Rising (soccer) star
by litbolti

Comment:
I think more light, so you could use a shorter shutter speed to reduce the motion blur woud have helped.

Natural Camoflauge
by autool

Comment:
Nicely camoflauged, but I wish the straw was not so disorderly. Yeah I know, It's dried grass, what are you going to do, but it would still be nice if it added to the composition instead of taking from it.

Alone in the desert
by dimitrii

Comment:
Hmm, second 'moon' this challenge. Seems to be popular.

In the Gym
by magnus

Comment:
Nice idea, but she looks too posed. But I think if you had her actually lift that weight 10 times or so, and snap the shot on the first lift she strained on you would have a better expression. Other than that, the earrings just do not seem to go with the whole gym subject.

Lucky Duck
by candycorn

Comment:
Nice reflection, nice detail, incredible contrast with the reflection of the trees (?) on the water. The only thing I would wish for would be for the duck to be swimming with more sun on it's face.

Is it cheese?
by toddhead

Comment:
It seems too soft to me. More contrast and some sharpening would help I think.

I was actually planning to enter a moon shot in this challenge (see portfolio), but changed my mind. I probably would not have changed it if I had managed to get a shot of the full moon like you did.

Still Useful
by David.C

Comment:
Thanks to all the commenters.

Well, this actually did much better than I expected it to. I had been playing with exposure settings instead of just taking the shot, and I ran out of daylight. This was taken too late in the day for a crisp image, and resulted in needed a bit more light than what was available -- and all I had to use was the on-camera flash. This photo was the best of the bunch composition-wise, but it was not good in contrast and since I am even less experienced with photoshop than I am with my camera I over did it on a number of things. I over sharpened for one, and in an effort to handle the poor lighting I added a lot of noise. Trying to use NeatImage to handle the noise resulted in the loss of nearly all texture.

The nest: yes it was placed -- but I did find it on another of these things (I may live in a farming community, but a farmer I am not). Unfortunately, the nest had been abandoned for a couple of days, and the weather during the taking of the photo and the previous day were much too cold for the eggs to be on there own. Had it been an active nest I would have used a ladder or something to get up to the level, but since it was abandoned I moved it to a similar place with other rusting farm machinery that I could climb up onto. So, while it was placed for the photo, it was actually in such a place to begin with.

Again, thanks to those who commented.

David

heaven's forward progression
by xburnerx

Comment:
This is an interesting scene, but it looks like you were over-zealous with the noise removal and removed all the textures as well. Makes it look too cartoonish.

Alone
by cimarron98

Comment:
I think it would have worked better with the tree in sharp focus and a gradient in the blue of the sky.

Come Fly with Me!
by Artifacts

Comment:
It is a shame the DOF was not large enough to get the wings in focus, or at least in the frame.