That is no country for old men
by gmink

Comment by nygold:
Cool shot and fits the challenge to a "T".
One of my higher picks.

That is no country for old men
by gmink

Comment by armando_m:
impressive capture !!!

hope it didn't catch you

Bootlace
by gmink

Comment by jgirl57:
Hey, its a bootlace! Thanks title for giving the game away......

Like how sharp this is

Bootlace
by gmink

Comment by texdon:
Without looking at the title, this appears to be a close-up (rather than a macro) of some rope.

Vintage paint
by gmink

Comment by Jules1x:
*Greetings from the Critique Club*

Just your luck to get a critique from me twice in a week, on two somewhat similar images. (Sorry I can't throw it back in the mix to let you hear someone else's thoughts on this image. But I'll try to be original.)

From glancing through your portfolio, you excel at finding creative examples of challenge topics. I love this kind of stuff, but it doesn't appear these types of images often land on the front page. I however love the thoughtfulness and uniqueness of images like this.

Compositionally, I think your image works. You have nice texture and colors and areas where I see movement. I especially like how the peeling paint kind of rains down from the top of the photo, that was great planning but possibly too subtle to be appreciated by voters moving quickly.

Technically I think your image is strong. There is sharpness at the edges of the peeling paint, although it a bit compressed perhaps. I wonder what focal length you used. Were you zoomed in or did you crop the photo? When I look closely at the edges of that peeling paint it seems a bit of texture is lost. I like the shade of red, and the gray and white are a nice contrast to the red.

You image certainly met the challenge IMO, and you had several very high scores - so nicely done. It appears that most of those in top ten were images of objects that people identified as vintage, and I suspect your subtle take on the challenge just didn't lead to top scores by the masses. But I do not see any obvious weaknesses to your image overall.

Keep shooting and submitting. It was a pleasure spending time with your photo.
Julee

A place for reflection
by gmink

Comment by Pangurban:
Pretty shot. I think I'd have liked to have had one of the subjects featured more strongly such as either the water or the tree.

A place for reflection
by gmink

Comment by jgirl57:
This is so relaxing....

already voted.

Long forgotten1
by gmink

Comment by Bear_Music:
Greetings from the Critique Club

On the plus side here, the image meets the challenge perfectly. The exposure and focus are accurate, and you've kept the camera squared vertically so the geometry of the framework is not distorted.

Unfortunately, there are a handful of negatives as well: the framing of the shot is awkward (the top of the structure is cut off), the lighting is very bad (too flat), and the post-processing lacks punch. On the framing issue, I realize you probably had to cut off the top to keep things squared up from where you were shooting. The answer would be to zoom out to a wider angle or move the camera back. If this gives too much foreground, then you's crop that.

As far as the lighting goes, this appears to have been shot near high noon, and that's just not working. If you look at the light-colored block lower left, see how it's as bright on the top as on the front? See how the cylinder behind it is totally flat-lit, no modeling? That's hurting you throughout. If the light had been low and to the left or right, it would have been much better. One of the major keys to becoming a "better" photographer is coming to the realization that you are not "photographing subjects", you are "photographing light".

Yes, that's right. Without light, there is no photography. In a very real sense, the "subjects" exist only to reveal the light. So I would recommend cultivating an awareness of light and how it interacts with the environment as a major element in making stronger images.

As far as post processing goes, I don't know what software you use, but to the extent possible just learning to burn and dodge with that software will allow you to darken foregrounds and skies and open up shadow areas where you want to maintain detail, and touches like this make an image carry more visual impact.

Robt.

Pushing pollen
by gmink

Comment by cowboy221977:
Hello from the critique club.

Let me start with what I like about your image.1st of all subject matter. You lucked out and got an excellent subject. Subject can make or break an image. Next I love the vivid colors. That is both good and bad for this image.

Now for the other stuff. I mentioned the vivid colors. The bad aspect of that in this challenge was the lack of purple. I do have to agree with the commenters below that the primary color here is red. I am sure that hurt your score pretty badly. I also think the pollen on the petals is a little distracting.

I do like the picture overall, but maybe not for this challenge. Keep it up. Good job

Pushing pollen
by gmink

Comment by jgirl57:
this is very cool well done

commenting only