My - Self - Portrait
by frozensun

Comment:
Placement is a little too central for my tastes. Good light and lovely out of focus background. 7 - floyd

Occupational Hazard
by tolyanchik

Comment:
The drastic reduction in quality that this photo suffered looks like a classic resizing problem using nearest neighbor or some other similar size reduction algorithm. The good news that this is something that can be solved. If your graphics program has a "resample" mode when resizing then that should work better. If not then you could always try Paint Shop Pro (which is very good and shareware) or Photoshop Elements (which is even better IMO and veay cheap).

Eat Your Fruits And Veggies
by wayne9232

Comment:
Seems slightly lacking in colour - almost a grey caste to it. Good selection of objects for this still life but I think it needed a slightly tighter arrangement. 5 - floyd

Orange Blossom
by frisca

Comment:
Wonderful shot with really creative use of lighting. Slight shame about the hot reflection at the bottom but otherwise I love it. 8 - floyd

Feeling Blue
by Gekker

Comment:
Greetings from the Critique Club

Perhaps I'm way off the mark here but this looks to me like a picture with a message. A message perhaps about the middle east - perhaps the wars in Afganistan or Iraq. There's the middle eastern style of dress with the covered face (burqa?), the blue which to us westerners suggests sadness and the subject's pose which is, to me, reminiscent of Mary. This all leads to thoughts of the plight of common people in those countries, particularly as the west makes war on their leaders. If I'm right this is a VERY strong concept for your submission and an excellent interpretation of the challenge and I applaud you for it.

Technically I think there are a couple of things that could be improved and both are related to your lighting. First of all it's very dark. I believe you were trying to get that lovely kind of glow on your subject's skin but I don't think you've exposed the shot long enough for that. The other thing is the strong shadow in the background which is rather overpowering. Or perhaps it's supposed to be there and I've not figured out why. Removing the shadow would have meant moving your face lighting higher and more to one side and perhaps having another light shining across the background.

This also leads me onto the setup of your shot which seems excellent all except for the green patches on the blue cloth which look too modern and as one of your commenters said 'break the mood'. However, you really did capture some lovely shadows and highlights on the cloth there.

Overall I find this a *very* interesting picture. I really hope I've interpreted your picture correctly. I always award extra marks for a photo that shows some intelligence or intent and this scores very well indeed in my book. Well done.

John

:()H
by EJ

Comment:
Gonna be an amazing shot when you can clone out those wires. Excellent atmosphere and the B&W works very well. 8 - floyd

Burning Bush
by crabappl3

Comment:
Stunning colour and light. Only slight flaw is the sun behind the tree which is a little too hot. GREAT shot though. 9 - floyd

Welcome Springtime
by nds

Comment:
Lovely focus and contrast. Slight evidence of sharpening around the jeans. Interesting take on the challenge. 8 - floyd

Great Egret Beak'on of Color
by progersct

Comment:
Greetings from the Critique Club

My first impressions of your picture are twofold - first of all it's very small and secondly your framing is excellent. The framing I like especially because it adds impact to the shot and helps guide the viewers eye. I find my eye kinda starts at the egret's eye, moves along the beak, back to the eye and then anti-clockwise around the white feathers - pretty good. The framing also gives the feeling of being close to the bird and that comes across strongly in the comments you've received. You've arranged the shot nicely along the lines of the rule of thirds and this picture really suits that very well. I think the only improvement I could suggest would be to just bring the tip of the beak back into the picture if you can.

Now on to the size - I'm gonna go out on a limb here and guess that this was necessary for some reason. Perhaps this is a small crop of a larger picture or perhaps you used a long lens and to make it larger would show up some camera shake. But like it or not the size has negatively affected your score - again this is pretty clear from your comments.

Technically your shot is pretty good. At this size the focus looks OK but there's not much detail. The exposure is good - I'd have liked stronger daylight to really make the colour of that beak pop off the screen but that might have led to overexposure on the white feathers. All in all I think you did great with the exposure.

I'm not a big fan of punning or contrived titles but I would never let the title affect my score.

Suitability for the challenge seems OK to me. I like the contrast of the yellow and the white, the colour and the lack of colour. I think that's a nice interpretation of the challenge.

Overall this is a good challenge submission with excellent impact and interest. Well done.

John

One Drop Joins Many
by Fiver

Comment:
Lovely light and colour 8 - floyd