Leaper of Faith
by PhilXT350

Comment by aquarian11:
Being a jaguar fan, I was partial to this immediately. Love the paws
in the mirror image.

Shades of Brown to Black with a Bite
by PhilXT350

Comment by Brad:
Greetings from the Critique Club!
"...try to use two complementary colors to compose your photograph."

This seemed to be a very subjective challenge for those submitting as well the voters. The "intended" focus of this challenge was to photograph something with 2 opposite colors in the color wheel. This can esily be checked in most photo-editing programs by simply inverting the colors and seeing what the opposite of a certain color is.

Composition:
Your composition pulls the eye right to the main focal point - the birds face & eyes. Depth of field places the background nicely out of focus. The pose is classic and powerful.

Lighting:
Your subject is well lit, but perhaps a bit harsh in the beak area. Catchlight in the eye is benficial to the realistic look.

Post-Processing:
Image overall is lacking sharpness and the fine detail that make these kind of images so strong historically speaking. A slight increase in contrast and decrease in brightness may have helped this shot overall. Your border, though simple, is not proportioned evenly, being narrower on the bottom. Not sure if this was intended or an oversight. A simple way to make a 10 pixel border in Photoshop, would be to Ctrl-A to select the whole image, then Edit, Stroke, select inside, type in 10 for the pixel width and select white, or choose a color of your choice, though white generally shows better in the challenges.

Suggestions/Improvements:
This image fell near the bottom of the challenge rankings, primarily due to the lack of really meeting the intended challenge, and am sure you realize what happened by now. Keep your eyes on the forums to see discusssions so often associated with challenge descriptions.
Things get better with time, as the site becomes more familiar to you, and your camera becomes an extension of your eyes. Keep shooting! I know what that camera is capable of and the sky is the limit!

I hope this was useful to you, and please feel free to contact me via PM if you have any questions regarding this critique or anything else relating to the site in general.

Regards,
Brad

Shades of Brown to Black with a Bite
by PhilXT350

Comment by ericpi:
It's a great shot! But it seems a bit of a stretch for this competition.

Shades of Brown to Black with a Bite
by PhilXT350

Comment by HVGB_photos:
Complementary colours are pairs of colours that contrast strongly when compared to each other.
Black and white are neutrals and not colours at all, and therefore they cannot be complementary colours... white shows the presence of light, and black shows the absence of light. Black and white areas next to each other do demonstrate high contrast, but high contrast gives a different visual effect than complementary colours do in a picture.

Your image demonstrates a duotone effect rather than the effect of complementary colours.

Check some of the forum discussions on complementary colours for suggestions on using colour for contrast.

Shades of Brown to Black with a Bite
by PhilXT350

Comment by Penny Lane:
the yellow and blue on the beak work well

Shades of Brown to Black with a Bite
by PhilXT350

Comment by katswig:
DNMC

Shades of Brown to Black with a Bite
by PhilXT350

Comment by Mrvile:
Nice capture, but I don't see complementary colors?

Shades of Brown to Black with a Bite
by PhilXT350

Comment by Gatorguy:
Could be a little larger and a little sharper

Shades of Brown to Black with a Bite
by PhilXT350

Comment by nordic:
nice shot but needs to be pin sharp to be a winner....

Shades of Brown to Black with a Bite
by PhilXT350

Comment by cwalmye:
NO, black isn't a color!