St Stephens
by KitKat

Comment by popdeepop:
Where is the door? Lower would give the ground level.

Friendship
by KitKat

Comment by mawear:
A pretty rose, but the leaf on the right and part of the stem appear to be in better focus than the flower petals themselves.

Divine Leviathan
by KitKat

Comment by dahkota:
Greetings from the Critique Club!

When requesting critiques on images, please include all shooting information possible (aperture, ISO, shutter). This will enable the critiquer to respond with a more in depth critique.

Since I do not know anything about the conditions in which you took this image, this critique will not be able to touch on that. When taking an image, there are certain things to take into consideration: Composition, lighting,tonal balance, point of view, depth of field, focus.
Composition: I think the composition works in this image. Some argue for a less centered composition but I'm not sure that would serve the image well. I like the space this composition provides. If you expanded the image to include more on the top and right, the subject would be smaller and I think that would detract at this size. However, when printing at a larger size, you might consider that.
Lighting: I think the lighting works. It provides depth, giving highlights to the water.
Tonal balance: The image is a little flat due to lack of contrast. This could easily be fixed in any editing SW. Currently, the image looks slightly foggy - a bump in contrast would remedy this.
Point of View: The point of view works for this image.
Depth of field: everything that needs to be in focus in this image is. Since I do not know your shooting conditions, I cannot comment on any adjustments you might have made.
Focus: Focus works for subject

I think your stop action capture was well done and well timed.

With regard to the challenge:
As one voter said, they knocked you down a point for the title. You will always have voters like this and there were probably dozens more who did the same thing. To score higher, follow the challenge rules exactly. It mentioned D&L; I would have found something that was D&L. Not saying that's the best thing for the image, just a method to achieve a higher score. A bump in contrast would also achieve a higher score. DPC voters prefer contrasty images: blacks and whites (notice the number of comments that referred to black and white). I don't think that this image would be improved in B&W however. The blues tones really work here. I think the two suggestions here would have given your score a .5+ boost.

If you have any questions or comments regarding this critique, please do not hesitate to PM me.

Divine Leviathan
by KitKat

Comment by metoecus:
Increasing the contrast and altering the saturation (either pushing up the blue by +-20% or converting this to B&W) would have given this image a boost.

Divine Leviathan
by KitKat

Comment by neophyte:
Man, talk about digging deep into the dictionary! I love these shots and its a hard capture. A little more contrast may have served you to really make this jump out at you.

Divine Leviathan
by KitKat

Comment by Nobody:
what a unique opportunity.

Divine Leviathan
by KitKat

Comment by angela_packard:
nice capture...where is it at?

Divine Leviathan
by KitKat

Comment by LeeD:
I love whales (all marine life for that matter), but I'm afaid I'm being a bit of a stickler on the rules for this particular challenge point off for on "&" in title. Overall great capture though

Divine Leviathan
by KitKat

Comment by downtherabbithole:
nice concept but this picture doesn't really follow the rule of thirds and that makes it come across as a snapshot and not a photograph

Divine Leviathan
by KitKat

Comment by terje:
Cool, where did you capture this? I wanna see a whale!