Pushing pollen
by gmink

Comment by Cory:
Nice color spray - but I'm afraid it's more of a red than purple.. :(

The blown whites don't help matters either, and generally animals are better from the front. Even bee ass is still ass. ;)

Shadows on the wall
by gmink

Comment by Jules1x:
Hi. I am happy to provide this critique as part of the critique club.

It appears from looking at the scores that your image was rather divisive - there were a lot of high scores and a number of lower scores. I suspect this stems from some comparing your image to what might be a classical description of B&W Still Life - a black and white image taken of an object (likely on a table or platform) taken using light to obtain a nice dynamic range and soft/pleasing shades of gray. Since the challenge description did not limit images to photos of an object, your image, at least in my opinion, does meet the challenge description. But your image is certainly unusual and non-traditional, and in challenges with lots of classical examples available for comparison, the non-traditional isn't always universally appreciated.

As I spend time considering you image, I certainly find it interesting and very artistic - almost abstract. There is a wonderful diagonal pattern of light, and there is some nice texture on the surface being photographed. The spots (damage?) also add interest to the image. What the image is lacking for me is a solid subject, or framed composition where I can focus my attention. My eyes kind of wandered around and enjoyed what they saw, but I felt myself looking for purpose. The uneven white areas were spread out enough that they just didn't strike me as a focal point for a still life photo.

Your image was black and white, however the transitions were somewhat harsh. It appears that the highest scoring images in this challenge had very smooth transitions from blacks to grays to white. That is not to say that your image is not good, indeed I enjoyed it very much, and I appreciate the creativity and artistic vision of this image. Hopefully you were pleased with the two 10's that you received.

Thank you for your entry. I hope to see more of your work.

Blue window
by gmink

Comment by Mike:
critique club:

i can understand your thinking, not sure it works for me.. its missing something to draw me in. there is a lot to look at but no real focal point

Blue window
by gmink

Comment by Mike:
critique club:

i can understand your thinking, not sure it works for me.. its missing something to draw me in. there is a lot to look at but no real focal point

Window reflection
by gmink

Comment by Mike:
critique club:

a bit over saturated, good use of the windows for distortion. I'd prefer to see the perspective of the windows straightened out and my eye goes to that the over the glass reflections

Pushing pollen
by gmink

Comment by DianaB:
Nice close up. Not enough purple for the challenge IMHO.

Help
by gmink

Comment by Mike:
critique club

not sure how a selfie fares with a critique... not really sure how to approach this...

white balance is off, cropped of the left hand... otherwise its an interesting image, i just don't get what the intent is.

Off his fingertips
by gmink

Comment by levyj413:
I feel like other entries really used the long side to good advantage. This is more of a normal aspect ratio, with the result that it's such a small photo that I can't see much. Instead of saying "wow - cool use of a really long, thin photo," I want to see this enlarged.

Off his fingertips
by gmink

Comment by Pangurban:
Clever capture but I wasn't sure it really met the challenge.

Off his fingertips
by gmink

Comment by aliqui:
For this image to work in this challenge, I think there needs to be a lot more vertical pixels. As it is now, it just looks like a tiny image rather than an image that works best in say, 800 x 160, which is what I think the intent of the challenge was.