Autumn Self Portrait
by anireno

Comment:
The shadow is too unconventional for me I'm afraid. This idea of the shadow self portrait would have worked against a plain/uncomplicated background, but then you wouldn't have the complementary colours and shadows are not known for their colour.

red and green
by margiemu

Comment:
Just not quite as sharp in the centre of the flower head as it could be. This might have just been because of the image size reduction to 640 for the entry - always worth doing one final USM before submission and I think this would have helped here. Nicely balanced colours though

Be my friend
by JaimeVinas

Comment:
The other non-complementary colours are a bit of a distraction. This seems more blue/red to me rather than blue/orange which could have easily been changed during PP

In Memory of Spring
by arron_christensen

Comment:
Lovely strong contrasting colours. Well composed. Not much detail on the stamen, if thats the right word, and this is where your focus is and so the image as a whole looks a little out of focus. If there had been a bit of mist on them to bring out a bit of sparkle and detail then that would have given the whole image a real boost.

Custom-Ordered Cloudscape
by lynnesite

Comment:
The orange fades into the blue and so you lose the strong constrast effect of having two complementary colours adjacent to one another which is a shame as its a lovely sky.

VanCortland Park
by elysei

Comment:
Lovely strong red/orange tones set on top of the blue background gives the strong contrast this challenge demands. The left hand side exhibits this quality more so than the right and the road is not important and does nothing for composition; so keeping the best bits by cropping into the tree tops and sky on the left hand side would have simplified the image, put focus on the colour contrast, cleaned up the composition and more detail in the leaves/branches would be visible.

Young Blue Eyes
by mchalmers

Comment:
Just a shame the eyes aren't a touch sharper. Normally in this situation you would aim to have the eyes in focus and little else, but it might have been worth considering using a smaller appature to get the hat in focus since its orange colour is important here.

Into the Fire
by freakin_hilarious

Comment:
The blue doesn't seem strong enough to match the intensity of the orange. Also the orange and blue fade into one another so you lose that high contrast element you get from strong adjacent complementary colours. Well composed thogh and the silhouette is well defined

Out of the Blue
by jdannels

Comment:
Great colour balance, too many pictures I have seen while voting so far have had a dull and bright colour where as here, the blue and orange seem matched. Not sure I like the motion blur on the foot but the face is in focus which is the main thing and the background is uncomplicated

Flicker in the dark
by Graeme44

Comment:
Not focussed enough unfortunately. This could have worked really well, I reckon lose the hand and match and do this macro with focus on an area of the blue gas jets and then large amount of DOF either side.