Hello Serenety! Greetings from the Critique Club :)
I see you're new to DPC - welcome!
The purpose of Critique Club comments is to give you a bit more in-depth feedback on your picture and potential ways of improving it, so I hope you find the following helpful.
Mmm, tasty looking challenge :) I'd say the photo definitely meets the challenge, and I like the way it's half eaten. And the light is gorgeous - it's really lovely and warm.
The obvious main problem with this picture is the focus. It might be that you needed a smaller apperture, but I'm not sure if that was the problem. It's possible that instead, the autofocus went a bit wrong on this... Which focus mode were you using? It's often quite a good idea to only use the middle focusing point, or even manual focus (which is fine for shots like these where the subject isn't moving). Just try and make sure that the subject of your photo is nice and crisp.
The second thing is that I'm not too sure about the composition... It's interesting, but it feels a bit unbalanced - almost like the cupcake is about to fall off from the right somehow. It's normally a good idea to be quite careful about not cutting off your subject, unless it's for an intentional effect.
Also, it's a good idea to use the maximum amount of space that the challenge rules allow you to - your picture is 500px wide, whereas the limit for this challenge is 640px. The extra size allows the people to see your picture that bit better, and tends to raise your score.
Another suggestion would be to try sharpening it a bit more. Say using unsharp mask, 1.5px, 30%. You can also use unsharp mask to increase the contrast a bit, by doing something like 35px, 20%.
Anyway, hope this helps. And good luck with future challenges!
Any questions, just message me.
Jelena |