Anticipation
by spiritualspatula

Comment:
Yikes! His eyes look so human - presumably a ring flash? And the great big shaggy beard... great expression, great composition, great lighting. Top 10.

Blue eyes
by sarampo

Comment:
Top ten image. Nice use of desat though my only criticism is that there are some thin red blood vessels visible at the left hand edge. I would have liked to see them desaturated too as they add nothing to the image. There is also a speck of purple/red at the crux of the eyelid on the far edge which makes it look untidy. Overall though, these are minor criticisms and this is still a great image. Good luck for a strong finish.

Busy as a bee
by DrAchoo

Comment:
Sometimes bugs are overdone in macro challenges, and certainly I've seen enough praying mantis over the last couple of months to last me a lifetime. The beauty of this shot is that it's an action shot on a fast moving (small) subject, and you have the focusing absolutely perfect. Clearly there is nothing "staged" about this shot, and I bet you waited a long time to get one so sharp. The colour palette is great, and the border really add something too (normally I don't like borders much). Great lighting, and a nice overall balance. Top ten, possibly top 5, maybe even a ribbon. Good luck for a strong finish.

Joy!
by tanguera

Comment:
This is one of my top ten images. Great imagination and creativity. The different pin colours give the image a nice balance, and you've captured the title perfectly. The lighting of the face under the hat is spot on. It there is anything critical to say, it's that the two red pins bottom left are in the plane of focus and my eye keeps getting drawn to them. I think it would be perfectly legitimate in advanced editing to blur these two out a bit so that they are not so much of a draw. That said, it still a great shot.

The Warriors Enter
by DrAchoo

Comment:
222nd? You were robbed. I liked this one too!

00:00
by Paul

Comment:
I never got the chance to comment during voting. This was one of my ribbon choices. I gave this a 9. Still a strong finish, so congrats for that. Raphaella is drop-dead gorgeous and you have captured her beautifully. I didn't even notice this was a model you had used before so just went back to check the other entries. Sure enough, all 3 look completely different. I gave the other two a 10 and an 8, so clearly you and her have something good going on! LOL. On reflection though, although I scored this one in the middle, it's my favourite of the 3!

Sweating For Safety
by Jon_H

Comment:
I think for this sort of shot to be successful, you really need a larger water drop in which to get the reflection. As it stands it's really hard to see the definition reflected in the droplets that you were aiming for. Also, I'm not sure about the crop... I think if you go for a narrow image like this, just sticking a "letterbox" border on it can help flesh it out a bit. Finally, I think the lots of little drops detract the eye from the couple of larger drops in which the reflections are. Maybe instead of using a mister, you could have used an eyedropper or similar?

Nuts for Brunch
by patches

Comment:
I'm a bit of a sucker for bird photos, but I feel that this only briefly holds my interest. The reason I think, is that it seems to be a massive cropof an image where the bird is only a small part of a larger image. I'm led to this belief because of the apparent lack of resolution/clarity and a great deal of noise. This shot might fare better in a nasic challenge, but when it's up against people using advanced editing techniques, I think that this image would need degrees of noise reduction and sharpening in order to compete. On the up side, I do like the contrast between the defocussed yellow background and the bird, and the capture of it having the nut in it's beak is spot on. It would be interesting to see the original of this to see how much is cropped. I may be way off.

Synthesis
by bcenu

Comment:
I gave this an 8, making it one of my top 10 images. I do however think that the flower centre is maybe a tiny bit oversharpened? Hard to say I guess without seeing the original. It seems as though the point of best clarity is on the flower centre in the bottom edge of the frame. I would prefer the ladybug to be the point of best clarity, especially as it sits on the perfect intersection of the horizontal and vertical thirds.

Mushrooms
by 4trtone

Comment:
Intruiging setup. This is where my photography lets me down - I tend to find something to take a photo of, rather than "create" something unique. I gave this a 9 (one of my top 3 images) though I still feel something more could be done with the bottom of the frame. I feel as though the crop is just a bit tight onto the mushroom. Great image overall though.