A Melancholy Song
by indigo997

Comment:
Wow! This looks very professional. The lighting is great. Somehow it looks to me as if you shot the photo underwater. The girl looks a bit out of this world with the wings. You fulfilled the challenge perfectly because the whole look of the photo seems to convey blue. Some parts of the photo seem to be a bit out of focus (guess it's motion blur because she moved a bit) but this does not harm the photo. Actually it adds to the "out of this world" (heavenly?) look. Only nitpick is the cropped end of the instrument (a mandolin?) but even with that this photo is one of my favourites this week. -stephan

Bubbles
by JamieWillmott

Comment:
I like this photo. Very nice how you captured the bubbles. It also fits the challenge very well because water is one of the things people associate with the colour blue first. In my opinion the focus could be a bit better, especially the lower half looks a bit soft. -stephan

Smooth as ice, Gillette Mach 3 Blue
by f0rce

Comment:
Cool lighting! I'll check back after the challenge to see how you did this. I think it's a bit dark because I can hardly make out the shaver but then again if it would be brighter then the shaving foam wouldn't look so nice. -stephan

Landscape Portrait
by Gordon

Comment:
Great use of selective focus! I think it's a nice idea and very funny because it reminds me how I sometimes walk through the world testing how a certain scene would look through the viewfinder ;-) -stephan

Royal Blue
by Marklane

Comment:
Nice conecpt! You used the contrast of the colours very well. Unfortunately some parts of the stamp (e.g. upper right corner) are a bit out of foucs. Also the red stamp on the upper edge of the photo seems to have a lot of grain. However, I like the photo very much because of the way how you emphasised the blue colour by putting it on the red background. -stephan

Heavy Lifting
by jboling

Comment:
Hi John, don't wonder why you get another critique this late but your photo was assigned to me in context of the Critique Club (maybe your read about that in the forum). So here it goes:

Composition: I like the framing by the tree and the roof on the left and on the bottom. Only this indicates that the helicopter is in a city. It would be better if the roof would have some chimneys or antennas because like it's now it's hard to recognise as a roof and is only a black bar. I think that's why some people suggested to crop it out.
The subject is placed according to the rule of thirds (intentionally or not) and I think it helped the photo because it makes the subject more dynamic and like it just flew into the frame.

Lighting: The backlighting of the sun creates a very magnificent light. But I think it's a bit too much and I would like a shorter exposure. The helicopter which is your actual subject (and not the sun) loses detail, e.g. the rope holding the cargo vanishes in the sky. Of course it would have been perfect if the sun was right behind the helicopter, but I guess it was not possible to tell the pilot to pose for you ;-)

Focus: The focus could be better. It seems that the tree has a better focus than the helicopter. It should be the other way around.

Art: In my opinion the photo fulfills the challenge. It documents an event altough not a very interesting or touching one and I don't think this would make it on the front cover. Backlighting always is a difficult thing in photography and altough it could be improved technically it's an extra point for the effort.

I Made the Cover! (Literally)
by amonteforte

Comment:
Hello Aldo, don'twonder why you get another critique this late,but your photo was assigned to me in context of the Critique Club (maybe you read about that in the forum). So here it goes:

First of all I want to say that it's a bit hard to critique this photo. It's a photo of a photo and as such I won't critique your (very nice) photo of the peacock but the photo of the magazines.

Composition: I like how you used several NGs and the way you placed them a little bit rotated. This makes them look like an ordinary pile of magazines on your desk. To make it look even less staged you could have zoomed out a bit more and shown one or two objects which normally lie on a table, e.g. a pencil or something like that. But I guess you wanted to show as much of the cover as possible.
The dark edge of the table in the upper right corner is a bit distracting. I also think the photo would look better with a bit more space on the left side like on the right side.

Lighting: The light seems to come from the lower right. I like how it creates some shadows giving the photo more depth and making it visible that this is a thicker magazine and not just a sheet of paper. But I think there is a shadow in the lower left corner which is probably you standing before the light source. This makes the cover of the front magazine a bit unevenly lit.

Focus: All is well. As far as I can see everything of the front magazine is in focus.

Art: Maybe it sounds a bit nitpicking but I don't think the photo fits to the challenge. The photo of the peacock would, but the photo of a magazine showing the peacock does not. However, fulfilling the challenge is only one or two points on my scoring scale and considering the high creativity and fun factor I still think it's a good photo.

"House by House", fighting by a worthy house.
by jcof

Comment:
Hello Juan, don't wonder why you get this critique a bit late, but your photo was assigned to me in context of the Critique Club (maybe you read about that in the forum). So here it goes:

Composition: Normally I like "simplicity", i.e. photos which aren't crowded with many different things, one distracting from the other. But in this case I like the chaos. The many different houses, all looking a bit "patched" really make the photo. And when I read the title I immediately knew what kind of story is behind it.
I like the angle you used and how you used the perspective to align the houses in a row and make them disappear in the background.
I don't know how the photo would look when showing a bit of the street, but I imagine that if it was a dusty road maybe with some litter around, that it would add to the photo.

Lighting: You had good lighting conditions. The light was bright enough so that you could use a fast shutter speed and a narrow aperture. I think the shadows on the bottom right of the photo distract a little because everything else is very bright. When I look at the photo as a whole, the bottom right somehow looks like a "blind spot" to me. The blue sky is nice, because is a good contrast to the banners.

Focus: I like that you used a fairly narrow aperture so that there is still much detail in the background and a lot of things to see. I understand the photo that way that you wanted to photograph the whole scene and the banners are not your subject. So a wide DOF makes sense here.
The banners look like they flap in the wind but because of the fast shutter they are still sharp and don't have motion blur. This adds to the feeling that you "froze" the whole scene.

Art: Like RiderGal already said, a human aspect would have made the photo even better, but I know that this is difficult. Overall I like the photo and it fits to the challenge very well. I can definitively see it as a photo to a story in a newspaper.

Youngest Busker
by LadyLin

Comment:
Hi Linda! Finally I get to critique your photo which was assigned to me by the Critique Club (maybe you read about that in the forum). So here it goes:

Composition: It seems you crouched to take the photo from a lower angle. I think that was a good decision because it puts the viewer on eye level with the girl instead of "looking down" on her. This creates a better relationship and makes the photo much more touching.
The background helps the viewer to understand where the photo was taken but I think it's also quite a bit distracting. There are are a lot of things going on and if I imagine if there was just a plain wall, I think this would put more focus on the girl as your subject. The lamppost however is somehow essential. The chains are good, because they lead the viewers eye to your subject.
I agree with Marsha that it would have been better when you didn't crop the violin case.

Lighting: The lighting conditions are just how they are these days... cloudy, no sun and altogether a bit drab. But this only increases the somewhat sad mood of the girl playing her violin. Exposure is good in my opinion.

Focus: F/2.8 already is a wide aperture but I think a wider aperture could have helped to narrow the DOF and blur the background even more. But I don't know if your camera supports that.

Art: You did a good job capturing a certain mood. It is an interesting photo where I personally ask what's the story behind it. So in my opinion you fulfilled the challenge topic.

Faithful Flock to Flag Football
by spiderman

Comment:
Nice photo!I like the motion blur which shows... well the motion ;-) I would have tried to crop a bit ore from the top of the photo to get rid of the empty space. It's not the lamps which I dislike (first thought was that they distract from the photo but they do not. I think they add to the atmosphere). It's the empty space between the players and the lamps which I don't like. Maybe if you would have crouched a little that would have been better because the players in the foreground would fill the empty space. Just a suggestion. -stephan