2am
by jmsetzler

Comment:

Originally posted by kanaj: The high-contrast B/W processing is striking on this. I appreciate your notes and was genuinely curious about the story behind the choices you made. Great title, too. I like big swings like this.

Thanks :) I knew going in that this isn't a challenge friendly photo but I wanted to drop one in anyway.. I am finding that the free study challenges here aren't taken seriously by the participants. It seems like they are used as a place for leftovers from other challenges and that's a shame. The free study is a place to voice your own thoughts on photography. I'm not looking to win challenges at this point. I am just gonna hang out here a while and see if it's possible to pull some real photography conversation out of the woodwork to see if there are any hardcore enthusiasts left in the crowd....

Channeling My Inner Tree
by glad2badad

Comment:
Perfect... this is the only photo I gave a 10 in this challenge.. nice work!

Dream and Dare
by vawendy

Comment:
I saw your post in the forums regarding negative space and its interpretation. My thoughts on what it means in terms of the challenge is that the empty space (or the space not occupied by the primary subject of the image) sort of becomes the subject or theme of the image. It's a stretch to explain it because it, as with anything 'art', is subjective. It's one of the things that makes challenges difficult. Some find the challenges to be met or not because of different interpretations of what the challenge is. Your photograph here is extremely well executed. It has a lot of negative space... the darkness surrounding your furry friend. *MY* thoughts on your image are that you could create MORE impact with the negative space by moving the cat to the far left side of the frame and eliminate the 'negative space' behind the cat and have it all in front. I believe that having negative space uninterrupted makes it stronger. I have created two interpretations to share with you:



This one puts all the negative space in front of the cat. In my mind, this makes the negative space more powerful. Here is a more extreme version of the same idea:



I would have scored both of these interpretations even higher than the original.

Once again, it's all subjective. You might hate these ideas :) Cheers from western NC....

Gridlock
by KristjanUnnar

Comment:
This is a really cool photo. It's my favorite one in the challenge even though I feel that it doesn't meet the challenge... lol. I guess I should have come up with an entry for this challenge showing 'photos wedged into challenges just because they didn't have anything else to post' as a pet peeve :)

Frost on fresh lava
by EVE_Offgrid

Comment:
Fantastic detail here... love the textures and the contrast and how they play off each other. I think the only thing that might make this photo more intriguing for me would be a greater depth of field, which I realize can be difficult to do with macro photography.... great stuff!

Thingie
by Neat

Comment:
This is my favorite photo in this challenge. I love it because its all about shapes and textures rather than the 'thing' that it is. That adds a great abstract value to the experience as well. It's easy to get lost in this one... great stuff!

another page in their story
by glad2badad

Comment:
In regards to your 'photographer's comments....

what do you stand to lose by letting those bots scrape your 'data' from this site? I think fighting data mining on the interwebs is futile as long as you are a participant in any of it, including your web-provided email. Every service provider you interact with is scraping data on you and selling it to the highest bidder. Your phone and your social media accounts are the main culprits. The simple fact of the matter is that you should not share anything electronically in any manner that you don't want anyone else to see or hear.

In regards to your forum post about the interpretation of the 'balance' topic...

The platform in your frame does a great job of splitting the frame into two equal halves, but *I* find a majority of the visual interest to be in the top half of the image. That being the case, the description of 'so that everything in the image has equal visual weight' is a miss for me. How do you interpret your approach to this challenge?

Cheers!

Summernight approaching
by Oligamli

Comment:
Greetings... I found it interesting that this photo scored 6.3 and was a mid-pack image in this challenge. I rated this photo a 5 in the context of the challenge. It's a well-executed photo. In my personal view of this image, I do not find a strong point of focus/attention in terms of feeling or subject. The small building in the frame is almost a 'serendipity' element that could be more in a different context. I also struggle just a bit with the colors. This photo reminds me of some early attempts I made in my days of film photography using graduated color filters to achieve this effect. In terms of the challenge itself, I believe the fog & mist elements are more of a secondary element of this photo.

glimmer
by kanaj

Comment:
I didn't find a whole lot of creativity in this challenge. This photo, however, landed in my best of show category. Just being able to notice this scene and having the ability to capture it so nicely is the mark of a good photographer :) This photo hits upon quite a few characteristics that I look for in great images. The strong interaction of shapes and symmetry is dominating this scene while the chaos of the web and water droplets creates a fascination and imbalance to add so much more interest... great shot!

Break time
by UrfaK

Comment:
This is an excellent photo. It's my second favorite in this challenge. In terms of 'documentary' value, it's strong. It's telling me something about the project at hand and it's gonna lead me nicely into the accompanying story. The composition of this is beautiful. The lines and textures are fascinating at all levels. Nice work!