Cedar
by joebok

Comment:
from the Critique Club

I think perhaps it was simple choice of subject that let you down here, in challenge terms. Certainly there is texture available, and reasonably well defined in your image, but there isn't the ping of a new vision to add to it. Perhaps if you could have manipulated the available light a touch to enphasise the ridges of the wood, or perhaps have taken the contrast even further, it might have had more success. I also wonder if your composition might not have been more thoroughly thought out: the conjunction of that angle of the roof (?) and the hold of the bird house might have been happier in compositional terms: place the hole so as not to obscured by the wood, whilst keeping the strong diagonal of the roof, and you'd have some more impact, and some balance across the image frame more than you have here.

I like that you've filled the frame, although that perhaps was an obvious idea and didn't help with the stand-out-in-a-crowd necessity of these challenges. It's a pleasant enough shot, but just doesn't have that impact, and you get so little time to hit the voters here.

Bighorn Ram Textures
by hahn23

Comment:
from the edge of the Critique Club

This has a certain similarity to my own shot, actually, although the treatment is different. Whilst there is obviously texture here, I think for a challenge of that title, in the eyes of the voters, you really need to pull out all the stops to emphasise it - make that possibly over-emphasise it. A heap more contrast in the fur areas, and a deal of work around the horns themselves would have helped no end - purely in challenge terms, of course. There's also that love of the more stylised photography here, and so I think your placing of the animal in frame also doesn't help you: playing with different ideas of cropping might make things work more successfully.

All if which is not to say that this isn't entirely successful in its own right: the detailing, the focus, the stillness of the animal and that extra ping of the straw in its mouth make for a nice wildlife shot, if not spectacular. It has a strong realism, a real sense of the photographic - that's just not very DPC, I'm afraid. The centre-frame placing of the subject is one of average voters bugbears too, so you were bound to fall down on that a little. Mind you, 5.9whatever is no poor score, by comparison.

Ed

The Turks
by kiwiness

Comment:
Nice work Gary: I liked this muchly. More please!

At the Butcher's
by e301

Comment:
What a pleasant Wednesday morning surprise - really couldn't see this getting into this territory, there just weren't enough comments, I thought. From the same day as these other street images - not really outtakes, as tyhis was the obvious entry. Thanks for all views votes and comments; really nice to do well in a form of photography that really means something to me.

A Hard Way to Make a Buck
by bvoi

Comment:
Marvellous - and robbed in the voting.

Man at Bus Stop with Advertisement
by Keith Maniac

Comment:
Top work Chris: leaving my own aside, I thought this should win, and I'm surprised and delighted to see it so highly rated. And just 31/10,000ths behind, er, mine ;-)

Message edited by author 2006-04-19 05:46:19.

House
by alexgarcia

Comment:
I'm not sure that you haven't slightly fallen between two stones here; it has elements of trying to show two things: the house in itsw location, and the details and textures of it's walls and the shadow-play of a moment of light. The location aspect doesn't work too well - you're just too close, too cropped maybe; and yet the details side isn't so effective for me for the opposite reason - not close enough. What seems immedaitely clear is that the real power in the image could be framed in an area comprising of the window image left, the street sign, the pipework and the shadows assoiated with them: I think that would tell almost as much, if not more for the sake of the detail, this full-face image. The tightness of the cropping to the roof and chimney doesn't help you - makes it feel like the whole thing couldn't be got it and this was the next best: perhaps sometimes all you actually need is a detail to illuminate the whole story?

The conversion seems OK - though I might like a touch more graduation in the shaded areas, you have the highlights well under sontrol it seems. The right hand section of wall seems unnaturally dark, where it should surely be as bright as the area around the street sign? I think that disturbs the threee-dimensionality of the image a little ...

reporter
by arsenal

Comment:
Interesting approach and idea - almost brilliant, if only there were not the conflict of the two visible faces I think: if she were a fraction clearer, more isolated, and the guy behind her more hidden then it would be a moment of genius - as it is, I think it's a shot that's nearly great. The perils of trying to catch the fleeting moment is so often that 'close' just isn't enough: that's what makes the discipline so frustrating, so rewarding.

Illuminati
by timlu

Comment:
Love the parallel of the raised arms in the two figures. Sense of location is strong, light is very good. There's a kind of mad story to it which I like.

Tracking Mud for Body Cooling !
by DAWAR

Comment:
This is kind of fun - despite the quality issues, which are quite extensive and I think which will hurt your score (the detail, sense of lacking focus) - it still has an interesting dynamic and a certain lightly mad appeal.