Discovery Garden Sun Dial
by purpletroll

Comment by sahko:
too much of the pavement in front

Discovery Garden Sun Dial
by purpletroll

Comment by Photobug:
I like the composition of the photo. I wish the person was not in the background. Also if you could have backed up a foot or two so that the entire cement circle were in, or to have incorporated the cement circles more - I think that would have helped the picture. The color is lovely.

Ring of light
by purpletroll

Comment by e301:
Critique Club time for you ...

I guess there's a certain creepiness to this image - suggestions of mines, and of dark places underground, and of surfacing. The nebulous quality of the presentation suggests dreams, or rather nightmares, with thier attendant element of hope, of possible salvation. There are elements that speak to me of rottenness - like peering into a bottle of soured milk in a desperate 3a.m. hunt for something in the fridge; or like scrabbling in the gutter in a confused drunken haze, unable to focus, wondering blearily if that light is a car, or a train, or might just perhaps be the bedside lamp and actually one is safe at home in bed.

If it was eant to be a figurative image ... I'm impressed that someone was able to work out what it is - I couldn't. I really don't know what else to say - I'm not about to start listing the technical faults with the image: they're legion, and surely very obvious.

ed

Ring of light
by purpletroll

Comment by Alpine99:
I know this is an abstract but I can't get beyond the fact there's no WOW factor and there isn't any focus..

Ring of light
by purpletroll

Comment by Swashbuckler:
I'm a bit confused. The title says - Look at the glass around the candle, but the focus isn't on the glass. The crop cut into the circle of the glass, both top and bottom. 5 Rob the Swash

Ring of light
by purpletroll

Comment by sn4psh07:
I don't know if your camera supports it, but my main suggestion would be to use manual focus on this type of picture. As the lighting conditions are very difficult for an autofocus system. Good picture, and a good idea.

Ring of light
by purpletroll

Comment by KissakiMan:
too unsharp.

American Pride Flyin' High
by purpletroll

Comment by dsidwell:
Hi Rhonda!

Greetings from the Critique Club!

In this image, I see that the central subject is a flag currently being blown by a slight breeze. It is evident that the flag has seen rougher days, as it is wrapped around its pole not a few times! This may be the speed at which you allude here, but I'm not sure.

As a photo, I think that the composition, with the flag in the upper third, is good. It gives it a sense of support from the lower regions of the photo, and makes it interesting to look at from that angle, and it adds some grandeur to the flag.

The cloudy background is good for the flag, and sets it off nicely, though I am distracted a bit by the tops of the trees and the telephone lines at the bottom. Though these elements can serve to put the flag into a natural environment, that also means that the gradeur of the flag is being traded for realism, which does not match your title.

There were many comments about this image not meeting the speed challenge, and I have to admit that I'm a bit confused as well. There IS speed in the image, manifest in the soft breeze, though it is not very fast, and admitedly, the challenge was not FAST, but SPEED. The subject here seems to be the flag itself though, and not the speed at which the flag is flapping or flying.

If you want higher scores here on DPC (and that is not always everyone's goal here--and it may not be yours), I would urge you to think in generalizations that appeal to many folks and avoid too many subtleties. This does not mean that you will turn out better photos, it just means that they will probably score better here on DPC. Does that make sense?

In sum, this is a pretty good photo that most voters felt did not meet the challenge. Retain your obvious skills at composition and drama, and experiment with being a bit more obvious with the challenge theme.

Good luck in future submissions!

David

American Pride Flyin' High
by purpletroll

Comment by wewillexplore:
How does this relate to speed?

American Pride Flyin' High
by purpletroll

Comment by KissakiMan:
Nice photo, but does this meet the challenge?