Exploring Lava Tube Caves
by gbautista87

Comment by BJokerud:
Yeah I see the relevance, and the editing is nice, but I quite don't get where I want to.

Last Flame Standing
by gbautista87

Comment by JulietNN:
Hi from the Critique Club,

You asked for your shot to have an in depth comment from a member of the Critique Club.

An interesting shot and description, on DPC you learn something new every day!

There is something about this shot, that feels odd. I believe for me it is the burnt out matches. The burnt out matches are brilliant, but it almost seems as though they where very over sharpened and you have halos around them. They are almost disconnected from picture. I am not sure if this was caused by the sharpening or if it is the white background.

Talking of white backgrounds, you flame is almost lost within the background, but in saying that if you chose a black one then the burnt out ones would not show.

I think that this is and was a very hard subject to photograph and I think you did amazingly well with it.

Last Flame Standing
by gbautista87

Comment by thilom:
I think a darker background would have given a better effect. The lit match is almost lost in the image.

Last Flame Standing
by gbautista87

Comment by MrE:
Awesome idea! Love it!

Last Flame Standing
by gbautista87

Comment by ineedauniquename:
very very good

Last Flame Standing
by gbautista87

Comment by retiredPhil:
The flame gets lost on the stick

Last Flame Standing
by gbautista87

Comment by richhansen:
Amazing how creative the DPC folks are !! Very interesting, very creative.

Morning Coffee
by gbautista87

Comment by Chinarosepetal:
Critique Club

Hi Garret :)

First impressions
Interesting depth of field, nice tones.

On reflection
Still lovely tones, good composition and meets the circle challenge well. The shallow depth of field works well to emphasise the focus of your image. The loss of detail in the hands is unsettling, a commenter mentioned noise reduction and I agree that it does look like that has been heavily applied, however as it's not in your PP notes it must be as a result of the shallow DOF and the overhead flash. The other unsettling thing is the lack of catchlight in the coffee, again it could be explainable by the set up, but the two things combined give an unreal feel to the image. Sorry if that sounds like I think the image is fake, just sometimes a paticular set up of lighting, aperture etc works better than others. Some of your commenters liked the softness so you can see we're in the area of subjectivity here ;)

Overall
A nicely toned and composed image that fits the challenge well. The softness of parts of the image will appeal to some and not to others.
:)

Morning Coffee
by gbautista87

Comment by liberty:
Nice comp, 5

Morning Coffee
by gbautista87

Comment by nzbayleys:
good shot - nice softening