This picture is a reed garden in a house I was walking by. I was playing with my 100-300 lens in low-light to see what kind of blurred things I could get that looked cool...An extreemly experimental picture of mine. I don't have high hopes for it in the challenge, but if there is a challenge for this type of picture I'm hoping this is where it will be most tolerated.
There was really very little PP done to this, mostly consisting of Adjustment layers for:
Brightness/Contrast
Hue/Saturation
Underwater Photofilter
and some selective burning to remove nasty blown highlights from the contrast boost.
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First of all, I remember this from the Fantasy World Challenge and came back to it several times, debating with myself how to score it. I like the blurred grasses and the apparent movement it gives to the shot. What bothered me, however, was the brown (woven?) objects in the bottom of the image. I imagine that they are probably the plant boxes, but IMHO they took away from the underwater mood you had obviously tried to create. I don't know whether you could have cropped them out and still had enough reed real estate left though. The composition I think is fine otherwise and I like the way that the reeds seem to lean to the left (as if by water currents).
I like that you weren't afraid to experiment too - this shot did stand out in the challenge (although I imagine that most viewers would not have scored it highly, due to the blurring).
DOF is really not an issue with the blades of grasses and yet I think it is with the baskets (does that make sense?). The reeds are recognizable, but the bottom things are not.
I also think that the shot still seems a bit overexposed and that the "blown highlights" to which you refer still seeped through somewhat. I do like the greens and yellow tones you brought out though.
Overall, I don't think it's a bad photo; but I also don't think it quite hit the artistic mark you were aiming for. I imagine that this was probably one of many "misunderstood" images from the challenge.
What really matters is whether or not you are happy with the outcome - I know that when I experiment with different techniques and styles of composition, I am usually the person who likes it the most AND the person who likes it the least. :-) I would be anxious to see more of your experimentations with this type of shot and see what you liked, disliked, & learned.
The green tones are nice and the blades of grass add flow to the composition. It has a technical blurred quality to it that is likable.
Most viewer's will feel your attempt to use movement to create a fantasy world with ordinary objects is not that successful and vote this image lower. There are several others like yours in this challenge that will similarly suffer.
Sorry but I think it looks like a shot with bad camera shake and not much other interest. Maybe a very lower point of view would have helped this composition and added drama?
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