Golden Flight
by Phocal

Comment by tate:
ominous and theatric. Lovely shapes, tones, and moment caught.

GBH
by Phocal

Comment by sidpixel:
Hello from the Critique club

An excellent image that meets the challenge well

I can understand and relate to your comments wholeheartedly, I am equally confused by the voters reaction having just commented an image that scored a lot higher than yours and yet this both in terms of the challenge and the image itself is the better image in my opinion. You've certainly filled the frame well here and you've nailed the sharp focus that is essential for this type of image. Your manipulation of the image with the canvas is only faintly evident with the benefit of your description which, of course, the voters don't have the benefit of. The difference in the canvas part is such that it would be perfectly acceptable in an original image. I love the twin shadows from his crest on the back of hos neck, I think you've made an excellent job of everything about the image and I commend you.

Thank you for your entry.

GBH
by Phocal

Comment by Lydia:
7 from me.

Deep in the Heart of Texas
by Phocal

Comment by snaffles:
Greetings from the Critique Club!

Ooh this is a dicey one, very out there and literally in your face, almost to the point of being too much. This verging-on -androgynous image is already very provocative, and the w/a fisheye only highlights that fact! The exposure and comp are fine and everything is sharp, but I can see you already knew this image might turn off the voters, and sadly it did. Had you used this same technique with a safer image, you probably would have done much better, but this is the kind of image that does take guts to enter, and I am glad that you took that risk.

So keep on shooting and don't be afraid to push the boundaries and comfort zones of DPCers!

Susan

Pleasure Wheel
by Phocal

Comment by Jules1x:
Greetings from the Critique Club.

First off a lovely image. You have a ferris wheel on the ocean with dramatic clouds. Pretty iconic and awesome. That said I also did not feel an extreme dynamic range when I looked at this image. There are highlights that are quite white and there are also very dark tones in the birds and on the ferris wheel, but for some reason this just did not connect as highly to HDR as some of the other images in the challenge did for me.

I have to say that I'm pretty unsophisticated when it comes to HDR, so while I knew to look for wide dynamic range and whites and blacks, but unfortunately I was a voter who really probably should not have been voting since I probably really did not understand what I was looking at. This was still one of the images I thought was really good and I gave a 6 during challenge.

Luckily it appeared there were many more voters who did understand the difference made with bracketed merged images, and you were rewarded for your submission despite my failure to fully connect.

Nice work. Thank you for allowing me this weak critique where I was able to think about the challenge topic and learn a little something, even as you probably did not get much out of my rambling.

Julee

Deep in the Heart of Texas
by Phocal

Comment by mitalapo:
well chosen lens and subsequent processing to produce a bold statement

GBH
by Phocal

Comment by tanguera:
Lovely question mark :)

Pleasure Wheel
by Phocal

Comment by tnun:
live music and geese/cormorants/pelicans! what's not to enjoy? well composed.

Pleasure Wheel
by Phocal

Comment by Kodak:
Interesting

Deep in the Heart of Texas
by Phocal

Comment by Kodak:
Interesting