Hung up
by snaffles

Comment by MeMex2:
Beautifully captured and processed! 10!

Hung up
by snaffles

Comment by littlemav:
Oh Sweet, humm ok not so sweet for the cowboy, but fanTAStic for us!!!

Hung up
by snaffles

Comment by bmartuch:
Wow, great catch. You can really see the awesome power of the horse. This looks great in b&w.

Hung up
by snaffles

Comment by mariuca:
Incredible!
Amazing shot worth a 10

Hung up
by snaffles

Comment by aliqui:
What a catch...

Simple pleasures...DENIED
by snaffles

Comment by posthumous:

Originally posted by backdoorhippie: I find the execution of the image to fail to show it in a real enough manner to make it work as something truly surreal.

not real enough to be surreal? that is hilarious. you should look up the meaning of a word before deciding if a photo qualifies for it.

Simple pleasures...DENIED
by snaffles

Comment by Tiny:
Congratulations on your fine mind Susan.

Simple pleasures...DENIED
by snaffles

Comment by JakeKurdsjuk:
Susan pinged me with regard to my comment, feeling my "just lots of layers" comment was both unfair and missed the point of the photo. Given that I'm a new member of the critique club she expressed concern that my comment (my emphasis) wasn't in the spirit of that group. In my reply I offered my critique, and I excerpt that portion here for the record.

What probably didn't come across (in my comment) is that when I said that it, "doesn't come together in any real way", I mean that while I get what you're trying to do, it doesn't look like any two things exist on the same plain.

Outside of a little shadow under the doll, everything else looks like it could have been cut from a magazine and pasted on a sheet of construction paper to form a collage. Light direction varies from cut piece to cut piece (back left on the doll, front right on the hand, back right on the tin man, underneath the wings), the edges on some of the elements are not clean or you're missing pieces, and the fact that these disparate elements actually exist in this place of "gloomy sky and barren sand" is barely believable on an individual level, let alone as a group. You made some effort to try and show that these were all sitting on the sand, and it sort of works on the doll, but not for anything else as I see it. And a gloomier sky would have been better as the clouds are a little too white and somewhat mask the other white elements (wings, photo, skull). Perhaps replicate the sky layer with a Multiply blend mode once or twice to darken them?

So, while I get the symbolism of what it is you're trying to say (none of that was lost), I find the execution of the image to fail to show it in a real enough manner to make it work as something truly surreal. And isn't that what I'm supposed to be looking for in a digital photography challenge? And I stand by my comment - the execution looks exactly like you simply stacked a bunch of layers in the proper order and didn't little else to make one layer meld into the other. If that's what you were going for then you nailed it - but it doesn't work for me.

Message edited by author 2014-08-29 09:09:37.

Simple pleasures...DENIED
by snaffles

Comment by herfotoman:
Weird. My mind is saying: "What?" Then I see the next bit, and its: "Eh?" But in a good way for this challenge. This then becomes much more personal than the other hands-with-eyes shots. I really like it.

Simple pleasures...DENIED
by snaffles

Comment by JakeKurdsjuk:
Doesn't all come together in any real way to make it surreal. Just lots of layers.