The key to life
by train

Comment:
From the Critique Club

This is a good concept for the motivational poster challenge. You have a good message and managed to convey it.

Your choice of putting the wording in the image I think is a good one. However, your fonts and colors are a little overbearing and seem to crowd the frame. The red lettering to me is too close to the red flower on the right. This may have worked if you had some offsetting pinkish letters from the other flowers colors.

The photo itself looks IMHO to be a little too post edited. I don't know if it really is, but with all the elements put together it LOOKS that way. The white background contrasts too much with the spider and the lettering. The spiderweb is going the wrong direction to be a balancing act. The colors and definition of the flowers is not all it could be. In this format these photographic flaws do not mean a whole lot though as the challenge was to make a poster, not a photograph.

Very creative entry for this challenge.
TC

Reflections
by Drake

Comment:
From the Critique Club

From a technical standpoint, this image is nicely done. You have a nice soft focus which (normally) goes well with the color of the subject. You have very nice soft warm lighting.

When I say that the soft focus and this color of subject normally go well together, in this instance I think that the effect clashes with the glitter. I KNOW it's a soft focus effect by looking at the leaves and stem! My eye, however, is trying to tell me that the glittery grapes are out of focus however! I believe this to be an optical illusion caused by the glitter. The soft focus combined with the light refraction of the glitter makes it LOOK out of focus.

Compositionally, this shot is a little lacking. I think that putting the subject along a diagonal rather than straight across the center would make this shot 'pop' more! I'm also a little put off by the effect of the glare along the very bottom edge of the reflection.

All in all this is a very interesting study in the effects of lighting, soft focus and subject material!
TC

Sting
by magnus

Comment:
From the Critique Club

When I saw this entry for the first time my thought was 'What a timely choice of subjects with the movie just released!'

I like how you chose to shoot straight on against the blade rather than down the length. This way you have the whole shot in focus which is a definately a plus! You also did a good job of capturing the depth of the etching with the lighting angles that you chose. At first I was put off by the bluish cast, but considering the subject and story behind the subject, it is actually a very intelligent choice. Those who are not familiar with the story may or may not like the blue cast however.

From a compositional point of view, I both like and dislike the way that you framed this. I like it because you get more detail in what you can see! The lighting and shading in the etching comes out nice as does the bevel on the edge. I dislike the framing mostly because I'm such a big Tolkien fan and would like to be able to translate the Elvish runes.

All in all a very nice shot and one that I would consider turning into a print!
TC

Industrial Flower
by DiamondPete

Comment:
From the Critique Club

This is one of the more interesting shots from the Macro III challenge! I like your choice of subject and your choice of angles! The colors go very well together and there are very nice textures.

The tight crop does well here, but I don't like how the top edge of the bit is cropped out. My only real complaint with this photo is one that I have with many Macro shots, the shallow DOF. With only the very tip of the bit in focus, you don't really achieve the sense of depth. I think an improvement would be to focus slightly further down the bit or increasing the DOF.

This is an awesome subject for a study set of shots. If you decide to do this I would love to see the results!
TC

Encased
by LucidLotus

Comment:
I'm gonna have to show this shot to my 11 year old! He loves to experiment with putting stuff in the freezer...Eggs, Water balloons, lemons, bottles with stuff suspended in the ice....

Zero Horsepower
by TooCool

Comment:
Thanks for the kind comments during AND after the challenge! I'm glad that others liked this photo! However, when I was making this one, whether or not others would like it was low on my priority list. This shot I did for MYSELF! My placing in the contest was and is not an issue in my mind!

Message edited by author 2004-01-05 00:06:49.

Ready for Pie
by SharonS

Comment:
The lighting on this shot is impecible! Very nice!
TC

Water Drops
by bowlingranny

Comment:
I normally don\'t like the small photos here and will comment appropriately, but you\'ve used the small size very well here and have captured just enough of the subject.
TC

Orange County
by arnit

Comment:
Very nice lighting! A touch overexposed on the orange, but not bad. Is the background real or a print?
TC

open road
by pearlsgurl

Comment:
Beautiful sense of perspective! I also love the nearly monochromatic feeling you can get with these kinds of lighter snow scenes!
TC