Sunset: Family heading to the pond
by mpemberton

Comment:
Good concept, an image of a mother protecting her young. Side angle works well.

A series of technical issues hurt this image. The centered composition, though not bad, might be more visually appealing if the you applied a different compositional arrangement such applying the rule of thirds. By far the most interesting part of the image is the ducklings and they should be highlighted as much as possible. A closer crop of the ducklings would show the viewer more detail.

The colors seem weak, particularly the green of the grass. It also looks like the shutter speed was slow because one of the ducklings is out of focus due to movement. A wider aperture at a faster shutter speed would have helped. You might consider light dodging of the rear duckling to bring out more detail out of the shadows.

Lastly, the grass kinda has that digital "fuzzy oversharpened" look. I struggle with overcoming that in a lot of my images. One way is to duplicate the background to another layer, apply gassian blur to soften the image and reduce the opacity of the burred layer to around 20% or so. That takes some of the edge off the fine detail in the grass.

Disorder in the Family
by Loki

Comment:
Interesting use of desat to draw attention to your main character in the image. It is unclear what people are looking at but it does not appear to be the boy. Fits the challenge.

The white dress and blouse are overexposed and should be burned to try to get more detail. Horizon needs to be level. This wrong horizon shows up three distinct ways. One is the people all appear to lean to the right. A second is the apper to get shorter moving from left to right. and lastly the background wall shows a strong downward right tilt.

Siblings At The River's Edge
by beautyqn25

Comment:
Touching subject taken from an interestng perspective. Very strong and well composed. B&W works well.

Fits the challenge topic exceptionally well. In general it is technically well done. Theer are a couple hot spots on the image you might consider burining in. One is at the upper left corner and the other are a couple spots on the left side child's pants. While you are burining in things you might consider additional dodge and burn to add more tecxture to the tocks and water. It will give the image more visual impact.

Knight
by esdarby

Comment:
The perspective and composition is generally good. The yellow/orange color in the background adds visual interest to the image. It has low noise. General technical quality is decent.

Ironically, the incredible strength of the other images entered in this challenge may have had a slight negative impact on your score, but not lots.

It isn't so much that the DOF is super shallow but it is where it is centered that hurts. Almost always you want the eye to be center focused, even with a chess piece. Yours is center focused on the forehead. That is a fault.

The background, though dark, is still distracting because it has detail that makes the viewer wonder what is back there. Anything that detracts from the main subject should be eliminated from the composition. All elements in an image should always support the main subject.

The biggest distraction is the brownish shadow on the piece itself. Whether it is real or not, the browness and shape of it looks unnatural. The viewer really can't figure out what the heck it is. However, it is distinct from the nice black shadow on the right. The brown color is not appealing and it sorta looks like bad burning to most viewers.

Message edited by author 2005-07-12 16:01:10.

Darkness
by arsenal

Comment:
Nice solid black background. Good use of the rule of thirds and framing is fine. In general, the exposure looks OK. Black and white is a good choice.

The weakness of this image is not so much in technical quality as it is in composition and content. Your image will fail to make a connection with most viewers. The reason is that it lacks a clear and visible meaning. Every photograph must make a connection to the viewer.

There is nothing wrong with the viewer having to figure out what an image means. The greatest photographs ever taken make people think. But it is the duty of the photographer to provide enough reasons for them to care. Yours does not.

From the image title you hint the main subject may be in a melancholy mood. But by looking at the picture the guitarist could just be having a good time jamming as far as we can tell. If you included their face it would go a long way toward the viewer understanding what this image is supposed to mean. An anguished face would make a strong viewer connection.

The distant objects in the background are indiscernable. As such of most viewers will find them to be major distractions and only contribute to their confusion as to what this image is supposed to be about.

Practically every darkened image of a musician strumming a guitar is blurry. The first 100 or so times you see blurry muscians work, but after that if comes across as an old, overused technique unless captured in a new or unique way. If you are going to show motion blur then design or capture it in a dramatic way to show a clear and purposeful meaning to the motion. Otherwise, the viewer just assumes the photographer doesn't know how to take a clear picture.

In terms of photography it is not a bad picture technically, but it is a confusing one and that hurts.

Yuma Territorial Prison
by Artifacts

Comment:
Comment removed...

Edit for bad humor. :)

Message edited by author 2005-10-31 23:11:30.

Underground station
by aKiwi

Comment:
Congrats on winning a ribbon, even if through DQ. You are right, the colors are what makes this entry and you were smart to take the picture because of it. It is a super picture.

The Man on the Phone
by redmoon

Comment:
David... Sorry about the DQ! No matter what you do you can't get an uncontested winner! Just know you are a really good photographer and that some image you really don't care much about or you don't put much work into will probably win you the blue ribbon... That is what happened to me. Keep trying!

The Man on the Phone
by redmoon

Comment:
Congrats on the ribbon! Sure hope this time someone doesn't come along and try to claim you ripped off their photograph again for this entry like they tried with your telephone booth ribbon winner. :)

Road to the Tetons
by postoakinversion

Comment:
Congratulations. I thought this was the best example of leading lines in the challenge and I'm glad to see it got rewarded as such with a ribbon.