Table for two
by bluenova

Comment:
The table is slightly off of horizontal; this would be less distracting if the outer candle weren't leaning in to emphasize the imbalance. This is a nice, minimalistic image, but I think that it needs some final element to really communicate the concept of romance; a pair of wine glasses, a shadow against the wall, etc. As it stands now, the image seems to lack a human connection for me to empathize with.

Candy Surprise
by annah

Comment:
I think that this would have been a stronger presentation if you hadn't blown out the edges of the paper. On my monitor the text almost appears to be written on the background; only the shadow remains to indicate otherwise. The exposure meter in your camera will assume that on a properly exposed image, averaging the brightness of the entire frame will produce a uniform grey image; usually this heuristic works, but it is dead wrong when shooting a small object against a white background. With a shot like this you'll need to adjust your exposure to compensate for your camera's assumptions.

Restrained Romance
by angela_packard

Comment:
I doubt that this will score well, but kudos for having the guts to submit it anyway. This would be a much clearer representation of the theme if the model looked more like a willing participant. The hair over her face makes her expression hard to read, but her pose looks a little more defiant than I'd expect for an entry in a romance-themed challenge.

The strongly directional light from your single flash isn't especially flattering. If you only had one light to work with, bouncing it off of something light colored would have helped to diffuse the light. I'm not sure that a shot like this should have soft light, but the sharp shadow looks a little amateurish in this context. The brick background does add to the feel of the image, but something about it just feels off. Perhaps it feels too much like a weather-sealed basement where a dungeon atmosphere seems more appropriate.

Keeping Love Alive
by skewsme

Comment:
My first reaction was to rate this as an average shot and move on, but for some reason the wife's birth year caught my attention. That combined with your title and the still vacant space to the right of the hyphen mad me pause to wonder for a moment. Is this woman still alive? Does she still have strong feelings for this man? Has she remarried? Would she still like to be buried with Alfred (presumably her first husband)?

I like the selective desat on the flower. If the grass was green I think that leaving a hint of that color might have been nice; if it was dead then this was definitely the way to go. I like the noise that you added to the image, even though it turned a little too blocky when you saved it to DPC size requirements. The streaks on the bottom of the headstone drew my attention almost immediately, and I've got mixed feelings about them. If they're going to be there, the image would certainly be stronger if they somehow visibly tied into the thematic content of the image. The legible name on the tombstone in the background is somewhat distracting; recomposing the shot to have only illegible writing in the background would probably have been an improvement.

I almost gave this an average score. Thanks for making me stop and think. It's not often that images here at DPC make me do that. I wonder, does that say more about me or the images here?

Lovers spot
by jaaad

Comment:
It looks like you went to a lot of trouble to create a sense of atmosphere. I think that a warmer color cast and perhaps a slightly darker exposure would have served you better in following through with the effort. I particularly like the wine glasses and the compositional elements immediately surrounding them; after orchestrating this photo you probably don't want to hear this, but I think that I would have scored a closely cropped shot of those a few points higher than the shot as a whole.

expression
by hopper

Comment:
B&W is often used to highlight the textures in an image, but you appear to have used NeatImage or something similar to scrub all of the detail off. I think that this would have been a stronger entry by either leaving it in color or not using NI on a B&W image. The position of the hands is well done. Somehow the background feels too empty; some nice bokeh might have added a little kick to the visual impact.

My Heart
by littlegett

Comment:
The foreground is too cluttered to allow the larger rock to be a clear focal point. Even if the rock did strongly resemble a heart (either anatomically or ironically) this is still exceptionally far removed from the challenge topic of "romance".

Sunday In the Park
by JeffryZ

Comment:
The non-level horizon is distracting. A shallower DoF would have helped to isolate your subjects.

Dave & Kat
by bobdaveant

Comment:
Based on the comfort that these two show with one another I wouldn't doubt that they're romantically involved, but the image seems to convey a feeling of affection rather than overt romance.

For Jason
by katie-belle

Comment:
The setup appears to have had a lot of thought put into it, but the girl looks too self-conscious to let this image feel as intimate as it might have. Adding a soft, diffused light behind the model would have helped to separate her from the background.