Harbour Sunrise
by GIS_boy

Comment:
Excellent work Matt: dead chuffed for you.

Game Cancelled Due to Rain
by gt7435b

Comment:
from the Critique Club

Whilst you have something here compositionally - the strength of the primary curved line moving up and across the frame is well handled - I do think you've left too many people guessing as to what on earth the subject is here; for myself, and especially without any detailed input from you, I'm only guessing at its being a basketball, which of course leads to strange thoughts about indoor rain, generally, and more specifically, up a blind alley. The low-key and high-contrast elements of the shot are wel achieved, though in some areas they've taken things too far, so that, for instance in image top left, we have simply a pattern of white pixels with no real reference to a 'reality' behind them, looking more like you've actually lost control of your editing there than achieving a deliberate effect; 'looking like' - if you were actually trying for that then of course you've succeeded, but I don't see a point to it, especially given the majority of the image.

I'm actually surprised it scored as highly as it did here: the mystery of it, the very dark nature of it, and the fact that the subject is really very simple I would usually expect to bring the score down into the 4 territory, so i think you've done well to achieve what you have with this shot.

Flood Tide & Cattails — Sunset
by Bear_Music

Comment:
Congrats Robert - this is going to be so popular a win :-) Watch those comment numbers soar ... ;-)

E

"Strong is he who masters his own spirit"
by egillbjarki

Comment:
decent portrait - though there's something about the facial shadows that suggests the unreal - I sense a bit of heavy-handed dodge and burn, perhaps. Detail and conversion excellent though; can't make up my mind about the pipe - especially with the dent in it.

"On a bed of daffodil sky" - Lord Alfred Tennyson
by esdarby

Comment:
I think I would have tried to get more depth of field and some foreground daffodils - they're just too indistinct at this resolution. Nice tonal work and detail otherwise though.

Letters Home From Iraq
by acoppola

Comment:
Colour balance needs fixing - that woarm tone has made the blue black, amd the red indistinct. Not sure it really meets challenge, actually, but I could understand the confusion.

Sunset In St. Tropez (Danielle Steel)
by GolferDDS

Comment:
I wish there were a bit more control of the dynamic range of your image - either in conversion or processing, but for me the brightest part of it has lost detail, and the darker areas just aren't competing.

The Amityville horror
by crayon

Comment:
from the eyes behind the portrait of the Critique Club

AH hell, I'm not sure which approach to take. On one hand I completely loath this over-processed supposedly 'creepy' kind of stuff. You know? Take an image of something broken and dodge all hell out of it and call it 'gothic' or 'grunge' or whatever the term of the moment is. It seems to betray an urge toward the darker end of the war photographers' art; well, damn it, get yourself a ticket out to Kabul and do the real thing. But it also, in only a small way, but nevertheless of significance, betrays the real work of those guys, of Norfolk, Nachtwey, McCullin and the rest, who did it to bring those things to our notice and did so more profoundly than any writers.

On the other hand, of course, it's just fun - just making a larking-about dark image, not taking yourself too seriously: and there's something here that betrays a smile as it is made - perhaps the only real moment of inspiration in the image, which is that out-of-focus foreground framing - beautifully done. It adds also a touch of the impression of hyper-shappow depth of field, making the house appear like a model.

The burnt-out sky is kind of a shame: whilst it adds a sense of lurking darkness to the house, it's perhaps such a blat of whiteness that its overall effect is to drag the eye away from the subject. The tonality is fine, though I would think you could have brightened the whole thing without losing the intensity of it and just made it sit a little happier for those with dark screens already - might have won you the few scores to get into the 6's, which it would be my feeling is about what this deserves.

Technically accomplished stuff. Whether or not I think it worth thee effort is beside the point, maybe.

squared
by holdingtime

Comment:
from the Critique Club

Well, other posters have said it, but it perhaps bears repeating: both the de-sat and the stretch seem to have no point to them. What did you gain? What did your image gain? Stretch-wise, the interest in the organic forms of the tree has been dissipated - it has been given an unnatural feel - the curves of the branches are just all wrong. Selective de-sat is a process I have little affection for anyhow, but here it seems almost boubly pointless: that big blue sky was surely big enough anyhow, and was there really such colour in the grass and houses to make a distraction here?

I just don't understand your thought-processes in taking this approach I'm afraid. To my eye, what interest there was would be in the delicate patterns and shapes of the bare tree, but, as stated, I think stretching that has destroyed the interest.

It snowed
by jjbeguin

Comment:
Yeah well - simply the amount of time you've worked in this square format has put this out of reach of most judges understanding; I'm glad you submitted - an interesting lesson in composition, even if it were nothing else.

Message edited by author 2006-03-23 03:29:53.