Deus ex machina
by snaffles

Comment by kiwinick:
good strong image shows the power

Big black mare
by snaffles

Comment by sidpixel:
Hello from the critique club

An appealing image that contributes well to the open challenge

You’ve done her proud Susan, what a lovely portrait of a lovely horse. Your high key exposure has given her a sort of translucency that makes her radiate in a very pleasing way which also gives an essence of strength to her character. Whilst the high key effect has blown the background it helps make the horse stand out whilst your control of the whites in the horses fur is good there is detail throughout, well controlled. Focus, DOF and composition are all enhancing the end result in a very pleasing way.

Deus ex machina
by snaffles

Comment by giantmike:
Normally, the tilt would drive me mad, but it's working here.

True North
by snaffles

Comment by JamesDowning:
Hello from the Critique Club.

Susan, honestly I'm not excited by this challenge in general. What looks good on a stamp doesn't necessarily look good at 800 x 1200. This might have been a good challenge to view from my phone.

I agree with the other members. The image is simple and appropriate for a stamp, but I really think the large image sizes worked against you. When I open your image by itself and zoom out to about 25%, I start to like your image more, but I do lose the taupe border around the leaf, which was a key design element I think that added some extra interest. Additionally, the text becomes a bit small proportionally, although at full size the text feels big. If the challenge creator had some forethought, they should have made an additional rule to require images to be 300 pixels max. Anyway, enough griping.

I like the sparkly background, but wouldn't have known what it was without really reading your description. Again, it looks even better in the size that a stamp should be.

Some final thoughts, You have a border around the stamp edges, but not around the stamp background. It looks a little off because of that. I'd suggest putting a border on both, or neither.

Hope you found a little insight here for this unconventional challenge. Cheers.
-James

True North
by snaffles

Comment by markwiley:
Simple yet compelling design. This would make a good stamp.

Big black mare
by snaffles

Comment by Abra:
Love this edit. Well done! (not voting)

Big black mare
by snaffles

Comment by mariuca:
Great portrait and extraordinary sitter!
bump

Big black mare
by snaffles

Comment by kiwinick:
great portrait you have captured the power of the animal well

Rarity
by snaffles

Comment by Cyrilda:
I love it. Finally get to see your front instead of back. :)

True North
by snaffles

Comment by kiwinick:
clean and clear from where it comes well done