Vices, Caffeine and Nicotine
by _eug

Comment:
Compositionally a nice image and the desaturated color of the Starbucks cup works well for a theme dep[icting that we are not quite awake yet when we get that first cup of coffee. The color in the cigarette looks off and out of place in this image and will probably hurt it in voting. Might have looked better if totally BW with visible smoke curling up from it or possibly with the whole cigarette in color.

The Clown
by tumitumi

Comment:
I scored this image a 6 which to me means unsatisfactory but not a failure.

The problem is the nose is out-of-focus, and that is what you chose to leave colored so you draw even more attention to that defect. The expression you captured was perfect and fits the desat theme of the picture well and is otherwise a very nice composition. It does have weak greyscale tonality but that is not as glaring as the nose.

You may have just chosen the wrong central focal point. With the depth of field you already had you could have focused on the nose and still had the eyes and mouth in sharp focus. Another thing you could have done was to shoot at a higher f/number for greater depth of field. If you chose to have the nose out-of-focus purposely then that was the wrong decision. It will just look like a mistake to most viewers.

For improved greyscale tonality you could reduced contrast to bring back detail then increase just the black with "Selective Color" and still retained the BW impact of the image.

tempus fugit
by charliebaker

Comment:
I'd like to know the story behind this image. :)

Desert Glory
by sudhi

Comment:
Ahhhh... Suguaros about to bloom!

Sheer Curtain of Lothlorien
by fas-ligand

Comment:
Likely a top 10 image with top 5 potential and an outside chance for a ribbon because of its strong connection to the challenge theme. :)

Pequest Mansion Falls
by skewsme

Comment:
Very well processed image. We had the same idea and similar problems. Like me, you had problems with wind that moved some branches during the exposure and you added a blue color cast, possibly while adjusting for deep greens. You went for maximum depth of field with nice sharp foreground interest items just like I did. I was unsatisfied with my processing after a second re-processing so did not submit.

New York's Answer to Silky and Smooth
by m_sarzynski

Comment:
Shallow depth of field(DOF) leaves front out of focus, try shooting at a higher f/stop number for increased DOF.

Mystic Beach
by marbo

Comment:
Nice water motion shot. Meets challenge well. Blue color cast overdone, slightly oversharpened tops of the rocks. Horizon may be slightly tilted clockwise about a degree.

silky white flower
by dcb300

Comment:
Nice job processing this image! :)

Take-Off
by cpanaioti

Comment:
Positives:
Interesting minimalist composition. Technical quality combined with a good stop action capture are it's main strength. Nice bright backlighting framing the bird.

Technicals:
Solid technical quality. Color, lighting are fine. Looks like you maximized your camera settings to get as good of stop action as possible under the lighting conditions. That is tough when you have to anticipate the action like in a shot such as this.

Despite the shallow DOF the background still looks more mottled than smooth and that is slightly distracting.

It is generally better to capture these shots from the front rather than from behind. That is it's biggest compositional defect. Its a very solid image, though.

The Challenge:
This image scored middle average for the challenge. Voters thought this image was run of the mill. I voted this one 9, which is well above average by my scoring. I like the capture, general technical quality and framing. If taken from in front of the bird it had got a 10.

Suggestions:
You might consider doing a rough selection of the bird and applying some gaussian blur and/or noise reduction to the rest of the image to smooth out the background.

Next time try to capture that bird flying toward you. LOL!!!!