The Cowboy's New Hat
by fixedintime

Comment:
great lighting. I think maybe a crop showing only part of the hat might make for a better composition.

white what?
by Llambo

Comment:
For me, it'd help if the top of the dog's head had more contrast with the background

Mannequin Skin
by chet

Comment:
The mannequin face is a little too blown out for my taste

Orchid
by sabphoto

Comment:
It needs something in the background. Think of the famous Ansel Adams picture of a rose on a piece of wood. The primary focus is still the flower, but there is something other than blank space in the background.

Omlet
by dpjerry

Comment:
A little too much color for this particular challenge (personal preference mostly).

Maybe some stronger lines in the composition? It seems a little jumbled, nothing real drags my eye through the photo.

Water Power
by PowerPuff

Comment:
The blurred bar i the middle of the photo is very distracting, otherwise it'd be a pretty strong photo

Once a tractor, now a lawn ornament
by mfairbanks

Comment:
Maybe something with the angle of view or placement of the tractor other than dead-center would help.

Apple of My Eye
by russbbrink

Comment:
Thanks for the comments everyone.

I din't even realize how read the skin was, until a week later when I looked at it to see how it did. I knew the focus wasn't great but after 4+ hours working on it over as many days, it was time to call it good enough.

There were a couple of tricky parts to getting the reflection, and my technique still needs improvement...

1) The angles: The apple close to the lens, but just out of sight of the shot, and about 1/3 of the distance from the eye to the camera. Then I had my model move his eye around to get the apple as close to the center of the pupil as possible. Having the model Look about 1/2 way between the center of the camera and the apple seemed to work best.

2) The lighting: I did it outside, a few hours before twilight, but I think if I try it again, I'll shoot for a little after noon. I needed to get the apple really brightly light, and the face had to be protected from being lit too brightly, or you couldn't see the reflections. I had to build a black background to surround the model's eye, so no other reflections, besides the apple would get through. at first I kept getting a bunch of reflections from the street, etc.

Also important was having the overal lighting bright enough that I could get the action stopped, even when stopping down. I would have liked to stop all the way down to f/32 or so, but f/18 was the best I could do with the light I had.

3) Focus: See above note on overall lighting. Also, now that I've had a chance to play around with the macro extension tube I just got, I think that might have helped, especially if used closer to noon, with the aperature set down a few stops.

Granular Balance
by tsheets

Comment:
A little more foucus, and you'd have an outstanding photo

grains of ......
by p2jvr

Comment:
a touch more even lighting, or perhaps putting the dark grains in the lighter area of the photo