Greetings from the Critique Club
by strangeghost
COMPOSITION
The composition is rich and includes three major points of interest: the harbor, the cruise ship, and the dock area with vehicles, people and buildings for perspective. None of the three are ideally placed to be considered the central focus, but in this situation, it's probably the whole you were after. With a cruise, the journey IS the destination, right? It probably works against you in this case though. For a memento of the cruise, this would be of high interest. For a DPC challenge shot, voters want to be wowed. This shot probably contains too much for the average attention-deficit voter. No single element leaps out and tweaks the interest. Some of the minor detail, like the smaller boat at lower left, and the tie lines, are unfortunate and leave the larger image feeling too packed. Huge objects like cruise ships are almost impossible to photograph in their entirety because of their size. You got a vantage point from which to accomplish it, but unfortunately one that left you with, IMO, an unsatisfactory composition.
TECHNIQUE
This is a tough shot to nail technically because of the darks of the water and hull, with the whites of the deckwall of the ship. Combined with the overcast day, other than those two extremes, your tones are mostly middle range. The bit of nicely saturated red on the dock area to the right is a welcome splash of color.
OVERALL IMPACT
Not a lot of impact for the average viewer/voter. It comes off as an opportunistic shot that probably contains many rich memories and nuances for you, but none of that is really communicated to the uninitiated viewer. As your final score suggests, most voters probably only looked briefly before assigning a mid-range vote and then moving on. DPC challenge photos need a central focus that's obvious, and that is eye-popping and "wowing" to the average viewer. Your photo captured a nice memory from a trip, but failed to wow the voters.
The minimal number of comments indicates that my impact assessment was probably correct. Two of your three were from people who evidently shared your experience, with one (Tammer) giving you some objective feedback. Keep shooting Ian, I enjoyed the chance to critique this shot!
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