Painting the urban landscape
by Chez

Comment:
Should have won ... by a distance the best shot in this challenge for me.

Urban shopping center
by ladpupmoe

Comment:
Intersting dynamic of shapes, though the interruption of the lamp-post is I think rather a distraction than an intersting addition. I'd alos have been tempted to either crop out the cars or completely get them in shot: this way they look accidental, rather than a deliberate part of your composition. A good start though ...

Landscape soon becoming a Supermarket
by madich

Comment:
Tricky, difficult photography, and I'm not sure whether you've really captured a desolate scene, or whether this is just dull ... but it's making me stop, so it must be the former. Great mood shot, though I think the focal range could have been either broader or narrower - whilst the piles of mud are in focus, the sign and the distance are either a little motion-blurred or not quite in focus. and there are dust-specks either on your lens or your sensor. 7

The Lyric Theater Back Door
by pocketed

Comment:
Strangely enough, I used to work at a Lyric Theatre (in Hammersmith, London UK), where the back door was even less appealing than this! Like the interplay of colours here, though it looks a lot like an unconsidered snap-shot, and I don't think will do well on dpc. A pity, as it has a lot going for it - a nice study of the ignored spaces of our nasty urban world, huh? And right behind one of the places you'd expect to have a little more awareness ...

Skylight
by Konador

Comment:
Bllody hell Ben, I've just come across this on a trawl through the site (actually by way of JJ's favourites): thought I'd seen all the really great photographs on this site, but his selections are almost as much a revelation as his photos.

Wonderful stuff: the cleanness of those lines, the half-hidden window that makes me want to move into the shot to see what's hidden. Almost worthy of Kertesz, in the sense of finding the extraordinary in the absolutely everyday.

Ed

Hey Kid! Follow Me
by OneSweetSin

Comment:
Oh look, he said in a slightly sarcastic voice, guess who i get to write a CC for: and I even deliberately left it a little later this week, just to change the chances :-)

Like this shot very much Anna - particularly the world inside the bubble: especially as the rest of the world, the world around and outside it, is completly out of focus. Can't believe the score - thought this must at least have scored a six, but perhaps people don't look closely enough - they just see a couple of bubbles and move on.

I think I would have called it something like 'a floating world' and tried to bring the emphasis more onto the view insude the bubble, rather than highligting the fact of their being two bubbles - that at least is what i find most striking visually and emotionally here.

A couple of other things: the swirl of the trees in the bubble-world almost makes a ying/yang sign, which is also a good touch, and the distortion (like a fish-eye lens) of that scene - a close up of the one bubble might have served as a Nostalgia photo (though again, no-one much here would have appreciated it).

One of your best, in my opinion. Great stuff.

Future Pilot
by Sonifo

Comment:
Congrats Sonja - should have been a blue IMO, but I guess you can't complain about a red:-) My only (very) slight criticism would be that it's just a touch twee for me - a little sentimental? But that would only be enough to cost you a tenth of a point. Beautiful work.

Pigeons
by rickhd13

Comment:
Looks like no-one understood this then Rick. Surprised that so many people thought the exposure was out - it obviously isn't - and also surprised that more people didn't appreciate that the effect might have been deliberate. Hope it doesn't put you off trying this sort of thing again :-)

Ed

Elk
by Gallatin

Comment:
Hi from the Critique Club ...

Well, evidently people think of Macros as hyper-close-ups, and there is an argument that says it 'really' means images larger than actual life, but whatever ... you certainly fulfill the specifics of the challenge - it's just others' opinions of what counts that's cost you in the voting.

There's a 'rule' in portraits, even of animals, that the secret of taking good shots is to have the eyes in focus, and you haven't quite got that here: whether it's a slight movement from the animal, or a slight camera shake, or just slightly off focus I can't tell, though i'd guess one of the former two.

enough DOF to put the background nicely out of focus, though i think if you could have caught it against a darker surrrounding that would also have helped. The light is also a little flat - not bad, really, but I think a touch more definition and shape from more directional light would also have helped.

The final result is underservnigly low though: these faults aren't so great as the score would suggest to me; though likewise, it isn't an unimprovable photograph.

HTH

Ed

Watch
by jimmyn4

Comment:
Hi from the critique Club Jimmy.

Er ... this is really a 10D photograph? what happened to the presence, the detail, the power of that camera? Why such a small edit? It seems grainy, over-sharpened, lacking in dynamic range ... rashed, perchance?

There is, evidently, some detail here - the rings on the mini-dials' faces are pretty clear, and there is some depth - viz the light on the edge of the sweep hand, but it's a struggle to find those things.

I don't know whether your problems lie in post-processing, RAW file processing, or what. Don't know what lens you used, and to be honest it would be beyond me to tell you what would be a good choice. One definite improvement would, I think, be to shoot at more of an angle - use the SLR's facility with depth of field more.

But still the submitted size and quality are a mystery given the camera ...

ed