge: Without the title there would be little connection to the challenge topic. The title suggests that there were baby swans around, it would have been nice to include at least one, so that the viewer could make the connection to both the title and challenge topic. I think you would have scored higher if there were some babies in the picture.

I hope this helps. If you have any questions/comments, please feel free to contact me.

Ursula

Mother Swan Protecting Her Young
by LVE

Comment by Pixlmaker:
Good shot, but where are her young? It would have been a more powerful shot with the little ones in the picture.

Mother Swan Protecting Her Young
by LVE

Comment by Skip:
i'd score this higher if i could see her young.

"Light" On The Rocks
by LVE

Comment by kari1:
::: Critique Club :::

Hi, I am Kari, I have been issued your photo for the critique club.

Let me start by what an strange finding you have made.

First Impression - the most important one:
I thought this was an interesting photo. The water is either murky or moving, but is not sharp (may be because of the murkiness). The fact that it just looks like a carton washed up and not like the box of beer which is full is an oops for the picture .. .an empty carton is trash/rubbish but bottles of beer is a definate oops.

Composition:
The actual composition is fine, but to make it look more like an oops it would have been good to see something of the bottles ... I think then the viewer would be more engaged.

Subject:
Subject missed slightly as people didn't really get it .. this I think is shown by the voting.

Technical (Colour and light):
Technically is an ok photo. There is a problem with the water but it isn't a major component ... did there need to be more water .. I am not really sure the thing is to try on the picture that you have and see how you can improve.

To grow its vote?:
Showing the actual beer I think would have put it in context for people.

Summary:
This is a good concept that you have taken and executed. The picture itself is nicely balanced.

If you've got any questions about this critique, please feel free to contact me via the PM system.

Cheers

Kari

Mother Swan Protecting Her Young
by LVE

Comment by talmy:
Where are the young?