Into the Wild
by ShutterPug

Comment by JimLucas:
Nice.

Butterfly Delight
by ShutterPug

Comment by emorgan49:
I think it was your post processing that fell short. A lot of work goes into some photos after the "field work". Some more time in photoshop might have brought this picture more into the wow category.

Knik River
by ShutterPug

Comment by boyd2000:
PAW - Beautiful shot. The wide format works well here. I don't think it would have scored that well in the AA challenge mainly due to the darkness overall. Maybe the brightness and contrast could have been brought up to compensate. It's difficult to do that when taking sunrise/sunset pictures.

Knik River
by ShutterPug

Comment by TrollMan:
Nice Ansel Adams type shot. Missing light on the mountains but there is of course only so much you can do with the sun in your face.

Butterfly Delight
by ShutterPug

Comment by karmat:
Another thing (in addition to what I said in the forum thread) is that the composition seems a bit off balanced and static to me. It almost looks haphazard. The dandelion on the left pulls the sense of composition that way, and the butterfly is primarily centered, so there is a conflicting sense of movement there. IF you could have cropped it so that the bfly was lower in the framer and more to the right, I think there might have been more of a sense of balance because then the bfly and the other flower (the one that is partially cropped out) would actually complement and balance eachother.

As for the focus issue, I have to say that upon first, short glance, it looks focused. But, when you look, the butterfly was apparently moving because it does look like a bit of motion going on. I think a faster shutter speed would have helped here. you were shooting (according to your input) at f/32 which I think could have been backed down a lot (even to f/11), and you would have made for a shallower dof, BUT you could have used a much faster shutter speed and that would have frozen the butterfly better.

The exposure is good on the butterfly, but the flowers look almost a bit hot.

Just my thoughts

Butterfly Delight
by ShutterPug

Comment by Beetle:
Since you asked in a forum thread...... I didn't vote, but here are my guesses to explain the lower votes (I don't necessarily agree with everyone, I'm just guessing people's reasons):

1) Butterfly shots are very common
2) Some butterflies are much more colorful than this one
3) The OOF issues
4) Whilst the background is slightly blurred, the whole photo is still very busy and the subject doesn't stand out from it all.

Butterfly Delight
by ShutterPug

Comment by bassbone:
as stated in my comment during voting - the head/eyes appear out of focus. the rest of the image is sharp. my guess is this little butterfly was busy moving around and the lack of sharp focus was observed where it was moving.

because of this - i think it really cost you in scoring. as two of the comments mentioned it, i am sure others noticed it as well. by the way - i gave it a 6 during voting (this is was below my average score given of 6.67 in the challenge)

pouting fishy
by ShutterPug

Comment by vxpra:
Looks like an Oscar. Not the best photos here.

Knik River
by ShutterPug

Comment by Ann:
Nide. I like how the line of the river leads to the mountain.

Knik River
by ShutterPug

Comment by raish:
Very beautiful. I'm not so sure about the call of the wild, though. I think I get more of the fear of the wild from this. As in wild is wild and it's not easy on humans. I guess that means I got a fair bit of feeling out of the picture. No mean feat. :-)