Well, wanted to go for something a little different than just a shot of a tree, although, that is the challenge :-)
Just trying to go 'outside the box' a little. We'll see if the voters will buy it or not. It is a single tree, albeit a seedling, but it is being planted by a young girl. Trying to make the connection of the 'next generation' of tree and girl. You know, the whole conservation, save our planet, renew our resources thing. Anyways, I planned for the shot to have a nice, cheery, pretty blue sky with puffy white, optimistic looking clouds, but unfortunately the weather would not cooperate when I had free time this week, so, I just went with the best I could get.
In ps-ni, shadows/highlights, levels, curves, selective color, hue/sat, curves again, color dodge level and overlay layer with the opacity dropped, a little dodging and burning in sky and grass, smart sharpen, gaussian blur with a mask on tree and face, hue/sat in saturation mode, resized, border, sfw.
Thanks for checking out my pic :-)
Statistics
Place: 88 out of 251 Avg (all users): 5.6957 Avg (commenters): 6.3333 Avg (participants): 5.5104 Avg (non-participants): 5.8559 Views since voting: 1013 Views during voting: 331 Votes: 207 Comments: 9 Favorites: 0
Well, where to begin...
The first thing that comes to mind when I look at this image is: Why is it blurred? It's a strong image that has the potential to really POP out at you, and the blur takes away so much of the potential.
You following me?
I tend to ramble when I comment, so please bear with me!
Also, it seems WAY way way over-processed. I know that skin isn't really that smooth... the use on NI seems to have taken away the realism of the shot. Almost plastic like texture to it.
I'm also not really getting the crop. Well, maybe... but I'm leaning towards the feeling that if your gonna shoot with a crop like this, then i think it could almost be OVER exaturated, with even more sky on the top.
Also, a little fill flash would have done wonders for the shadows/darkness of the girls face, or even just using a reflector (or if you don't own a reflector, a stiff white board works perfectly)
It's a great concept for the challenge, and you really put a lot of thought into it, kudos to you! But I really think you could have been in the top 20 it if wasn't blurred. IMO, most photos do not need much work, and many times, to much post production often degrades from a perfectly good image.
great idea - definitely has a dramatic feel and a strong emotive element.
couple of crits-
1. there's a lot of empty space at the top. this makes the image feel a bit bottom-heavy and weakens the focal point of the image.
2. the faded gaussian blur has created a noticeable halo, especially around the girl. going back over the edges with the history brush, or masking out the edges, would have dealt with this distracting element. i think you could have gotten away with just a quick run of the brush around the edges of the girl - a fifteen or thirty second fix.
Nice concept. Soft focus glow is alright but I'm not sure what purpose it serves here. I think a tighter crop would also highlight the girl and her tree and reduce the amount of harsh whightness at the top of the sky. Also the grass in front of her hands and the tree should have been dealt with so that the true subject of the shot is not obscured. Good luck.
Nice idea and cleanly executed. The lush (cut) grass rather blocks access to your main feature. Also, because it is so lush, it obscures the need for the tree's metaphor of hope. If the ground was a little more in need of some sort of greenery, your message would have been enhanced, IMO.
the little girl seems more the main subject than the tree. still, it's nicely done and her hair in her face echos the wispyness (is that even a word?!?!) of the little tree. bumping it to a 6
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