'Flower Power'
by talj

Comment by violinist123:
Grats!

'Flower Power'
by talj

Comment by ursula:
YEAH NATALYA! Heartfelt congratulations on your ribbon in this very difficult challenge.

'Flower Power'
by talj

Comment by banmorn:
Great lighting and image, Natalya! Big congrats on your ribbon!

'Flower Power'
by talj

Comment by msdoubletrouble:
woooooohoooooooooooooo go "femme fetale" you rock!!!! nice shot :-)

congrats!!!!!

'Flower Power'
by talj

Comment by rinac:
WOOHOO!!!!! Congratulations!!! I had a feeling about this one :)

'Flower Power'
by talj

Comment by KarenNfld:
Very cute, well shot, in my top 10.

Ring of Light
by talj

Comment by jfwolpert:
i love this and think i was one of your 8's! i agree with the comment on the too much sky tho.

Ring of Light
by talj

Comment by msdoubletrouble:
very nice shot. After a couple of drinks I'd be UNDER the boat..lol...course maybe underneath with have some nicely textured barnicles ;-) lol... I like this shot and found your critique club comments very interesting. I agree on the sky part and building distortion. Bert Monroy has a tutorial at his website on correcting building distortion in photoshop. Idea and composition are great here. If the building weren't in picture my first thought was bicycle wheel. good job woman!!! go "femme fetale"

Ring of Light
by talj

Comment by aimeethetoo:
Smooth and lovely lights and you finished in the top half of the crowd! Not bad (50th percentile or better is my personal goal for Free Study's since the competition is always soooo strong)!

Ring of Light
by talj

Comment by ambaker:
Critique Club Review:

Interesting picture...

A couple of the highlight areas are burned out from the long exposure. However, it isn't all that serious and with the time exposure needed to get the effect you wanted, it would be diffiult if not impossibe to do much about it.

One thing I do keep noticing, is the angle of the picture. When you angle the camera up, to take the picture of a tall object, distortion occurs that makes the objects turn into trapezoids. The building on the left should be a rectangle. Instead, it appears to lean into the center of the frame. As this is an advanced editing challenge, I believe it would be within the rules to reverse the distortion. Some software packages have built in tools for this kind of correction. The other alternative is to find a vantage point where the eleveation is equal to the hight of the center of the frame, which would allow the camera line of sight to be level.

I would have to agree with one of the other commenters that there is a little too much empty sky above the subject. Were there stars or a moon visible that night, it would help. Otherwise I'd recommend a little tighter crop.

Focus is quite good, especially for a one minute photo.

I like this picture. Well done!