Tranquility on the St.Lawrence River (Larger view Available)

I'm so glad I ran across this, Tony! It's really spectacular.  I don't see the artifacts on my little MacBook screen.  Of course the scene was 'given' to you, but I love the way you composed it with the sliver of land jutting into the 'V' shaped blue area without the clouds......and splitting the image 50/50 works well here as well.  I'm also so glad to read about your rational behind the ratings.  I've often thought you were a little too concerned about them frankly, but now I understand why they are important to you.  I think your ideas for revamping the ratings system are brilliant.  Have you presented them to Josh and gang?  I particularly like the suggestion to require a comment if someone rates a low score.  Anyway, I also totally understand about how priorities change as a result of some life-changing event.  I've had several such occurrences, although fortunately not cancer.  I hope you are now in remission and that we'll see many more of these glorious images from you for a long time to come! 

Many thanks for the comments. All are appreciated. I have decided to take a mini-break from Photo.net for a couple of weeks. Not taking any images at the moment but I am sure I can find a few on my computer which I have not processed as yet.

Christal - thanks for your health inquiry - all is stable.

Very nice sky and a perfect reflection.

Absolutely mesmerizing. Hard to find one image where to commend your exceptional work. This is one of those images that stops the view from wondering, like a heavy anchor cast into the water while the boat still moves with some speed, yanking the whole thing to a sudden stop. Delightful! Congratulations.

DG

You found a gorgeous sky and a perfect reflection and made the best to create a symmetrical composition with a strong sense of vast space and depth. Our attention is sucked into the distance.

This is stunning, really eye-catching!

I did go through all the previous comments and I can say that none changed my opinion to rate it less than a 7! Yes you could have used a wider aperture... but then I went back to the image and I decided that the overall score is still a 7 for me; simply because I can see myself in the scene, it was eye-catching enough, to go through all the comments and read all the critiques and spend that much time on it! Believe me it's a 7!

Regards, Mehrdad.