Friendship
by stupot

Comment by Evaan:
Beautifully done. I like how everything is out of focus but the main flower. Nice color.

Friendship
by stupot

Comment by SamuelAdams:
This is really interesting. It's as if it plays a trick on your eyes. I don't think I've ever seen this type plant before. I think this has possibilities !

Friendship
by stupot

Comment by Bud:
Nice photo and use of DOF, just slightly dark.

Friendship
by stupot

Comment by Portia_N:
Neat Shot!

Friendship
by stupot

Comment by mawear:
The bright purple tips make it look like it's exploding off my screen. Could the DOF be a little greater so the whole thistle? could be in sharp focus?

Friendship
by stupot

Comment by vtruan:
wonderful flower/seedhead, but a bit too mdistracting grain in background to me

Sail away
by stupot

Comment by HBunch:
*Critique Club*

Well, if you didn't find the 9 great comments you have already received as helpful, then I'm not sure I'll be able to add anything useful myself, since I tend to agree with all commenters thus far.
The first thing that jumps out to me is the tilted horizon. You have a very strong horizontal line in the background and not only does it cut straight through your main subject, but it's also tilted. What this does, is it makes the photo look like it was not only quickly composed, but also that not a lot of time was spend post processing, which is important, especially on a photo like this.
This photo suffers greatly from noise too. See the grain in the sky? This could be improved by running it through a program intended to reduce noise. Neatimage is one such program and can be downloaded //www.neatimage.com/ there. There is also a program called noiseninja, however I have had no experience with that.
While there is contrast in the photo, I'm not sure I would consider it as HIGH contrast. There really isn't any dark darks in the photo, except for the guys shorts, and that's such a small portion of the photo, that i'm afraid that it doesn't make for high contrast of the bright sail.
Focus seems a bit soft, but this could be due to the high noise in the photo. We don't really get much detail out of the man on the boat or the man in the water, and I find him a bit of a distraction.
A bit of brightness/contrast and some hue/saturation adjustments could help out the colors a bit. Definately wouldn't hurt to try.
~Heather~

Sail away
by stupot

Comment by owen:
Good idea and definitely high contrast but I think it would have looked better with a level horison.

Sail away
by stupot

Comment by Tammer:
Not bad. I wonder if this would have greater impact if the main focus wasn't almost dead centered?

Sail away
by stupot

Comment by neophyte:
Crisper shot would've worked better. The idea is cool and I love boat photos. The person swimming somewhat distracts from a pretty good comp.