Searching For Signs Of Intelligent Life...
by GeneralE

Comment:
Talya's Critique (critique club on break)
This is a really beautiful and striking photo. I really like it!
Composition - beautiful, it wouldn't be half as good if you didn't have the extra layer of clouds at the very top. I might have cropped a little more off the bottom as it seems to lose some of the detail that the rest of the photo has.

Lighting - really superb, I love the colors that the light allows here. The extra bright spot at the very top is slightly annoying but not terrible.

Focus - excellent the overall clarity is really nice.

Exposure - great job with this!

Fit the challenge - really well, it's obvious there is no hand of man, and it's beautiful also. Definitely the best cloud picture of the challenge!

Overall - I gave this a 9. I thought it was really lovely! Nice job.

Male Stripper
by GeneralE

Comment:
Talya's critique (Critique club on break)
I understood this photo right from the beginning, even without the title, you could understand what your job was. I'm not sure why you placed where you did, you should have placed better.

composition - I think it's pretty good composition. good use of the rule of thirds and also good use of lines leading to your hand. Nice job on this.

exposure - this must have been really tough. with the bright background you did a fairly good job of getting your hand in there. Wish you could see it a little more clearly but it's understandable why it had to be this way.

Lighting - with the exception of the hand the rest is very well done. Nice job! no hotspots and very equally lit.

focus - perfect, no complaints here. I love the way you can read the whole thing. Excellent job.

fits the challenge - perfect. Excellent job with putting in the human aspect to really show what was happening here. I think it was very understandable what you were trying to do.

overall - i think this was a fairly good picture, it loses maybe a point or two for not being an extremely interesting photo, but the title helps with that. Overall I gave it a 7 very good job!

-Talya

My healing hands: massage therapy
by kosmikkreeper

Comment:
Talya's Critique (Critique Club on break)
first off this is one of the few I gave a 10 for this challenge. Great photo, personally I think it should have placed higher.

Composition - excellent composition... good choice on using three of each hand. I love the sharpest hand as being the one that is just hitting the target! Great job with that. Also a terrific use of the body at the bottom of the pic.

Lighting - wonderful, no hot spots, even lighting. very nice job with that.

Background - I wish the background were solid black, and showed up solidly as black, that is my only comment for that. good choice of not using a distracting background. Excellent use of blank space at the back.

Fits the challenge - one of the best. even without the title, I knew what you were going for and that makes a great picture! I love the human interaction, it's really excellent.

Exposure - great job, everything is perfect

focus - the body looks maybe a tad bit soft, but thats it. Otherwise great job here!

Overall - I love this photo, it got the point across, it's well done, very creative, and great looking! Great job!

-talya

Nature's Bandage
by GeneralE

Comment:
I'm really not sure what you were going for here... I'm guessing you got quite a few of these as comments. Judging by the title, the best I can guess is that this is a picture of a scab, but I highly doubt it. Sorry, but seeing as how I can't tell what I'm looking at. It's not a very pleasing view, there is no point of focus, and the corners are fairly blurry I have to give this a low rating. Email me if you want and let me know what this is. Thanks!

Good and Evil
by jmsetzler

Comment:
Tantalizing! This is a very interesting photo! I love the direction the hands take, almost like a heart shape, and the confomity of the picture is really nice. The focus looks slightly sharper on the body then on the hands which is sort of distracting, but otherwise great job! -8-

belly
by shutterfly

Comment:
This is a great photo, I like the coloring you used for it, very soft and nice. I love the way that the shirt just peeks in from the top, and the jeweled belly button is very modern! Only thing I don't care for is the lighting. The dark rightside bothers me, and detracts from the photo somewhat. -8-

Guidance
by connie

Comment:
This is lovely, great use of lighting etc. Only thing that subtracts from the photo is the fact that it looks like there is some dust or something on your background. Otherwise this is a very touching scene. Nice job! -9-

Two by Four, Eight Feet Long
by DougPaz

Comment:
This is adorable. Great lighting, good composition. Really beautiful. I don't care much for the brown border, but to me this is still a solid 10! Nice job, and good luck!

Endurance
by KarenB

Comment:
Critique Club

Composition - this is as classic as it gets in terms of composition. Really beautiful the way your focus is directly in that top left corner and there your eyes are kind of naturally led around the picture.

Exposure - great job. Love the way you can see every vein in the leaf. Also there are no overtly bright spots which is much easier on the eye.

Color - Though I like the color, it would be interesting to see what this photo would have looked like in black and white, or possibly sepia. I like how the only color in the photo is really your focus though too... just curious to know how it looks in b/w

Focus - great DOF. I love how the focus is purely on the leaves and the branches fade into the background, gives it a more artistic look.

Background - great job with the blur, and nothing in the background is really distracting which is a great quality.

Fit for Challenge - Free Study, anything goes.

Lighting - very nice... no complaints here

Wowability - this is where you lost a few points with me. though this is a well executed beautiful photo there is no real wow to it. The colors are really dull, and nothing really pops out and says look at me.

Final Comments - an excellent photo that is somewhat boring but pleasant. Nice Job.

Driftwood
by Gracious

Comment:
Critique Club

Composition - absolutely beautiful. I love the fact that you do not have the hole in the middle, the offset really adds to the picture.

Exposure - Excellent on the wood that surrounds the entire photo, not so great on whatever is inside the hole, but that is very tough to get the right exposure for both things.

Color - love that you have it in black and white! makes it very dramatic looking, and it would have not been good in color, especially because whatever is in the hole may have drawn away from your subject if it was in a brighter color

Focus - great, no complaints!

Background - what you can see through the hole kind of bothers me.... I can't tell what it is, maybe a lower dof might have blurred this more, or opening the dof more might have helped so you could tell what was inside. It does leave curiosity to the mind though, which is intriguing in a photo.

Fit for challenge - free study, anything goes.

Wowability - this is a really cool photo that catches your eye. You definitely say WOW!

Final comments - great job on this, you got a great placing. It could have been better only by what was in the hole in the wood! Good job and congrats!