nature man

nicely contrasted orange, black,white

I've always liked the contrast between color and B&W, and this desaturation is no exception, it makes the violet stand out that much more in a case when the BG colors may have been more distracting from the subject

that's a cool lens flare, framing the tree, if you brighten up that blue a tad behind the tree, the tree will stand out better I'm giving it 6's

I agree, it was the clouds and the coloring that made me take a closer look from the thumbnail

the high contrast makes the picture

badly masked

nice, it's rare to see the rays so well contrasted from every thing else

I too would have cloned it out, but that's because I can't stand to have human interferance in my Nature shots, but I would make that judgement based on the needs of the photo's use, and not just my personal preference

 

so why are some people so opposed to editing an image? some even consider it taboo, I personally see editing as an effective tool to make a mediocre photo into a good one. editing can't hide a bad photo if the focus was out, you can't focus it, and if it was too dark you can't bring out detail that isn't on the photo unless you add it in yourself. sure you can brighten it up some, add contrast all you want, so now where it was black you have grey, and you probably lost more detail than you gained. I know, I've tried... :)

but to fix scratches in the film gained during processing... editing is a nice way to recover from disaster

 

so please people, enough moaning and groaning about the editing...

says a couple of messages before that the only editing involved the glowing red ball

all right, so it's not the best shot in the world. The subject is not very well lit, you can't see the subject very well due to obstructions in the view, but I felt it was interesting just beacause of that (hence the title "where's Waldo") when you first look at it your thinking, why did he take a photo of nothing, but if you look and look, eventually that eye jumps out at you and you think, oh there it is...

I think that person is correct the image looks flipped

 

as to photoshoping an image that's the authors right and in no way detracts from the quality of the original, all he/she did was tint the image

 

I find the image visually interesting also, it is very journalistic in content like all art it has an emotional link, and that is the story, also it's a story that may people can relate to in their own way.

as to the technical, sure, anyone can focus, and adjust for lighting, but not everyone can pick the perfect moment...

 

the criteria for this photo was, for me, that I could place the image without even reading the caption as I'm sure almost any in the US can

 

just the numer of comments alone on this image are testement to it's strength

 

and you people who got off topic, please remember that we're commenting on the PHOTO and the overly negetive comments were not necessary as well