Sky whisper to Earth
by Kliopatra

Comment:
Welcome to DPC! Hope you have a great time and learn a lot.

Positives:
The reflection of clouds and grasses in the calm water surrounded by lily pads is the the best part of this image. Showing the expanse of lily pads is good as well.

Technicals:
Generally speaking the technical quality of this image needs work. On a sharpness sensitive LCD monitor it is slightly over sharpened and shows some "jaggies" along the edges of the blades of grass but no haloing.

It is taken from a "snapshot" perspective, the green color is weak and the image lacks a central theme and a specific object for the viewer to look at and focus on. It leaves the viewer asking, "What else is there?". Your image is like a nice background without a subject.

The Challenge:
This particular landscape challenge operated under expert rules and because of that voters had a higher level of expectation for technical quality than other challenges and that hurt your image in scoring. Yours is also not a classic landscape vista and some voters probably faulted you for that as well.

You scored 5.1 which is about .6 below the average score given for the challenge. That means voters felt it was below average. I agreed and gave your image a 6 which to me means below average but not a complete falure. I tend to score higher than the group, that is all. I agree with the group assessment.

Suggestions:
There is lots you can do to improve this image but will probably require reshooting. The main thing is perspective and composition. You might consider a much closer up picture to the grasses and lily pads taken from a shallower angle, say 15 degrees or less to the horizontal, maybe even show some sky. Then compose the picture such that one of the grasses and/or lily pads become dominent objects in the composition and serve to attract more viewer attention. Be sure to retain the nice refections you have in your submission. Darkening the greens may be more pleasing and attractive to the eye and adding some dodge and burn to give it more depth and adding a subtle darkening vignette around the whole composition might look nice.

You might want to study some of the top finishing images in challenges to get an idea what viewers like. If you live in Giza where this picture was taken then I'm sure you can find a lot of great landscape subjects to photograph.

Good luck and have fun!

Swirled in Stone
by rjkstesch

Comment:
Great job!!!!

Dark Day
by qmdi

Comment:
The top right edge of the tall building has a slightly distracting halo but otherwise and incredible capture. Great job.

The Eye of God
by DrAchoo

Comment:
Another very fine Antelope Canyon composition. Should do well. This canyon always does.

Riding The Wave
by yakatme

Comment:
One of the great landscape photo ops of the world. I suspect your polarizer was as much responsible for the deep blue sky as post processing. Nicely composed.

Satin in Stone
by rjkstesch

Comment:
Very nice Antelope composition. Well processed

Red Rock
by LuDeLush

Comment:
Nice Sedona view.

The Big Bang
by DUCATISTA

Comment:
Concept and composition combined with lighting and sharpness are the secrets to the success of this image. Great job and welcome to DPC!

1,2,3
by dcb300

Comment:
Positives??????:
I have a rule that if there isn't anything positive I can say about an image then I shouldn't say anything at all. That is the case with this image. But you have asked and we talked about your photography and I know you want to do better, so I will just tell it like it is.

Technicals:
Outside that there are no seriously over or underexposed areas in the picture, there is little that is technically good about it. Color noise is a problem, sharpness is off and much needed post processing looks to be non-existent. The choice of subject and arrangement are probably boring or amature-ish looking to most voters. The digits aren't even properly arranged.

The Challenge:
More bad news. This complete fails to meet the challenge. You'll need instruction to learn more about the rule of thirds. Hopefully you can get into a Photoshop 101 class or get other mentoring to learn about it.

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The Rule of Thirds Example:
My entry in the rule of thirds challenge scored HORRIBLY, but it is a better example of rule of thirds than most of the other entries:



Notice that the center of the clover is offset to the lower left side. If you measured it accurately you will see that the centerpoint of the clover is exactly 1/3rd the way across the image from the left edge to the right and also 1/3rd the way up from the bottom to the top. That is called the lower left rule of thirds intersection point and is a very powerful compositional tool. There are three other equally powerful rule of thirds intersection points you could use in your compositions.

What makes this particularly strong for the rule of thirds is the clover's leaves accurately branch in an eye catching set of spokes from the lower left rule of thirds intersection point and the clover is the main subject of the composition.

End Example
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Suggestions:
Through mentoring DPCers will be able to help you to work on your photography for more satisfying submissions in future challenges. :)

Message edited by author 2007-05-02 16:07:19.

Friends
by bubeltrubel

Comment:
Positives:
Nice composition of two well positioned insects standing on a folded over grass blade. The curve of the grass blade adds pleasant visual interest to the image.

Technicals:
Like most images in the challenge it has center framing which is understandable. There are several major technical flaws in this image. 1-The noise in the soft background is a major distraction. 2-The yellow blob to the upper right that is slightly overexposed distracts from the insects and draws the eye away. 3-The sharpening haloing around the insects is another major distraction.

The Challenge:
Meets the challenge well with multiple insects.

It scored 5.92 in a challenge that averaged a score given of 5.7. Both are significantly above the average score given at DPC which is just under 5.4. The higher average is likely because voters were rewarding minimal editing compositions with higher than normal scores. In addition to that, voters felt yours was even better.

This is unusual for me but I scored your image lower than the group. I gave your image a 5. That is bad. It means I would be failing it if it were an assigment that I graded. Under normal conditions it is HIGHLY unusual for me to score an image lower than the group. My norm is to score 2 or more points HIGHER than the group average.

Because I only take about 1/2 second to vote I can and do make mistakes sometimes. However, after a much closer review, I find the vote I gave was not a mistake this time.

Suggestions:
Addressing the three main technical issues I identified above would improve it dramatically. Because it is minimal editing no sharpening and/or applying less in-camera sharpening would take care of most of the noise and haloing issues. You would have to reshoot to remove the yellow blob. If you could compose the image off center it would also be an improvement, perhaps by rotating the camera slightly to the right to have the grass blade coming into the frame even moreso that it already is.