Red Sea
by EvanH

Comment:
*Critique Club*

In response to your request, here if your in depth critique from the Critique Club.

I'm not sure if you just don't use the 'this critique is helpful' feature, or if you really dodn't find these critiques helpful, but if it's the latter, I'm sure my critique wont be of much help to you either, but I can certainly try.
The very first thing I notice is the size. 447x216. That's a good 200 pixels short of typical DPC challenge entry viewing size. The small size (while it may help hide defects) makes it difficult to really appreciate the image. You placed really well in the challenge, but I'd like to bet you could have gotten 20 places higher with a larger image.
Now, from what I do see of the image, the colors are stunning. Very nice reds. Ranging from a darker red to a bright red. I love the way it sort of fades from front to back. Very nice depth in the photo.
Focus appears good, but maybe a tad soft, but again hard to really determine with the size.
I like the positioning of the chairs within the photo. Your first chairs start about 1/2 way up in the photo, and usually that doesn't appeal well to me, however, it works very nicely here because of the fade I think.
Overall the image has a lot of visual appeal, but suffers from size. ~Heather~

Images of the Damned
by barbarry

Comment:
*Critique Club*

In response to your request for an in depth critique from the Critique Club, here ya go.

My first impression is that this does not fit the challenge. Fire COULD be considered an 'oops' if it were your whole house on fire, or something that's not suposed to be, but as someone else mentioned, a fire in a fireplace isn't exactly an oops, it's an on purpose.
The second thing I notice is that you submitted your pic to the challenge, and havn't logged back in to review your feedback once since the challenge began. That makes me wonder if you will truely appreciate my time in evaluating your image. That being said...on to the image.
Even after you point out where the faces are, I still cannot see them, as many others did not see them either. Not that the faces would have helped this fit into the challenge any better, but at least then we'd know what the title meant.
The fire itself is pretty, and as konador pointed out, the blacks don't seem quite black to me, and does kind of look a bit 'light' in areas that in my opinion should be dark.
I like how the subject completely fills the frame, no real need for negative space here.
Overall, interesting image, but suffered for lack of connection to the challenge.
~Heather~

Mother Nature - The birth of a tornado
by SDW

Comment:
*Critique Club*

In response to your request, here is your in depth critique from The Critique Club.
You got 20 comments during the challenge, 2 after the challenge, 8 in the thread asking for opinions and you want an in depth critique too. Not asking for much are ya. *wink* That being said, there really isn't much I can add since it seems that everyone really seemed to cover things pretty well.
Your big downfall obviously was not using the traditional meaning of 'Mother'. When a person thinks of mother, what do they think of? Moms, the person who gave birth to someone. Next I think of Step mom, god mother, fairy god mother, a physical person. Mother Nature is in there, but not high on the list. A photo of a stick wouldn't cut it for me either, but I guess technically would fall into mother nature as well.
Anyway...About the photo itself, it's a photo of a tornado. Not something you see every day for sure, and definately not something you want to get that close to EVER. So it does have interest.
I like the diagonal of the light sky meeting the dark sky and think the photo has nice balance.
Hard to judge focus since it's clouds, but the clarity is really good. I like the detail you show us in the tornado.
There are some aweful cloning marks in the bottom left corner all the way to the tip of the first downward peak. Looks like sloppy editing there.
I would also like to see more of this formation, but I wonder if that would hurt the 'balance' I talked about. I guess it would depend on your positioning and surroundings if you could have gotten a different angle or crop and if it would have worked, but definately something to try.
A neat phenomenon for sure, and only suffered for the challenge interpretation in my opinion.
~Heather~

two patterns, maybe more :-)
by goc

Comment:
*Critique Club*

In response to your request, here is your in depth critique from the Critique Club.

While this certainly meets the challenge of patterns, I feel that it's lacking visual appeal. It seems to have a very flat tonal range, and nothing that really stands out to me as a main focus of interest.
Being a photo of snow (thank you very much for the photographer's comments, it makes giving the critique much easier and accurate) this might have been difficult to get a great exposure. The photo in itself seems greyish. There is not much black, and what my eye says should be white, is actually grey. Like i said, this might have been difficult simply due to the fact that it's snow.
the patterns are nice, but the pattern needs something to back it up. Maybe color, maybe contrast.
Focus seems a little soft, but again, that could just be the texture of the snow. Hard to say. It seems noisy or grainy. Was this taken at night with flash? The lighting seems uneven and as Maya stated does fade away to the left.
I wonder if you took the photo from a lower angle if that would add some depth. Worth trying anyway. Maybe try a shot in the daylight from a lower angle. Or maybe a shot at night using a colored light source to add some color to the photo.
Something to play with anyway. I hope you find this helpful. ~Heather~

An eewie oops!
by ladyanni

Comment:
*Critique Club*

Looks like an error in submission got your the brown ribbon. By the title, looks like this was meant to be in the oops challenge, and obviously, people noticed.
You requested an in depth critique, however, have not been back since you submitted your photo to even look at the feedback you recieved, which leads me to believe that you don't really care, and this will be a complete waste of my time, however, here is the in depth critique you requested from the Critique Club...
Since you give me no photographers comments, my critique can only be based on personal opinion alone, since I have no clue what your intentions were with this photo. In the future, if you would like a more technical critique, please include some photographer's comments letting us know what you were trying to achieve.
My first reaction to the photo is that it's not a very appealing image. Who wants to look at a photo of someone who's trying to keep snot from hanging out of their nose? Do I have a personal attachment to this photo? Certainly not.
The colors look like they are very nice, but the forground and subject are a bit dark, which mutes the colors a bit.
The thing hanging from the top right of the photo (roof or umbrella?) is distracting.
The focus is soft. A more crisp focus would help to bring out some detail and add something to look at.
The angle is also awkward. Looks like you were sitting in a chair or something when you took this pic. Either that or you are really short, in that case, my apologies. I would prefer to see this from a more eye level view.
Overall nice color, but just not appealing to me on a personal level. ~Heather~

color glass and mirrors
by AzCKelly

Comment:
*Critique Club*

In response to your request, here is an your in depth critique from the critique club.

This looks like a fun abstract photo. Definately fits the challenge of patterns.
The colors are awesome, very vibrant. This makes the photo very eye catching and definately gives it a measure of wow factor.
I can't decide if the focus works for me personally or not. One side of me likes how it's blurred around and almost appears to have motion, the other side of me wants to see a little bit more in focus. Right now, the crist focus is in the lower right portion of the photo and that's about it. The area that is in the most focus contains what looks to be some oversharpening, see the white lines. If this is part of the image, it still looks like oversharpening.
I like that you did not put the meeting point directly in the center of the photo. This creates some visual appeal as well. I like the way it kind of bursts out from the center point. The photo has real nice balance.
Overall, nice to look at and technically well done abstract.
~Heather~

Impassion
by payamb

Comment:
*Critique Club*

Per your request, here is your in depth critique from the Critique Club.
I see that you only found the 'full of praise' comment as helpful, and the one that actually suggests ways to improve the photo you did not find helpful, so, in that respect, I'm not sure if I'm going to be of help either, since I agree with uleau.
To elaborate a bit, the first thing I notice when I look at the shot is the actual size of the shot. it's only 480x320. The image seems a little small to me, and makes the detail a bit more difficult to comprehend. My first suggestion would be to use the full 640 size that DPC allows. Make your longest side 640 when resizing your photo. Remember, don't resize UP to get that size.
Second, the focus looks a bit soft. Note that if you used shallow DOF on the photo, the size of the photo being so small may simply just make the whole thing look out of focus as it does in fact look. If you were going for a soft focus look, I don't think it works for this particular shot.
I don't know what your intentions for the photo were, since you did not include any photographer's comments when asking for this critique, so I can really only offer you my own personal opinion. For more technical critiques, in the future, please include photographer's comments when asking for a detailed critique.
I like the lighting. I think it makes the white flowers stand out nicely on the black background, and with the solid black, I find nothing distracting about the background.
I think that the positioning of the flowers looks a bit hap hazard.The stalks in the center bottom of the photo look out of place and I don't prefer the way the stem goes out through the bottom of the image. It leads our eyes right out of the photo. I would personally try to eliminate the tiny flower bunch near the bottom and draw attention back up to the 2 main flower bunches.
The patterns are nice, and I think this fits the challenge nicely.
Overall, nice contrast in the subject and background, but needs to be larger for more detail, and also a more crisp focus would be preffered.
~Heather~

Awaiting the Arrival of "nlghttrain"
by rayg544

Comment:
*Critique Club*

Per your request, here is your in depth critique from the Critique Club.

Without the title, I don't think this fits the challenge at all. It's more like 'nighttrainSTATION'. By looking at the image alone, I would never have guessed this was nighttrain.
The focus looks very sharp, which is good, but there's a lot going on in the photo and the clarity of it all almost gets lost. The bricks, the roof, the ground and the large pole near the center makes for a lot to look at, especially with the clashing textures and patterns. Not your fault, but maybe not the most photogenic building if you know what I mean.
Lighting is ok. Seems that there must have been a lot of light around in order to get the entire building in the light like that, but we don't see the source of the light or many shadows. The sky being totally black is not distracting.
There are a couple of window that seem very very bright and are a bit of a distraction. While I think you did a good job with focus, the subject just doesn't hold my interest well. I really think the busy-ness of the photo hurts it in my opinion.
~Heather~

space amoeba
by Beetle

Comment:
*Critique Club*

I see you received some nice comments after the challenge, as well as during the challenge, so I hope I can offer something new here.
Per your request, here is your in depth critique from the Critique Club.
While being a very clever shot for the challenge, it's just not that visually appealing to me. The amoeba looks more like one of those fake vomit things you buy at gag stores. You know what I'm talking about? That was the first thing I thought of when I saw this photo. You did do a nice job capturing the similar look of the amoeba (//www.3dham.com/microgallery/amoebab.html for those who don't know what amoeba's look like) and it definately represents spaceamoeba's name for sure. It's too bad that you couldn't somehow get a clear amoeba. That might have been interesting as well.
I like how you did the background. When I saw this in the voting, I had assumed that it was taken above a computer monitor or something similar. Very creative photography in my opinion.
Now, why didn't it score what you had hoped for? For me, it would be the lack of visual appeal. The amoeba looks a bit out of focus, and (while my monitor is just fine) I wish there were a bit more light on the amoeba. The focus seems to be on the stars rather than on the amoeba, and I wish it were the other way around at least, or have everything similar focus.
I like the placement of the amoeba in relation to the stars. The 'negative space' to the left works nicely composition wise.
Overal neat idea for the challenge. ~Heather~

Check-ered
by shaver

Comment:
*Critique Club*

Well, it looks like you received some very nice, very helpful comments after the challenge already. I didn't see the thread asking for opinions, so I don't know what other opinions you may have gotten there, so I'm not really sure what to add to that other than my personal opinions.
Per your request, here's your Critique Club comment...
The image seems to me to be lacking contrast. It's quite grey. I'd like to see some brighter whites. You could play with the contrast and brightness a bit, this usually gets me to where I want. I tried it with this image briefly and it seemed to take away some of the detail in the black pieces. So maybe curves adjustments would work better?
The image to me seems a bit small. Try to take advantage of the full 640 pixel limit on photos. This will help us to better see what we're looking at and give us more of a sense of details.
Focus does seem a bit soft. I have photographed chess pieces and ran into the same problem. I got VERY few photos that actually came out looking generally focussed. Not sure how to clarify 'fixing' that problem, except to take lots and lots of pictures, playing with focal settings often and find out which works best for the situation you are working with.
The image also lacks lingering interest. The first reaction is 'oh neat' and then when you figure it out, there's nothing else to hold my interest in the photo.
Another minor picky detail is that the reflection seems to be reflecting back on the board creating black squares on some of the white squares. This breaks up the patterns a bit in my opinion by placing dark squares where white squares should be.
Overal a definately creative idea for the challenge, but lacking that special element that makes me say 'oh wow'.
~Heather~