Destination Unknown
by jmsetzler

Comment:
Good shooting - nice sense of progression, movement from dark to light and the POV placed absolutely central to that. I'd be pleased with it myself, but certainly wouldn't have entered it to this challenge in the expectation of scoring very well at all. High 4's for this in the end? it's simply too easy for people to dismiss it as 'not meeting the challenge' I fear. My one criticism would be that I'm not convinced about the orientation of it.

We call em "Bush Rangers" round 'ere mate & he's a biggen!
by Node

Comment:
He's Ned, ain't he mate? :-) Like it - but maybe a little context, given the challenge?

The State Capitol
by smartypants

Comment:
Like this - like the compositional strength of that diagonal, and the geometry of the whole thing. given the challenge, I would have liked the green to be stronger in the trees, in my experience of travel guides they like bright stuff; and even beyond that, I rather think some colour in there - more colour rather - would balance the detail in the rest of the shot nicely.

Tettegouche State Park
by Links 2 3 4

Comment:
Not enough here, I fear, not enough: your work on the waterfall itself is, i think, rather good - not going overboard on the motion blur, and neither freezing the motion to make it look odd; but that is all you have here - very little context, and what there is is not very striking - rather dark, undefined, and therefore uninteresting to the eye - lightening, or simply increasing contrast in just those areas might go someway to solving that, but I think the process would only be part of what you need. There simply needs to be more for the eye to move through in the shot, some kind of shape to lead the eye to the waterfall, to maintain a sense of movement through the image. 4

Americas Finest City
by Brad

Comment:
Pretty fine shot - good quality of light, detail seems lacking somewhat - I think that you've either used too high a radius when sharpening or your camera has done that for you (it reminds me of the way my Fuji2800Z shots come out), which gives those light lines around the building edges, and likewise removes details inside the shapes. Given the challenge, and open editing, I'd have thought cloning out the crane would have been good. I also think you've left too much space around the sky-line - whilst the quality in the sky and water is interesting, I don't think you need so much of it, and it makes the sky-line seem incidental to the composition. You have, at least, placed the horizon at a sensible point in frame, which is good. I think it needs more information to excite it, something extra: maybe that boat more in the foreground than it is, but something. Very much on the right lines though, I think.

Market Street
by banmorn

Comment:
Tempted to put simply 'correct' here :-) Absolutely the right use of a detail shot to convey a wider impression. The severe brightness of the central building's windows might have been controlled a litttle better, I think, it just verges too close to burn-out to my eye. Otherwise, a fine shot.

Historic ‘Niagara On the Lake”
by riley

Comment:
When you select areas to brighten, like tthe shadowed edge of those flowers, two things are really useful: firstly, use increased contrast to hide some of the effect, so that black areas don't become grey, and also the 'feather' control, which fades the edge of the selection and makes it much less of a hard line like that. It lets down what was otherwise a very fine shot, I think - ideal for the challenge.

Landakot - The catholic church in Reykjavik at midnight
by eirasi

Comment:
I thought for a moment this was going to be Hallsgrimkirka (or whatever it's called) again. I like it as a photograph, I'm not sure about it for a travel guide: the framing is a bit odd losing the tower like that. The modernist fluting of those pillars is surely worth concentrating on, but I think you've tried to include too much else with it.

Historical manor
by rhipster

Comment:
Don't know if it's the glass f wine I'm in the middle of, or whether there's something slightly odd about this shot. The perspective distortion seems a little strong, and maybe the black point is a touch bright: I like the smoothness of tone that gives, but at the same time I miss the contrast. A touch more shadow might have removed some of the two-dimensional feeling from the image. Can absolutely see it in print, though.

Austin's Zilker Botanical Garden
by paganini

Comment:
Beautiful work - exceptional detail, control, mood. To get into a travel guide I would have expected a flora shot to have an exceptional quality, something in the use of detail to give an impression of a wider, larger, state, andi think this has it; it suggests, largely by the darkness of background, a tree-shaded water garden. Top shot.