Days Gone By
by stevieian

Comment:
Very well composed and a refreshing change from all the clock images. ;) Good use of available background detail. Lighting behind your main subject is a little harsh and you overdid noise reduction, which does add interest to the image, but gives the board behind her head a overly digitally grainy appearance.

Old Timer
by silverscreen

Comment:
Generally well composed and not overly post processed. Nice color and no overexposed or underexposed areas.

I'm not into borders and usually ignore them in voting, as I did in this case, but I'm wondering why you chose a thicker white border instead of black? In this case white acts as a distraction and your image probably is suffering a negative impact in voting for those who care about such things.

Evolution
by elizadeb

Comment:
Well composed, intersting lighting and nice soft blur. The biggest negative in this image is the severe case of digital "jaggies" on ther edge of the central arm and that acts as a major distraction.

Tempus Fugit
by jackal9

Comment:
A lot of interesting timepieces in this challenge. Yours is one of them. The use of motion blur is particularly nice. The eye is drawn to the paperclip securing the clock's hands. Unfortunenately it and a few other places in the composition suffer from digital "jaggies" that act as a distraction in this fine composition.

Already lunch time!
by imagine74

Comment:
Very much lke the attention to detail with the chained link fence arrangement. Ironically, in order to achieve that nice fence framing you had to tilt the true horizon - as revealed by building and water background, and the curb where your subject is sitting - clockwise. :( The out-of-focus yellow flowers in the foreground act as a distraction.

Victory Hug
by pmichaud

Comment:
Positive:
Overall this is a fine photojournalistic capture worthy of publication. This image has strong emotion. The BG provides perspective and context to the image far, far better than most. Exposure is good and general photographic technical quality is fine. It gives the viewer much to think about. Is this the wrestler's father happy at a victory? Is it a coach happy over his first ever state champion? It preserves a touching moment in time that can never be captured again which is a fundamental purpose of photography itself.

Technicals:
The BG is a strength. It clearly shows the context generating the reaction we see. Inclusion of the referee is very nice and it clearly shows the gym atmosphere of a wrestling competition. You are perfectly placed for the capture of the moment. That makes this a very fine image.

Though exposure is good the overall lighting is nothing special. The capture of the moment is great, but the overall perspective has more in common with a snapshot than it does with fine art.

The challenge:
Right or wrong, voters in free study challenges are looking more for fine art images of exceptional technical quality than anything else. The 'snapshot' perspective and lack of funk and flash post processing hurt this image in voting. When there are over 600 entries in a challenge with many being exceptional technical achievements it is easy for an image like this to be overlooked. It was.

If you had surrounded it with a gradient like the three ribbon winners and applied some serious dodge and burn to hit the voter over the head with the embrace then it would have been more 'artistic' and scored a lot higher.

Sunset Reeds
by Shadowi6

Comment:

Positives:
Focus is good which works well for the amount of detail contained within the image.

Technicals:
As far as focus and detail are concerned this image is good.

Color is problematic, it does not look 'natural'. At least on my monitor the blue is to purple and the dried grasses are to red.

Perspective is also problematic. A different angle from a 'snapshot' perspective would be a lot better for this image. It depends more on technicals, including perspective, than it does on content for its impact on viewers.

A weak subject matter hurts this image.

The challenge:
Free study submissions depend more on technical quality than anything else for their score. The quality in this image, specifically related to color, is weak and combined with a difficult subject and pedestrian perspective you got a low score.

Bummer!

Attracted by Fire
by dreamy

Comment:
Positives:
There are emotional aspects of this image that are appealing. The boy in front of the fire begs the viewer to speculate what the child is experiencing and thinking. Placing the subject between the brightest flame and photographer works well.

Technicals:
Sharpness is not bad, but could be better.

A problem with low light situations is that the image tends to be overly yellow(as is likely in your case) or red(as common with people images) because of white balance issues under those conditions. If you have to overcome those issue then you may already have lost the battle for a great photograph regardless of content.

You did the best you could under those conditions but really stood no change to overcome that.

In its own way the use of yellow is fine, but the lack of other color detail gives it a superficial, overprocessed appearance.

The challenge:
Again, the assumption of voters for a free study is images of the highest technical quality. When disappointed they punish the images with a low score. That is not to say the image deserves the lower score, it is just the way DPC voters think.

Bridge Tower
by meyers

Comment:
Positives:
A nice wintery cityscape capture. I cannot describe why, but this captures the feeling of a big city(Chicago) in winter and that is its strength. Nicely done in BW to capture that feeling.

Perhaps it is because I have been through Chicago a couple times and have an appreciation for the city.

Technicals:
The technicals are good and exposure fine across the full range of luminosity. Composition wise there is nothing compelling about it, according to the 'rules', but I really like it anyway. It has lighting balance that works well an it has a technical feel to it, including sharpening, that cannot be denied as being good.

The challenge:
As a free study entry in challenges that have a lot of high quality entries this one suffers from 'subtlety'. It is to subtle to be appreciated in the time that most DPC voters have to devote to making a judgement.

This is a fine image!

I find it interesting that, like routerguy666's cityscape before, that this image has a statistical overabundance of 2s. Might be for a similar reason. It requires viewers to spend more time evaluating it to appreciate it's traits and typically the DPC voting process does not lend itself well to that.

Message edited by author 2007-03-08 19:06:44.

Bridge Tower
by meyers

Comment:
Positives:
A nice wintery cityscape capture. I cannot describe why, but this captures the feeling of a big city(Chicago) in winter and that is its strength. Nicely done in BW to capture that feeling.

Perhaps it is because I have been through Chicago a couple times and have an appreciation for the city.

Technicals:
The technicals are good and exposure fine across the full range of luminosity. Composition wise there is nothing compelling about it, according to the 'rules', but I really like it anyway. It has lighting balance that works well an it has a technical feel to it, including sharpening, that cannot be denied as being good.

The challenge:
As a free study entry in challenges that have a lot of high quality entries this one suffers from 'subtlety'. It is to subtle to be appreciated in the time that most DPC voters have to devote to making a judgement.

This is a fine image!