Straight to Heaven
by cowboy221977

Comment by Melethia:
Kinda meets the challenge but "straight" is probably not the first thing people would say if you asked them what this photo was about. Pretty good exposure for a situation with light and shadow; could use a bit of sharpening to really bring it out well at this small size.

Devils Den Trail-dixie viewing the valley
by cowboy221977

Comment by jomari:
Sweet anticipation? Looks like she's surveying the view before exploring it. We get told that dogs don't have brilliant eyesight but it seems to me that they enjoy observing things as much as we do. Dixie is lucky to be your companion on your outings just as you are lucky too. I look forward to seeing more of her, btw I love her colour.

Devils Den Trail-dixie viewing the valley
by cowboy221977

Comment by roz:
its an excellent shot & its great dixie gets to go everywhere you do ..
i used to take our dog sasha everywhere i went too .. but as she got older, she's nearly 17 now, well she got really smelly .. i wont go on, but i couldnt take her in the car with us anymore ..
i've started taking our little katee out with me now and i really enjoy her company ..!! .. also having a dog with you is like an introduction to perfect strangers which is great .. altho in the ozarks you may not have got that opportunity ..!!
i really like how we get to see what dixie sees .. its like a glimpse into the future .. i can imagine shortly after this shot was taken dixie taking off down that trail .. :)

Fence Line
by cowboy221977

Comment by Lutchenko:
Great use of shallow DOf coupled with the fence making a nice lead line into the pic

file012.gif
by cowboy221977

Comment by Yo_Spiff:
Yuk-Yuk!

Fence Line
by cowboy221977

Comment by Yo_Spiff:
I gave this a 5, but I think I waffled a bit and almost gave it a 4. I suspect other voters are being harder on it. I see some effort to create an interesting composition, however my eye does not go where I think you intended. The large expanse of shrubbery is brighter than the fence and draws my eye instead. A fence around a home is a difficult subject in the first place, as it not terribly interesting by it's nature. A different angle perhaps, or a view from the outside might have helped. Or a skywards view of the fence, shot from the ground. (I'm a big fan of getting really low for a perspective shot.)

Working with just this shot, I'd think perhaps a tighter crop on the fence could benefit the composition, using the "rule of thirds" and some adjustments (such as curves, saturation, contrast & sharpening) could help to pull out some more detail and visual pop from the subject.

file012.gif
by cowboy221977

Comment by glad2badad:
He-he! Love it. :-D

file001.jpg
by cowboy221977

Comment by Art Roflmao:
LOL!

Trying to break the confederate line.
by cowboy221977

Comment by jmsetzler:
Greetings form the Critique Club...

I really think it's sad that only about 1/3 of the participants in this challenge took the time to vote on your image. That's unfortunate :(

This photo didn't really deserve a score of 4.4 to be quite honest. It lacks a high level of visual and/or emotional impact, which is a rather serious requirement to rise to the top of a free study challenge (or any challenge for that matter). The photo does show a carefully composed and well thought out composition though. I can see that it's not just some random image that was captured on a bus ride through a park :) Compositionally, I like what you have done here, but I think the image would be stronger if you had filled the frame a little more with your subject. Another technique that might have provided some more impact would have been to use a longer lens with a larger aperture to blur out the foreground and background to boost the presence of your subject within the frame.

I found the comments you receive rather entertaining as well. The only one that has much merit is the "Lacks wow factor" comment because, in a nutshell, that's the simple reason this photo didn't do well in this challenge. I didn't participate or vote in this challenge either, but if this photo placed at #409 out of 419 total images, the overall quality of images in this challenge must have been fantastic. Your score is probably also skewed because you didn't get an adequate sampling of voters to properly evaluate your image. Sad but true...

The comment about the soldiers is the kind of comment that really bothers me as a photographer. The person who left this appears to be a decent photographer based on his scores and the quality of his images, but this comment, to me, is simply insulting and shouldn't have been provided as it is. I think it's insulting when someone tells you that you should have photographed something other than what you chose to shoot. I'm sure if he was shooting this subject he would have rounded up some soldiers from somewhere or passed up on the shoot because the subject as it is wasn't worthy. Bah...

The comment about flat colors isn't really significant either. Most photos you see that have hyper-saturated colors usually have a good bit of noise from the post processing.

At any rate, don't let the score on this photo get you down...

Trying to break the confederate line.
by cowboy221977

Comment by bassbone:
the composition while obvious in its effort loses a bit without the soldiers - the cannon seems to lose a bit of bite