This is the first challenge I've entered in a long while. Very simple setup - just a mug of coffee over a newspaper with lighting from a nearby window and a flash bounced off the ceiling. Post processing includes conversion to black and white, levels, brightness/contrast, and selective color.
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First impressions Interesting depth of field, nice tones.
On reflection Still lovely tones, good composition and meets the circle challenge well. The shallow depth of field works well to emphasise the focus of your image. The loss of detail in the hands is unsettling, a commenter mentioned noise reduction and I agree that it does look like that has been heavily applied, however as it's not in your PP notes it must be as a result of the shallow DOF and the overhead flash. The other unsettling thing is the lack of catchlight in the coffee, again it could be explainable by the set up, but the two things combined give an unreal feel to the image. Sorry if that sounds like I think the image is fake, just sometimes a paticular set up of lighting, aperture etc works better than others. Some of your commenters liked the softness so you can see we're in the area of subjectivity here ;)
Overall A nicely toned and composed image that fits the challenge well. The softness of parts of the image will appeal to some and not to others.
:)
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