great action with the duck......the water is muddy looking, but I've photographed many ducks at our local park and the water is somewhat similar. great detail on the duck too....I like it!
(I'm writing this to everyone who submitted a landscape shot) The challenge was to produce a shot worthy of a magazine cover but to me a shot like this is not suitable to be put on a "portrait" format magazine.
As for the picture itself, its a shame the water is so murky, its not a very exciting magazine cover.
---ADDITIONAL---
Due to forum discussions and accusations that marking landscapes down is nitpicking, I'm going through them and remarking. I still think some of the landscapes would not make good covers because of their orientation but I am no longer marking down because of that.
I still think landscape is inapropriate for the majority of magazines but I'll give the benefit of the doubt to the photographers.
Wow! This is an awesome shot. This is top quality and pitch perfect. I'm going to give you a high mark; however, you may find others will mark you down for having a horizontally cropped image instead of a vertically cropped image. IT seemed to be an issue in the last magazine challenge.