Breath the fresh air of the Adirondacks
by GBServis

Comment:
Would really like to see more definition worked into the hills and the trees; for me, this is too close to being a sky shot rather than a place shot. It would have been a fairly easy trick in post, too. Good shot though, but I don't quite think it nails the challenge enough. 7

The Mists of Coquille
by mocabela

Comment:
This is wonderful. A monumentally well controlled and processed shot. Love the tones particularly, in the grasses, and the progression of light in the mist. Not quite sure it really fits - it isn't the kind of big bright shot i'd expect to see in a guide. Want to give it a ten, but that consideration is just going to cost you a point.

Yorkshire, United Kingdom
by p_johns

Comment:
Very nicely done - all the appropriate qualities fro the type of shot. I find the blue cast of the light a touch too cold though, but that's my only gripe. Excellent composition all round.

Go With the Wind
by Imagineer

Comment:
Wonderfully dramatic photo, excellent composition, good colours - most things about this are rather fine. Don't know that I could see it in a travel guide. Where is it? What's so distinctive about it as a location? But maybe ... so I don't mark you down.

A Manhattan Night
by graphicfunk

Comment:
Bottom right - weird cloning artefacts? Great technical detailing, enough sense of place to suit challenge, just perhaps lacking real ping - some foreground element might help, give a sense of depth to the image? But very very clean photography, apart from the poor cloning thing.

Canada`s Capital Region
by Dim7

Comment:
Good work - thugh a touch more care with the precision of your cmoposition would pay off, especially in such a regular geometric organisation. The burnt-out clouds could have been prevented by under-exposing a touch, and bringing the rest of the image back in processing. Centring the vanishing point in the frame is a bit weak - I would personally have moved it either toward the top or bottom of frame some ... probably the top, given the subject and challenge.

London Walks
by Pixelstate

Comment:
Quite like this composition, although I find the shot from further along toward the Eye is an easier one - the bridge and St. Stephen's Tower organise themselves more happily. Also like the quality in the shot - the graininess adds wonderfully to the stone textures, despite the probably out of place (for this challenge) effect in the sky. It doesn't have the feel that I would expect from a guide book - most seem to prefer big bright clean images - but there's a lot to like here.

Late SUmmer Evening in Stockholm
by studhilo

Comment:
Man, this is a cut-their-head-off photo. It really really looks like you've simply missed, and have included too much at the bottom of frame and not enough at the top. There is absolutely nothing of interest in that bottom section - even if those reflections were a strong point, there is still enough of them in the rest of the shot. cutting off the mast like that just feels like a mistake. Ceentred horizon is just very very weak visually. exposure and colours are excellent though.

Please God, let this be the one!
by magicshutter

Comment:
from the Critique Club

I think you were really quite close to nailing the challenge with this - it's amazing how far down the list a few small faults will put some shots.

As a subject for the challenge this is entirely suitable, and the pose is interesting - apart from a couple of things, I like the idea. Lighting and most of the technical stuff is OK.

I'm no portraitist, but I would suggest that the unflattering nature of the head position has hurt your score, as has the angle of the eyes - difficult to communicate hope without visible eyes, and a downcast gaze is often more suggestive of concentration, or demureness, generally interior emotions, than of some outside expectation.

Compositionally the curve created by the arms and hands and test thing, together with the placement of the head in frame, is strong and effective, though I'm not certain the cropping out the remainder of that arm was a good idea. It allows the attention to move between the test and the face, which is what you'd want from this shot.

Skin tones are good. The light is perhaps a bit too general, and from an odd direction - emphasisiing the ridge of the brows and above the nose, again unflattering. There is good texture on the side of the face, but that brings us back to the unflattering head position again.

I would really really like for her to have been wearing a colour other than black - not necessarily a bright colour, but something that would have helped the tonality of the shot still further: it's one of the strong points here, and you could have made more of it with a rich-coloured shirt or top.

An average score? In the end I think yes, deserved - there's just enough things to find fault with, and not enough to nail the audience. I also wonder if it isn't too personal to take an effective dpc shot of - it has to be remembered that this isn't everyone's experience by any means, and when that is something that is so obviously very important to you yourself, it can be tricky not to be simply influenced by your won memories and emotions. The art of triggering emotions in others can be a very cold one, I think.

all the best with future challenges

Ed

Exploring Yosemite
by photom

Comment:
Spot on. The inclusion of a single figure seems a bit odd for the travel guide market - crowds of folks yes, sometimes, but the one person lends a sense of a personal photograph, rather than an illustration. Great sense of scale, great composition. I would have liked the light a little warmer. 7