Time For Grinds
by Colnago

Comment:
The out-of-focus sand and rocks in the foreground is a distraction to me. Having the second surfer in focus as well would have improved this picture as well.

Swimming
by bucket

Comment:
That is a frightening arm!

At The Turn
by popdeepop

Comment:
I like this shot. The slight blur gives a sense of speed to the action. Too bad you couldn't keep the wakeboarder in focus. What would make this picture more impressive is a cropping of the water of the bottom of the picture. The bottom third is currently useless empty space. Cutting it out would keep the focus on the boarder and waves and the waves would take up a larger portion of the picture.

Tai Chi.
by fourstardaydreem

Comment:
I don't think Black and White was a good choice for this photo. The range of grays isn't wide enough to give enough contrast. The subjects don't really stand out from the cement and brickwork. Staying with color would have brought attention to them.

On a less artistic note, I noticed some JPEG artifacts in the picture, especially by the man's hip and along the woman's skirt. I checked the picture and saw that you compressed it to 35kB. You're allowed to use 150kB. Make the file size as large as is legal to keep the picture from being degraded.

seeing circles in self
by mesmeraj

Comment:
I like this picture.

Two small quibbles: (1) I think the dancer's head pointing down is awkward, a 90- or 180-degree rotation would be better. (2) The colors either aren't bright enough or aren't dull enough. Pick a direction and desat a little for a sepia-toned, old-style image or increase for a brighter and impactful image.

7

Practically Plays Itself
by The_Itinerant

Comment:
A really simple setup: wear black jeans, a black shirt with the sleeves rolled up, another black shirt over my head with a black hat to hold it in place. Take the picture with a flash so no background appears. Set timer, run up to railing, jump on top, get into position and try not to fall over the other side as there is some nasty shrubbery below. And try to ignore the worried glances from classmates.

Post-processing: use curves to send every near-black and dark gray to black (this takes care of most of me and the background). Then the usual tweaks (crop, usm, etc.).

A few people have been telling me to crop out more of the railing, but I think that giving my guitar with arms a context really makes the strangeness of the image that much more startling--the guitar is actually floating above the ground as opposed to merely being an abstract image. The railing itself looks strange and ancient in this context.

This was a rush job though and I really wish I had used



instead. It just works better with the streetlamp causing the guitar to cast a shadow on the pedastal, thus furthering the illusion that the guitar is floating and playing of its own accord. (Plus, in my submission, you can see that part of my left elbox got behind my knee). What happened was that I took the picture the night before the submission phase was over and starting the weeding and post-processing the next night around 8:30pm. Unfortunately, I live in California and the DPC server is on the East Coast. Thus the submission phase ends at 9pm my time instead of midnight. I agonized over my submission for about twenty minutes and then just closed my eyes and pressed submit.

Ah well.

Message edited by author 2005-07-06 22:27:01.

Duo Maxwell
by AmiYuy

Comment:
I'm not seeing circles. Sunglasses? The arms?

AC
by rscorp

Comment:
The gear shift intruding from the right is a big distraction and drags focus away from the rest of the picture (especially since it is pure white and brighter than anything else). Otherwise this is a good shot.

Rings & Reflections
by notonline

Comment:
I don't see any circles in this picture. I know tree trunks are round, but that isn't shown here.

Planetary Birth
by jaxter

Comment:
Looks more like Stellar Death to me.

Anyway, good picture.