Welsh Love Spoon
by BobsterLobster

Comment:
Something has gone badly wrong with your processing here - bad sharpeneing and compression artefacts all over this. compositionally the red area bottom right is very out of place wth the interst of the blinds and the plant.

Back to Back - Old to New
by danwan

Comment:
Nice idea; the framing seems a little obvious, and doesn't do much for the structural contrast of the two elements. Perhaps a touch or two over-exposed, and over-sharpened (lots of the lines have become jagged).

Independence Day
by MarkS224

Comment:
I guess this challenge running over the weekend of the 4th was bound to be too tempting for you Americans! The best critique I could offer would perhaps be to study moodville's second-placed shot and compare with your own: the capture of the motion of the fireworks, and the detail of them is completely comparable - indeed yours are probably more intersting in themselves. It's the other elements that have put that shot up where it is and yours down here: some context for the photo.

One fairly glaring criticism though: why have you left that enormous black area to the left of frame? If I brighten my screen an awful lot, I can just make out some smoke there, but at a normal setting it's absolutley blank.I would hazard a guess that either you need to check your own monitor settings, or to be aware that a lot of people here have theirs set reasonably dark.

It's a good moment that you've caught though - intersting to see the different stage of process of diffferent fireworks. Two reasons immediately come to mind for the low score though: there were so many firewirk photos in this challenge, and without some context it doesn't obviously meet the challenge.

Ed

Night into Day
by wsargen

Comment:
When this shot came out of the queue i thought it must be a temperature shot, and then noticed that it was a night on the town shot.

As a documentary shot I really like it: the graininess and the over-exposure of the fire gives a great sense of danger and excitement, especially with the view of the back of that firefighter as he/she moves towards the flames.

I don't really want to get into technical discussion here - it isn't the kind of shot that 'follows the rules' as it were anyway. Were it posed then there are pretty obvious elements one would change, especially in composition, and extraneous elements.

In that 'technical' sense, it isn't a good photo - but as a record of a moment, it's fine. I would guess it scored as it did because most voters here appear to be looking for clean, controlled, well-executed shots, rather than the drama of this. Were it perfectly focussed, exposed, and not grainy at all I'd guess it would have done better.

ed

Hot, Lazy Afternoon
by jjbeguin

Comment:
Should have guessed it was yours JJ. More great work, I'm only slightly surprised it didn't score a little higher - but I suspect there aren't enough experienced eyes here to rate this above the what i fnd are rather too obvious shots which placed higher. Eighth ain't so bad though.

Ed

Art......!!
by agwright

Comment:
Your Critique Club moment, Tony. Hi.

My first and overwhelming reaction to this shot was/is 'I wish it were taken from a higher vantage point' - from just about level with the top of that wall would have given you a great contrast with the rest of the stone. Not so easily done as said, I'm sure, but I think it would have added a lot. The way it is, two things bug me: the amount of white sky in the shot - it's really quite a large amount of the image to be simply white; and the scaffolding (if that's what it is), chimneys and that grey building that intrude over the wall - thye pull the eye away from the wall pretty hard.

I don't plainly see an unanswered question - at least no more than I would in perhaps any photo, and I think for me that's what a shot in this challenge had to produce. Here I could be thinking 'why do this to a wall?', or 'do I consider this art?', and only now have I noticed that this a hoarding above a wall, not a higher part of the same wall as the stone. I'd have to guess that your point is along the lines of 'why do some people consider this to be art?' - but it's been a somewhat tortuous journey to get there.

Technically, there's no obvious problems, other than that of composition as I've mentioned earlier: and anyone who can take your weather challenge photo needs no help from me. I get the impression that this is an entry informed by some anger (really am guessing now - but did the Festival Theatre commission the horading painting?) rather than in hope of winning a challenge, though. Good luck in future

Ed

I'm ccccold!
by ursula

Comment:
That very brutal flash lighting really doesn't help this shot. Beyond that, maybe a little steam coming from the cup or something would aid the illusion. It's more of a pity as there looks to be some really interesting textures here.

Fried
by Pedro

Comment:
Nice idea - but looks like an egg got pre-fried and then placed on the road - even more than the other version of this idea does. perhaps if you'd partially fried it and then put it down it would convince more?

'Nuff Said
by alanfreed

Comment:
I like the idea - but it looks rather like you put a fried egg on the road, rather than the road fried the egg.

Where there's smoke...
by kavamama

Comment:
Great shot, great composition too - almost like a Bierstadt painting. Could have used some noise reduction perhaps.