overlordby
tangueraComment by aliqui: I'm gonna be brutally honest here, it was the processing of this image that kept it out of the 6s. In my opinion, this doesn't live up to the quality you normally produce. Normally your photos are crisp, clean, and carefully processed to perfection. That is not the case for this photo.
If I lean way back in my chair (or squint), this photo looks pretty good. I can see where you were trying to take it with the contrast and the colors. Unfortunately, it looks messy when viewed normally. By messy, I mean a couple things:
1. The amount of processing that was done to it has reduced the sharpeness. Or maybe this was a crop? Noise cleaner maybe? I'm not sure what the cause is, but except for the edges of things, everything else is fuzzy. Look at the tops of the buildings, and then look at the building's main structure. You could cut a tomato on the building edges, but the buildings themselves aren't equally as crisp.
2. A heavy hand appears to have been used in the burning.
Overall, it has many of the qualities that many complain about "Topaz" images. I don't know if you used Topaz on this, but it certainly has that "Topaz overdose" appearance to me. I've done it many times myself with much the same voter results.
Photographer found comment helpful.