The Sunset
by cowboy221977

Comment by littlemav:
OOOO nice!!!!! Lord what you could do with this in advanced ... LOVE LOVE

The Sunset
by cowboy221977

Comment by Coley:
Nice reflection
like the silhouette

The Sunset
by cowboy221977

Comment by Denielle:
Beautiful shot.
There's an "unbeautiful" quality that makes it that much more intriguing. Love the colors. The reflections. Very nicely done.

Hattiesburg zoo Leopard
by cowboy221977

Comment by beatabg:
Awww how cute. Looks like he is saying "hi"

Over the River
by cowboy221977

Comment by Paul:
Greetings from the Critique Club!

I won't go on too much because you've had a bunch of recent input below, but...

I think this image has more potential within a tighter crop. The tunnel-like effect of the bridge offers some mean perspective and some potential to pull the viewer in. You have undersold it here.

Straighten, crop to just above the bridge and half way between the bottom and the bottom of the signposts and I think you have yourself a more powerful composition that emphasises depth. I'm not sure about going black and white; the colours you'd be left with - red and green always look fine in my view, though I certainly think some vintage coloration might help.

Just some suggestions...

Best regards

Paul

The Mask of War
by cowboy221977

Comment by EL-ROI:
From the critique thread: Issues with this shot include lack of sharpness, lack of contrast. Just because it was suggested by the OP, I worked up an edit to show where I would have went with this shot in PP to give it some pop. Obviously I introduced banding in the sky by working on the small image... but here it is:

The Mask of War
by cowboy221977

Comment by lawrysimm:
Commenting for the critique thread - clearly you got slammed for the DNMC.

In a relevant challenge I would probably score this 5-6 depending on the strength of the competition.

It tells a story, but is clearly focussed very tightly. A wider angle view of the destruction might give a broader context.

As to this particular composition, the very bottom of the shot has some rocks that distract - a quick clone of at least the lower ones would help but that's almost insignificant. Maybe a high contrast (even HDR) black and white might be more impactive.

The shot also seems to lack a bit of clarity (especially around the top of the building) but that may be because I am viewing on an iPad currently.

Over the River
by cowboy221977

Comment by EL-ROI:
From the critique thread... I think you have great color here and a nice crisp shot. Sky is interesting with the clouds and yes, the horizon is off. This is a good standard shot that will work well as a backdrop for a portrait. I think it needs something to add interest like a person, a train, or something else. This has good elements... Composition, color, exposure. It is missing that necessary dynamic fourth element...

Over the River
by cowboy221977

Comment by nam:
I was another 5 in the scoring and I scored low in this challenge so that's a good average score. I noticed the horizon, a sensor dust spot to the left of the top of the bridge, and a slight halo, quite wide, from the processing. I think Susan's ideas are great - I entered a very average shot in this challenge, too, and was dying to have someone to people mine!

Over the River
by cowboy221977

Comment by lawrysimm:
Commenting for the critique thread - I see I have this a 5 in voting.

For me the immediate turn off is the tilting horizon. I'm like the "level police". I'll always knock a point off for what I perceive to be a lack of attention to detail. If it is an intentional tilt, I would expect it to be a little more exaggerated.

I agree with the other comments about a tighter crop too... The signs on the right are quite distracting so I would crop in so they were out of shot.

The leading lines are good, but for a shot like this I would prefer more front to back focus so a much smaller aperture.

I also feel a slightly lower perspective would help so that there was more looking along the tracks rather than down at the tracks.

I do like the topaz processing, I agree with you that it came out pretty good.