OK, sorry this took a few days. Yes, it looks like there were a few DNMC boobirds out there, but they couldn't give you below a 3, so that means you had something going here. Personally I gave it a 5 and the biggest drawback I saw was the clutter of the needles. The foreground blur looks more chaotic than patterned and I don't think it's appealing.
It looks like it needs more contrast. I added 10-20 in PS and think it looks better. You need to mask off the snow because it blows even more than it is already, but the rest of the picture looks better.
The composition is nice as far as rule of 1/3rds. I go back to the shallow DOF and the chaotic needles, but there was probably no way around that.
Hi Pidge, and Greetings from the Critique Club! : )
My first impression upon viewing this image was "cool colors! Too bad the needles are so blurry."
On to the critique: I like the placement of the base of the fork with the bit of snow in the lower third of the frame. It anchors the image and allows the prongs of your fork to display fairly well. The colors are nice and rich, with the browns, greens and white. The natural light plays those colors well in this image. I also like the contrast in texture between the branck and snow. The placement of the rightmost prong is problematic because of what it does to your focus (with those distracting blurred needles), and I wonder if a slightly different angle for the shot was available so that the focus could be more balanced amongst the fork prongs. The slight change in angle may also have allowed more of the "handle" of your fork to display from behind the needles that currently hide it (and would help some viewers see your natural fork more clearly). The needles spraying away from the bit of snow makes for an energetic and interesting composition, to my eye.
Since the image was submitted for an advanced editing challenge, I would have liked to see some of those distracting needles edited out (in particular, the needles in the lower right corner of the shot). This would limit the blur to the top third of the photo or so, and may help balance out the overall image.
Overall, I like this image. Outside of the blur issue, the colors, pattern of the needles, and bit of snow really make it work for me. The natural fork of the tree branch stands out to my eye, so I would have considered this as meeting the challenge. Congrats on a creative take on knife/fork/spoon! If you have any questions about this critique, please feel free to PM me.
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