Touching The Surface of The Natural Mirror
by sz1_

Comment by amyrh:
I love how clear the reflection is and how the sunset is in the background. Great pic. 8.

Touching The Surface of The Natural Mirror
by sz1_

Comment by ltaylor:
Perfect 10

Touching The Surface of The Natural Mirror
by sz1_

Comment by aimee_skittles:
The water is sooo smooth. It does create just a perfect reflection. So beautiful. I love the placement of the subject, showing off the beauty of the sunset.

Touching The Surface of The Natural Mirror
by sz1_

Comment by Bear_Music:
I wonder how may people thought I did this one? Me being the skiff guy and all... Lovely work, high score from me.

Touching The Surface of The Natural Mirror
by sz1_

Comment by LoveSpuds:
Now thats a sharp image. Great reflection and nice colour, well done!

Branches of Life
by sz1_

Comment by strangeghost:
Greetings from the Critique Club
by strangeghost

COMPOSITION
The composition of this photo just doesn't feel right to me. The hand is awkwardly placed behind the vine. The hand is apparently reaching for the "branch" but that isn't communicated readily. Additionally, the surface (floor, table, whatever) doesn't add anything to the composition and likely subtracts from it. Instead, I would have tried suspending the branch in front of a neutral background - black or white would have worked - and had the hand coming in from either left or right. And then there's your border. I generally don't like borders that call attention to themselves. The best border is the one you don't notice because it's subtle, understated, and blends perfectly with the image. Yours is a bit conspicuous.

TECHNIQUE
The two primary things I'd mention here are your choice to light the scene using flash, and the use of autofocus. The flash caused stark shadows to appear and detracts from the elegant simplicity of the vine. Using auto focus at f/4 for this scene forces your rebel to chose a focus point somewhat arbitrarily (it seems to have selected the stem leading to the large leaf on the left). Instead, stop down your aperture a bit to add some depth of field, and manually focus to keep as much of the plant in focus. Now it could be that your intention was to blur the background and hand. Fair enough, but I would still recommend manually focusing in a situation like this so you can choose what part of your foreground is highlighted by sharp focus.

You didn't say how you achieved the selective de-saturation, but whatever method you used, it worked well. Maybe just de-saturating all the channels except green??

OVERALL IMPACT
As shot, I think it's a fairly low impact picture, as was reflected by your 5.2 score. It just didn't resonate with the voters and make them stop and stare. I think you have achieved an artistic shot, but keep working on drama and pure visual appeal. Make the voters stop and stare with their jaws on the floor.

Touching The Surface of The Natural Mirror
by sz1_

Comment by kirbic:
Beautiful. Perfect composition, great timing with the light.

Touching The Surface of The Natural Mirror
by sz1_

Comment by jmosher:
Very nice.

Touching The Surface of The Natural Mirror
by sz1_

Comment by Jutilda:
I've never seen such a perfect reflection before. It truly is like it's sitting on a mirror. If you turn your head and look at it sideways, it's almost like a butterfly!

Touching The Surface of The Natural Mirror
by sz1_

Comment by roonie:
This is my favorite one so far! Great job. I gave it a ten.