Butler County Landmark
by jpochard

Comment:
Your choice of time of day took an "average" subject and propelled it into a work of art. The late sky along with the glowing orangy building really sing. And the green statue on the top is icing on the cake. How can you improve it? The only thing that comes to mind is a person in colorful garb sitting on the platform to the left of the door, but that's not that important. What is important is that your image should finish way up there. Congratulations.

Rush Hour
by moodville

Comment:
Perfect timing! Great composition, exposure nailed. The wisp of smoke from the exhaust falling above the shadowed area adds a special touch. Should finish very high.

Behind the Green Fence
by ccasey

Comment:
Wonderful feeling! Perfect exposure and great catchlight in the closer dog's eyes. The only problem I see with it is that the rear dog should be kess sharp - or not there at all. The merger of the closer dog's head with the same colors in the rear dog detract just a bit, Having said that - it's still VERY high in this challenge.

New Life
by dagaleaa

Comment:
Excellent catch! Should finish high.

heaven's forward progression
by xburnerx

Comment:
Stunning image. The flat lihting was really your friend on this day.

Vibrant Hydrant
by SharonS

Comment:
A painting with your camera. Superb! Way high in the challenge.

Take Cover!
by sjonni

Comment:
Very well done indeed. There's nothing I would suggest you do differently!

Sleepy Nursery
by trying2bstill

Comment:
Your lighting makes this shot. Well seen, composed and shot.

Big & Little
by channeled

Comment:
* Greetings from the Critique Club *

The proportion challenge was a very competitive one with loads of excellent entries. It was a hard one to score well due to the stiff competition.

It's hard to fathom that you got over 250 votes and received just 2 one-word comments! Some of us wish more people would take the time to tell the photographers why they vote the scores they did.

The image you submitted is well done technically - exposure looks to be perfect, composition is reasonable and focus and DoF appear excellent.
(Not to mention that the model is a very attractive one.)

But the image scored low, why? I think it's because of that intangible area we call "impact." The image is a snapshot that needs to be elevated to the level of "wow" somehow.

Here's some ideas:

1) The subject was "proportion" - which could mean you really want to exaggerate the difference in size of the young model and the old tree. Try this: Back up - way back. Make the tree the top 9/10th of the image with the tiny girl at small portion at the bottom.

2) Lay down (yes. I mean it) and shoot UP putting the model in the foreground with a massive tree overpowering her.

3) Shoot just a small part of the hand with most of the rest of the
image being the tree. Maybe the hand would be 1/20th of the space - with tree bark the rest - as "negative space."

I guess the bottom line is to try to "think outside the box" as they say... and shoot accordingly.

I see that you have entered quite a few challenges. Please keep entering and sharing your pictures.

No Passing Zone
by hannafate

Comment:
* Greetings from the Critique Club *

Proportion was a wonderful challenge - with a great many excellent entries. So - don't feel bad if your entry didn't appear to do well in such stiff competition.

The selection of subject matter was excellent - trying to show the relative size of the bike to the train. Your exposure seems to be near perfect.

I have several suggestions on how this image could have been improved - both during shooting and post-processing.

1. Lighting was not your friend. The sun was high in the sky producing no shadows that would have given a better feeling of depth. Due to this, the colors appear very "flat" and uninteresting. You could try taking the same shot in very early morning or late in the afternoon. (Try taking your rides then!) An alternative could be the use of a warming filter, but I doubt if that would have helped that much.

2. Compositionally - the train track comes very close to duviding the picture in half, which makes the shot very static. Consider this, shoot it VERTICALLY with the bike in the bottom (front) of the frame and the train behind. Move in closer to the bike when you do this.

The yellow "no passing" sign is a bit of a detractor that doesn't help tell the proportion story. If you were using it to show the train was passing the bike in a no passing zone, that's a different challenge. As it is, it just attracts un-deserved attention.

3. Post processing - you have a real mess in the sky area. You most likly tried to compress the jpeg a bit too much. Looking at the image properties, it is just 53K bytes. Suggest you try to save the image in a filesize that is closer to the "limit" of 150k. This will eliminate the jpeg compression problems.

I see this is just your second challenge entry - but hope you will continue to share your vision with us.