Horsepower
by lynnesite

Comment:
I think you just win the sub-competition of horse portraits - there's a sense of blatant processing that is rather a turn-off here, although the definition of the animal just about lets you get away with it. There's a good sense of motion, and of grance and strength, which is well, and usefully, caught, but that lightned background and a feeling of sentimentality doesn't hang well for me with the idea of horse.

Exploding
by garlic

Comment:
Excellent detail and a strong sense of light - well planned grown-up shooting. I'm not sure that a judicious crop at the top mightn't have strengthened the composition - you've left me expecting more at top of frame, and pulling my eye from that interesting structure of frozen water which you've placed dead centre. Even that progression to black isn't enough to hold the eye at the top.

Color of Snow
by loriprophoto

Comment:
There are two very strong horse portraits in this challenge, and I can't choose between them. This, as does this other, holds a great sense of the power of the animal, of the weight, and shape and strength of it. I like it for that - but i think your background and framing generally let the shot down otherwise: to do really well here you need to get away from that very cluttered scene. nevertheless, you've captured a lot more than a trite sunset, which makes this far more interesting than most shots.

xx
by messerschmitt

Comment:
This is slightly reminiscent of Kertesz' famous Washington Square shots - making use of the inevitable contrast in the scene to emphasise the graphic world. I don't think it's absolutely successful, though: there are stong elements - the first tree certainly, and the lines of the fences - but it doesn't have quite the clarity of composition to emphasise those lines strongly enough. A good treatment, but it steers to close to cluttered to my eye.

Tormented Soul
by jmritz

Comment:
Not sure this is successful, but it's far more interesting than the rather humdrum bulk of this challenge. My impression is that the chaos of those branches is your reference for 'tormented' - but if that's the case i think I'd want a heap more contrast there. If that isn't your aim, then I don't understand this shot.

Lights of the Beyond
by andri

Comment:
An interesting presentation - as much for the monochromatic treatment as anything, I think. This free study seems to have been treated as a landscape challenge, and this at least adds more drama. It's striking, but not overly arresting.

winter's foreboding arrival
by chucksinnc

Comment:
This challenge is overburdened with cloud shots, or at least shots that overly deoend on cloud formations to make their impact - this at least is different from that crowd, largely. I don't really see the sense of cutting the bloke and his shed off at the waist, nor of the implied tilt to the frame (in fact I think their accidental, though I'm allowing you the benefit of the doubt), but the impact of the clouds is more interestnig in this shot than in the vast majority.

Exquisite Gaze
by librodo

Comment:
Whilst the tonality and all that jazz is, no doubt, exemplary ... and whilst, were I taking someone's portrait, this kind of detailing and care of exposure would be what I'd hope for, I can't say I'm all that bothered about this shot. Great portrait - but I get nothing more from it.

Odd scene seen...
by tannah

Comment:
I like this - at last, I was despairing. Of course the near silhouette of that left-fore couple, and their pose absolutely make it - but as much, I think, because of the construction of the composition - all lines lead to the centre standing bloke, and his curious upward gaze. The only thing I would say, and absolutely say, is that this must be a black and white shot. It just cries out for it - it would move the entire subject out of the boviously humdrum, and make a grest deal more of the strange shapes and relationships here. Marvellous work, otherwise.

Goldie Locks Winks
by anthonyczaja

Comment:
from the outer edges of the Critique Club

this seems odd, especially from someone with the evident appreciation of light and control of exposure and processing you've evinced in your previous submissions - that you'd miss the colour temperature aberration in the right-hand frame, that you'd have accepted the really quite bland light of the first two ... doesn't make sense, somehow.

Beyond all of that, of course, is the absolute cleverness of this image. One of very very few in which the three frames actually work for the entirety of the presentation, instead of just being a imposed mechanism. That trick I really like. You know what? If you'd taken this all to black and white you'd have done better with the voters: this kind of everyday tonality, whilst it does in some senses work to make the composition the more extraordinary, also serves to make the more obviously technical factors more noticeable - people think they understand colour so much more than they think they understand b/w, and also will accept much more experimentation in a black and white presentation. That, and a bit more punch overall - a bit more contrast at least.

I do like it - just the idea and the execution of it compositionally are enough to keep me looking. I wish, given the arty trick you've pulled so well, that you'd given it more of a chance with the voting public here. Well, from a long prowl through your portfolio, I'd say the ribbon(s) can't be far off - I'll be watching.

Ed