Sky whisper to Earthby
KliopatraComment by Artifacts: Welcome to DPC! Hope you have a great time and learn a lot.
Positives:
The reflection of clouds and grasses in the calm water surrounded by lily pads is the the best part of this image. Showing the expanse of lily pads is good as well.
Technicals:
Generally speaking the technical quality of this image needs work. On a sharpness sensitive LCD monitor it is slightly over sharpened and shows some "jaggies" along the edges of the blades of grass but no haloing.
It is taken from a "snapshot" perspective, the green color is weak and the image lacks a central theme and a specific object for the viewer to look at and focus on. It leaves the viewer asking, "What else is there?". Your image is like a nice background without a subject.
The Challenge:
This particular landscape challenge operated under expert rules and because of that voters had a higher level of expectation for technical quality than other challenges and that hurt your image in scoring. Yours is also not a classic landscape vista and some voters probably faulted you for that as well.
You scored 5.1 which is about .6 below the average score given for the challenge. That means voters felt it was below average. I agreed and gave your image a 6 which to me means below average but not a complete falure. I tend to score higher than the group, that is all. I agree with the group assessment.
Suggestions:
There is lots you can do to improve this image but will probably require reshooting. The main thing is perspective and composition. You might consider a much closer up picture to the grasses and lily pads taken from a shallower angle, say 15 degrees or less to the horizontal, maybe even show some sky. Then compose the picture such that one of the grasses and/or lily pads become dominent objects in the composition and serve to attract more viewer attention. Be sure to retain the nice refections you have in your submission. Darkening the greens may be more pleasing and attractive to the eye and adding some dodge and burn to give it more depth and adding a subtle darkening vignette around the whole composition might look nice.
You might want to study some of the top finishing images in challenges to get an idea what viewers like. If you live in Giza where this picture was taken then I'm sure you can find a lot of great landscape subjects to photograph.
Good luck and have fun!
Photographer found comment helpful.
