"Taking Aim"
by GolferDDS

Comment by dacrazyrn:
nice "draw" down the cue. the light seems a bit on the dull side, and a touch warm. the nine ball looks like it has a orange cast in the white. a focus on the cue ball with it fuzzing out around the rest would emphasize the "shot"

Sweet Flower
by GolferDDS

Comment by kandyj:
Critique Club:

Meeting the Challenge:
This might be appropriate if someone was looking for a party theme photo, combination of colors and patterns, or maybe an Easter or Candy theme. Not what I would consider a typical stock photo, but with today's diversity it might well work for a particular need.

Composition:
The eggs do stand out to me, but the patterns in the bowl are a little distracting. The brightness of the center helps create the focal point. I am not personally wild about centered photos, and this is a little off from left to right. I might have left the wider horizontal edge at the bottom to give it a little "anchor" rather than having it at the top. I like the dark background, might have wanted to increase darkness just slightly more in levels to help even out the blackish areas in such.

Technical Quality: A bit over exposed in the middle, which detracts from the clarity in the middle section, esp with the little candies. I think you did well considering you were using a magnifying glass, though!

Creativity: Very good in this area, your photo was definitely unique.

Overall conclusion: I think your idea was good, but the bowl in the photo may really haved caused problems with exposure, and made the photo a little too busy and a little questionable about the theme of this "stock" photo.

If you have any questions, please feel free to email me.

Kandice

Stranded
by GolferDDS

Comment by FranziskaLang:
A Comment From The Critique Club

First Impression
Wow, a wonderful abstract :) I wonder what it is? How large / small is it?

(1) Composition / Content
I really like letting my eyes wander through this photo to explore the curves and texture. You can see all sorts of things in there if you just look long enough. One type of flowers comes to mind (can't remember their name) or an eye. It is definitely recognizable that I'm looking at a snow drift here once I've looked at the photo closer. I still am not sure what's sticking out of the snow. Since I don't know what that is, I have no real sense of scale, either.

(2) Background
Perfect black background that wonderfully complements the snow.

(3) Camera Work / Technical
Taking photos of snow is very hard and you did very well. The snow is just a bit overexposed on the top, but you have a good tonal range throughout your photo. The lighting and shadows add a lot and enhance some of the texture nicely.

(4) Post-processing
Converted to b&w just fine, no processing artifacts visible, which is good. There are a couple of stray white spots (for example towards the bottom on the left). Not sure what they are, but worth cloning out now that the challenge is over.

Continued below ...

Stranded
by GolferDDS

Comment by FranziskaLang:
Critique continued ...

(5) Meeting the Challenge
This is where I got stuck with this. To me, this photo does not say despair. That might be partially because I like snow, but I think mostly I associated despair with a human reaction. That might just be me though. ... Duh, I just read through the comments. Of course it is a car. Once you see that you wonder how you didn't realize before, but I was too much taking in by the details :) I think this is what hurt your score a bit, I bet it would've done much better in an abstract challenge.

(6) My Opinion
Doesn't quite meet the challenge in my mind, even though I now know what it is, but gets closer. But the photo is a fantastic abstract. Wonderfully done!

Please let me know if you have any questions or comments about this review.

Franziska.

Brown and White (Eggs)
by GolferDDS

Comment by hilmarsig:
Well done

Brown and White (Eggs)
by GolferDDS

Comment by kebmod54:
I like the layering of the eggs, it gives it some originality

"Taking Aim"
by GolferDDS

Comment by Sonifo:
Nice shot. The photo seems a bit grainy because of bad lighting.

Brown and White (Eggs)
by GolferDDS

Comment by ChrisW123:
I like it... you laid them out perfectly. Good one, and the lighting is nice also.

Brown and White (Eggs)
by GolferDDS

Comment by Dim7:
I like it!

Brown and White (Eggs)
by GolferDDS

Comment by kellymcg:
good idea