Stems and Bloomsby
drbenjaminComment by ursula: Greetings from the Critique Club
First of all, reading through your comments made me laugh! "Ursular"? That's funny. Anyway. I am the real "ursula" here :)
Second, congratulations on making it through your first ever challenge!
About the image. Overall, I think it is a beautiful "abstract". The muted, yet bright, colour scheme is quite eye-catching. You say these are stems in water? It looks almost more like stems outside on a sunny day.
Your use of F2.8 with the macro lens certainly aided the overall dreamy feel of the image. It is always difficult to tell whether you intended to have the focus where it is, but it looks spot on for what it is - the stems that are clear are nicely defined without being oversharp, the rest is a pleasant out of focus hint of other stems and either a leaf or a flower.
The composition is quite good. I might consider leaving a bit less space to the right (move the stems a bit closer to the edge). I'd also try to not get any "intrusions" such as the little tiny bit of stem at the bottom left.
Processing, in my opinion it's beautiful as it is. You could have worked at creating greater contrast, but it's a matter of choice, how you want to present your image. I do like the colour combination, so similar throughout, yet the stems are quite distinct.
As for meeting the challenge, it does follow a thirds division; however, it doesn't yell rule of thirds, and that might have hurt your score. As for your score, this is not the kind of image that has a huge impact at first glance, and in the challenges that is what you need, immediate impact. That hurt your score also.
Overall this is a very pleasing image, a good study in colours and lines and shallow DOF. I hope this helps :)
If you have any questions, comments, complaints, please feel free to contact me.
~Ursula
