Beautiful South
by olbol

Comment by snaffles:
Greetings from the Critique Club!

Very nice landscape, great colours and tones, but I'm not seeing a real focal point to draw me in. Landscapes do tend to do very well during Free Studies...but they have to be magnificent to do well. This is a good postcard-type pic, well-exposed and inoffensive, but that is also its weakness as it lacks that WOW! factor, which this site favours.

You live in a heaven-sent country for photography; keep on exploring it and shoot at different seasons, times of day, different lenses, during the night, during the morning, and see what you can do.

Hope this helps

Susan

Mission 143.1.19
by olbol

Comment by snaffles:
Greetings from the Critique Club!

Aw dang I was wrong, I was guessing the underside of a mushroom :-) Never would have guessed runoff from a shower or bath!

Meets the challenge very well in being an abstract and a macro; the texture is great and the pattern intriguing but I think the bleachiness of the larger areas on the left are what cost you points. I can see the aerial aspect you refer to though and appreciate the effort you put in here. I think that on the technical side, a lower ISO would have helped to kill the bleachiness, and a slightly deeper aperture, to give it more detail.

Hope this helps

Susan

Small leak. Long winter
by olbol

Comment by sidpixel:
*Hello from Sid and the Critique Club*

An interesting image assumed to meet the challenge.

It's making me feel cold just looking at it! The leak and freezing cold has made a spectacular sight for sure, I like your composition, we have everything of interest nicely placed off-centre with a feel for the surrounding desolation of the location. The clear blue sky adds an appealing backdrop to the scene, the white of the icicle contrasts well with it. For a nice clean image I think it would have been preferable to have cloned out the wire from the tower.

Thanks for your submission, apologies for the delay of the critique, Sid.

Gran Sasso frowns
by olbol

Comment by wbanning:
Hi olbol,

This comment is part of my participation in the DPC Critique Club. There's a big backlog of images with requested critiques, sorry for the delay.

This is a really dramatic and evocative image. I like your color choice in the conversion toning very much. I wonder about the exposure or image brightness, though. I have my monitor cranked up all the way and it's still fairly dark... wondering if it lost some shadow details when viewers weren't at full monitor brightness. On the other hand, the image is meant to be dark and foreboding, I imagine. One suggestion I have that might be effective is to crop off the top at about 1 inch (or about 20%). The wider aspect ratio along with removing some of the nondescript grey clouds at the top could add to the impact. Clearly that's just a personal preference, this is a strong image as it stands. Nicely done!

Two opposites at a time
by olbol

Comment by cowboy221977:
Hello from the critique club...

I'd like to say that is thinking outside the box. I love the idea of the rock paper scissors. It's a very good idea for this challenge. Also the b&w works very well. Everything seems to be very crisp and clear. There's plenty of detail throughout. I also like the simplistic approach that you too. Well done. Happy shooting

Two opposites at a time
by olbol

Comment by mitalapo:
and you show three of those at once!

Two opposites at a time
by olbol

Comment by kasaba:
Clever :-)

Two opposites at a time
by olbol

Comment by Dirt_Diver:
SWEET...

Gran Sasso frowns
by olbol

Comment by glad2badad:
Nice job on exposing the shadows on this. I like the grassy valley section lower right too.

Small leak. Long winter
by olbol

Comment by BarbB:
An extra point for an interesting subject. I'd have liked to have seen the top of tower lighten a touch, as it fades into the background a bit too much for my liking. Nice image.