Smoke Break For The Working Man
by WonderDude

Comment by snaffles:
Greetings from the Critique Club!

I quite liked this image and gave it a 7 in voting so thought it would finish higher than it did. I think you beat me :-) Stuart and his pose here reminds me of Nathaniel Rateliffe, of whom I am a fan. You have a lot of grey tones in there, but I don't see true black, though pretty sure there is pure white in there. The lighting and comp are great. I can't see the extensive pp work, so kudos for making it invisible!!

Honestly I don't know why portraits seem to have been soundly panned in this challenge. Seems like the voters were expecting nothing less than towering peaks and cool urban shots, and anything more earthy and/or human just wasn't in the cards.

Hope this helps!

Susan

Smoke Break For The Working Man
by WonderDude

Comment by lei_73:
Awesome portrait, great composition, apocalyptic sky!

Smoke Break For The Working Man
by WonderDude

Comment by Kodak:
Interesting

A wise man named Tom
by WonderDude

Comment by bvy:
Those hands tell the story!

A wise man named Tom
by WonderDude

Comment by tnun:
let's give him a big hand.

A wise man named Tom
by WonderDude

Comment by Abra:
Nice portrait and good lighting. The blown highlight on the wall does draw my eye but needs me to visit Tom on the way so it kind of works.

Just a Duck
by WonderDude

Comment by snaffles:
Greetings from the Critique Club!

Nice shot of mallard hen, and she has plenty of room to swim into. Ambient light is good and not harsh, ripples in the water and funky colours/patterns add interest. But though technically a good shot, it's just a little on the bland side. This pic could have been taken anywhere, so I feel that is why it didn't connect with viewers.

One thing you may want to try in the future with wildlife: shoot at their eye level, not yours. Here you were clearly standing and shooting down at the duck. Had you shot at her eye level, you may well have got a fantastic and different perspective and seen new things. Never be afraid to change your point of view (aka pov). Often it pays off.

Hope this helps, keep shooting and entering!

Susan

SR71 Blackbird
by WonderDude

Comment by Jules1x:
Greetings from the Critique Club.

You found a strong subject and you definitely captured the close up part of the challenge imho. You also met the panorama part of the challenge by stiching images together, but I suspect many voters were expecting to see long skinny images rather than wide in all directions. (I do not see anything in the technical 'definition' of panorama that calls for only long view, in fact it almost seems to describe the opposite of that - wide view in all directions. But I can't help but think some of the voters only wanted to see a certain aspect for these images.)

Exposure is interesting, you captured bright highlights and dark shadow areas. I happen to like those bright areas, although it does seem like maybe the highlights went a bit too far around the Alabama flag. I am unable to discern the borders to that flag. Your stitching looks great to me, I am unable to see any problem spots with the stitching. I do seem some odd texture in the sky above and to the right of the top wing. It almost looks like sound waves.

The overall scene is probably the other weakness to this image when compared to others in this challenge. Even though you managed to minimize people, the building, fence, trees, etc. all compete with your subject to some extent for me. The fence particularly I found distracting, it's just not very pretty or interesting. I would have been curious how this image might have done have some extreme cropping been done after stitching making the bottom of the plane the bottom of the image then cropping the very top of the top wing off. You captured the whole the plane wonderfully, but my favorite part of your image is that center round engine. There is some gorgeous texture in it, and I love that red.

I didn't vote in the challenge, but I would have given this a 5. I think it met the challenge, but the overall busyness in the scene kept it from being a top pick from me.

Thanks for the entry. (I always love a good plane shot, and that motor, I am seriously infatuated with that motor.)

Julee

A Rope At Rest
by WonderDude

Comment by JakeKurdsjuk:
Like the composition and the OOF background, but I find the front loop lack of focus distracting.

A Horse is a Horse of Course
by WonderDude

Comment by snaffles:
I just felt I had to chime in here. If you'd shot this chestnut (not black) horse at just ISO 100-200, and possibly at a much smaller aperture, you probably would have got a decent silhouette. Wondering why you needed to shoot a horse that's just standing there at 1/6400 - hell I catch my broncs and bulls going full bore at 1/1250!)

The high ISO has given you masses of grain/noise in the image, which is a vote-killer on this site. Sharpening didn't help. Anyway I hope you'll take the very good advice offered here by myself and others, and perhaps get some practice in at silhouettes. Feel free to PM me with any questions.

Susan