michael_ward1

The warm glow of light is wonderful, especially when viewed in Photoshop. I do agree with Lisa that the palm and the gate blocking the door diminish rather than enhance the photo. The palm throws off the balance, and it's hard to find a place to rest. I also think that just a little perspective distortion correction would help a lot. I also agree with Lisa that these comments are pretty minor, and that, overall, it's a damned good picture.

If this were to work, it would work as an abstract. Composing an abstract is very difficult. On the other hand composing an abstract is very instructive, since there's no obvious subject to focus the attention. In this case, as John pointed out, attention is grabbed by the OOF foreground limbs, and that really does disrupt the composition and keep it from being the abstract it should be.

The centered composition of the previous shot worked because of the geometry of the branches. This one has no such geometry to move the eye around, and it also has a large mass on the right side that throws the whole thing off. John's crop handles both prolems nicely while incidently keeping the nest still centered.

 

The nest is a fascinating object, and worthy of further study.

I don't usually like to over-saturate or over-sharpen my pictures, but this one seemed to just cry out for some excess.

Just the spoonbill alone would have been fine, but the addition of the stilt makes this glorious. The reflection of those wings is just wonderful, and the composition as a whole is right on.

Such a small change (made by John), such a great improvement. Good eye for what was needed. Of course it didn't fix the problems caused by the perspective correction. Sometimes that works, and sometime it just looks weird.

Having recently complained about a too-centered subject let me hasten to add my voice to John's and say the centered subject in this picture really does work. The geometry of the branches is just what it needs to make that centered spot perfect. And are those new buds on the tree? Delightful spot of color there.

This composition should work better than it does, and I'm really sure what's missing. The colors are nice, and the elements are well laid out. The face of the rider should certainly be lighter, but that's not really what's needed. It just seems somehow too static.

Thanks for the comments. I usually do a little perspective tweaking in PS for this type of shot, but this was taken just about straight-on, from a multi-story parking structure. So no tilt correction needed.

This is an excellent composition, a delightful mix of green and white. The OOF background works well, but the OOF foreground is unfortunate. It can probably be cloned away, but it would be hard to do well. The picture also needs a little more tweaking of levels. Nothing is quite white enough. Still, though, it is a very nice image.

Lisa, Glad to see you back. I'm afraid the old circle has dwindled away pretty much. For awhile, now, it's been me and one new member, John Brand. I'm sure John will show up soon.

 

I like the colors in the sky, and the treeline is nicely defined. Having the sun set through that break in the trees is a nice touch. I can't make up my mind, though, whether or not I like the contrails all criss-crossed like that. I'll have to watch it awhile and see what develops.

All kinds of tricks can be done to get rid of an overblown area. In this very simple technique I just copied a rectangle a few times and merged them all into a layer that I set to hard light. I left the rectangles easy to see, but you'd really want to seriously feather the edges.

Very painterly image. Kinda reminds me of Andrew Wyath. Well done.

Writing on the glass. It says "pig".

The angles of the branches make a good frame to show off this beauty. I don't mind not seeing the green. The colors shown are spectacular enough.

If you go to image->mode->Convert to Profile it shows the current color profile (source space) as well as the one it will convert to (Destination Space). That's the only place I've reliably found this information.

 

By the way, I forgot to mention that the leaning of the dome is one of the things that really makes this picture work. Break enough rules and you end up with a fantastic shot.

While the dome itself is more centered than one would normally like to see, the strong diagonals in the walls remove any too-symmetrical feel to this image. The composition is good. I would, however, lighten up the bottom, as shown in the attached.

 

The overall stronger color is because I changed the color space to sRGB before saving.

Much as I want to like this shot, the problems noted above really are severe enough to keep me from it. In addition to those, I'm also bothered by the fact that the glass isn't actually magnifying anything. I'd love to see this one properly lit.

My tendency on seeing one of the "bunches of colorful things" photos is to try, unsuccessfuly, to stifle a big yawn. For some reason I did not have that reaction for this photograph. I think it must be the gradation of light, with the almost-overexposed edges transitioning to the wonderfully dark center. This seems more like a well composed macro of a flower than a bunches-of-color image. Well done, PT.

I agree with Jeff that the information gained by having the dark corner is vital. In fact, it might even be better if that dark corner was larger, though I will give PT the benefit of the doubt - I'm sure that corner is the way it is because PT wanted to be just so.

 

Oh, and by the way, this is an excellent take on the theme. While not what I'd call beautiful, it is a strong and aethsetically wonderful image.