Rail Fail
by charmayne

Comment:
Neat stuff. has a sense of the over-sharpened but at very low radius that makes the fince seen almost super-imposed, and is also reminiscent of Gordon Whyte's work. The grey winter afternoon, and light on the wood are good. Strong compositionally too.

Got Milk?
by mfairbanks

Comment:
Messy. The join of your background and surface is visible too. For such 'studio' shots I would want a cleaner set-up - the crumbs are enormously problematic; in a situation where you do have absolute control, why not exercise it?

From Where I Sit
by tgordon

Comment:
The sheer mess of this is exciting, and that hint of a lansdscape for those cars. Both the monochromatic and the high contrast treatments work well with the subject. Something sordid about it, something unflinching in the approach, which will, I'm sure, not go down well with Joe Voter. Not as well as it should, anyway. For all the interesting viewpoint, and the suitable treatment though, I don't get much sense of interest from it - maybe your burning/dodging/whatever goes too far?

Down but not out
by PeterC

Comment:
your cropping - being so close to the torch one the left, and yet leaving that space to the right, almost implies there should be something to the left of frame that I can't see. The image though, feels contrived, and yet doesn't have that sense of control of environment that a set-up shot needs to make impact. There's a sense of not quite being in focus, not quite perfect detail and sharpness, that doesn't suit the simplicitty of the scene to my mind. Did you use a tripod for this? It looks like its handheld, and has that slight suggestion of motion blur that goes with that.

Neural Net Disconnected
by MrYu

Comment:
I like the play of this, and the watery feel. It really isn't a field of photography that does much for me however, the near-abstract, it might, for all I see in it, as well be graphic design.

another brick in the wall...
by frumoaznicul

Comment:
From the Critique Club

i'm a dilettante critiquer, at least within the auspices of the 'club', but every now and then a shot comes along that one really feels one has something to say about.

I finshed college right in the midst of the Velvet Revolution; I, and many friends, had dallied with the writings of Marx, though not particularly of his immediate successors, other than in the literary field - Althusser, Lucacks, and their ilk. We resented, as we still do, the knee-jerk reaction of the imperialist west for anything that smacked of socialist, let alone communist. We resented, also, the way that dream was sold down the river by the Warsaw Pact states, and how strongly that played into the hands of the west, with perhaps, the inevitable results we now see in the Middle East, in Afghanistan, in the rise of the gangster states of middle Asia.

Much of that process, a process that has left large swathes of my generation, and, I fervently hope, those generations that follow, passionately wary of the mis-use of symbolism, aware of the easy manipulation all politicians exert on the media, on our opinions simply through the presentation of images, can be represented in this shot. lookat the newspapers - look at the images of every politician you see, every 'world leader', every model, every rock star. You know, asa a photographer, how easy it is to catch someone mid-expression, and present the most mild mannered, most gentle human being as a foaming-at-the-mouth rabid monster - or the converse - to present the most rabid, foaming-at-the-mouth monster as a mild mannered, put-upon potential savious of our nations, of our world.

These symbols, presented here in a honest, gentle, unfussy, not over-processed manner, are in one sense almost invisible. To most of us, at least those with memories pre-1989, this provokes an automatic reaction - be it of fear, of loathing, of dreams soold-out, whatever. Yet the hammer and sickle were chosen as the basic symbols of the working men - the industrial and the agricultural, the roots of our covilisation, and as a recognition of the fact thhat the foundation of all out modern world is built on the labour of those hands. Without them, nothing.

And, as your image suggests, along with the great political movement that was so betrayed and yet should have so honoured them, those endeavours are now forgotten - betrayed?

Ed

Broken pipe
by blanceric

Comment:
I like this kind of found, detritus photography - the piles of stuff we have lying around, as a people. It's a general subject I find very difficult to shoot myself, and I'm afriad this shot doesn't quite do it for me, either. Perhaps my eye, and yours, isn't quite trained enough in the recognistion of the simple amongst all this stuff, in the finding of compositional elements that add strength to such images - all my shots, as with this one, simply seem to be confused and lacking in much impact or sense of particular subject. I think, of rwhat its worth, that my feelings here are that you have too many different types of object in the frame, and too much extraneous mattter also, and that you haven't really found a moment of light that enhances the shot - but quite how one would imprve it particularly remains a mystery to me. A fine attempt, but I fear not a successful one.

earthquake
by rhipster

Comment:
Good composition, apposite subject. Somewhat stylised for my taste - evidently set-up for the shot (or set-up for something else), but nevertheless the way you've shot it is strong, and it certainly fits the challenge.

Tea Interrupted
by KaDi

Comment:
Nice shot - love this composition, love the light, love the balance of composition and evident care. I wish there were a greater depth of detail though - whether it's your processing or your camera, it doesn't have the absolute clarity one would like from a set-up shot like this. Excellent work though, with that reservation.

Broken away
by LevT

Comment:
Obviously meets the challenge, and is quite nicely done - I like the light and shade on the eggs themselves, but there seems a lack of colour in the grass. It lacks magic, if you follow me - whilst the light is nice, it isn't fascinating, and the scene itself looks set-up, rather than real: actually, you know, it cries out for the shaping and compositional help you'd get from a real nest - all those curves of materials ...