The love of field and coppice,
Of green and shaded Lanes,
Of ordered woods and gardens,
Is running in your veins;
Strong love of grey-blue distance,
Brown streams and soft, dim skies -
I know but cannot share it,
My love is otherwise.
I love a sunburnt country,
A land of sweeping plains,
Of ragged mountain ranges,
Of drought and flooding rains,
I love her far horizons,
I love her jewel sea,
Her beauty and her terror -
The wide brown land for me.
The tragic ring-barked forests
Stark white beneath the moon,
The sapphire-misted mountains,
The hot gold hush of noon.
Green tangle of the brushes
Where lithe lianas coil,
An orchids deck the tree-tops
And ferns the crimson soil.
Core of my heart, my country!
Her pitiless blue sky,
When sick at heart around us
We see the cattle die -
But then the grey clouds gather
And we can bless again
The drumming of an army,
The steady, soaking rain.
Core of my heart, my country!
Land of the Rainbow Gold,
For flood and fire and famine,
She pays us back threefold;
Over the thirsty paddocks,
Watch, after many days,
The filmy veil of greenness
That thickens as we gaze.
An opal-hearted country,
A wilful, lavish land -
All you who have not loved her,
You will not understand -
Though Earth holds many splendours,
Wherever I may die,
I know to what brown Country
My homing thoughts will fly.
Camera Work/Technical: Superb. Your colors are vivid, hinting that your white balance was properly chosen and adjusted, and your focus is nice and crisp. Your depth of field use nicely isolates the droplets while still allowing us to feel what you have in your background.
Lighting: Your lighting is also very nice. You have achieved a very nice, evenly lit image with no blown highlights or detail loss to shadows.
Composition/Content: I agree with you that a smaller flag would have worked much better, or perhaps moving the glass farther from the flag when shooting.
My Opinion: I am sure that it is me missing something, but I don't understand the title. Also, I just don't get the feeling of love jumping out at me when the image loads. While the score is on the high side of average and the image is well-done from a technical standpoint, I think that this type of refraction image is a bit overdone. While refraction is a valuable tool in the photography tool chest, the ongoing struggle for us photographers is finding new and creative ways to photograph refraction. This one in particular is too much of an emulation of Setzler's "Liberty and Justice" from 2002. I added it to my favorites back in April of 2006.
Nice try on a JMSetzler photo however I would like to see the Union Jack in the center of the background with mini union jacks int he drops. Well Above Average Attempt 8