Seedless...
by AzCKelly

Comment by karmat:
Good contrast between the yellow and green. The lighting is a touch harsh though, I think.

Seedless...
by AzCKelly

Comment by TooCool:
LOL... The back of a backlit sunflower! Lighting is a little harsh. Might have helped if you could have had someone twist the stem a little so the light fell more across the flower instead of hitting it dead on.
TC

Seedless...
by AzCKelly

Comment by Alley Cat:
Nice work 7

Yellow chicks!
by AzCKelly

Comment by trevytrev:
nice capture. I might have cropped the dark portions in the bottom of the frame out since tehy distract a bit.

Yellow chicks!
by AzCKelly

Comment by v5planet:
Given the incredibly clear blue sky, the green (leaf?) blurs at the bottom are slightly distracting. I love the subject birds though, they're in a nice tigh focus and their vivid yellows contrast beautifully with the blue of the sky.

still standing
by AzCKelly

Comment by Artifacts:
Positives:
General technical quality and tonality are the strength of this composition.

Technicals:
Tonality is particularly nice in this image, especially the browns on the cacti. They are just plain nice. Sharpness is very good except for a little haloing around the right arm and a bit of digitalization visible in some of the "skeleton" fine detail on my sharpness sensitve LCD monitor. The clouds, which sometimes are really hard to find in Arizona, make a nice background.

The Challenge:
In free study challenge voters always have exceptionally high expectations and look mostly for two things. 1-Exceptional technical quality and 2-The elusive "wow" factor. Your technical quality is good but not exceptional and the "wow" factor kinda low. Combined, voters felt yours was a little below average for the challenge.

Suggestions:
kawhona makes some excellent observations and very good suggestions in the comments. I'd go with what he says. His comments remind me of this picture similar to yours that I took down in Tucson using a polarizer:

Thorns of the Barrel Cactus
by AzCKelly

Comment by JeffDay:
interesting composition and lighting. There are a few things appearing in the background, would look better with a completely dark background.

Thorns of the Barrel Cactus
by AzCKelly

Comment by bassbone:
i like the repeating shapes of the cactus

still standing
by AzCKelly

Comment by kawhona:
I think the shot is very static and the light really isn't complimentary. If you look around I bet you will find lots of dead ones laying on the ground those can give you some interesting shadows and textures. For this one if you can wait for sunrise/sunset and use the polarizer it will pop alot more. If the sky is kind of bland like this but, the light is cooler or warmer you might get a better result in Sepia. That's my five cents worth, but, you paid less than that for it so it isn't worth five cents :)

Thorns of the Barrel Cactus
by AzCKelly

Comment by karmat:
interesting lighting