Into the Mystic
by admart01

Comment:
Congrats on the new PB

Gaby
by elsapo

Comment:
Nice shot. I'm reminded of the Vermeer painting "Girl with the pearl earring," especially the way the light reflects off the jewelry in her nose which is otherwise in shadow. On the slight downside, I find the crop too tight - getting the impression that I'm being stared down, not just looked at.

12:49
by goc

Comment:
I'm not sure what to make of it... I get a sense that it might show something about this child's character but I don't know what that might be... title doesn't help much either.

Jumping Off The Dock Of The Bay
by jonfrommk

Comment:
They don't look like they're actually jumping off the dock. My guess is that you'll get hit for that. But I do like how you chose to show action and keep a personal connection in a photo that barely shows any actual people, just feet.

Positive Thinker
by glad2badad

Comment:
So simple and abstract... I could see this on a wall in a museum.

Just One More Puff Before We Go
by JohnLampkin

Comment:
Good idea, poor execution... Bland tones, funny textures, poor detail on the skeleton and not enough definition to the shadow on the wall. What also would have been interesting would be to see a real person smoking and the skeleton as their shadow. I realize the skeleton is small, but shadows are easy to change in size.

A Light in Storm's Shadow
by hihosilver

Comment:
The purple haze is very strange, yet surprisingly effective. Nice work.

Sprite
by Gordon

Comment:
I love the composition on this one. I couldn't figure it out at first but now that I look again, very cool. Everything being off angle really makes you look closely at the photo and see the detail (and there is a lot). Great job - my favorite to win.

goin' somewhere
by DKMRancidNOFX

Comment:
If the title didn't say so, I'd probably not have realized it was a ladder... More light might help that one. Otherwise, phenonemal composition!

Process of Learning
by dogmaND

Comment:
Great capture! I'm surprised it didn't do better. My guess is that a little post processing could have gone a long way in making the DPC crowd like this image more.
What I would have done:

Never crop the image down below a size of 640 pixels. Yours is 511x340. If you are having problems keeping the image size small enough to submit, remember that you can save the jpg at a lower quality but still keep it at 640 pixels. Most software gives you the option to save the jpg at a lower quality (if yours doesn't, find another one that does... and you should be able to find a free one). Lowering the quality actually doesn't make much visible difference to the image. Odds are, all the top placing images in this contest are saved at lower quality. At 640 pixels, you just can't tell the difference

Learn about color correction. I don't know what post-processing tool you use, but start playing around with it. In this photo, your niece's skin has a green tint to it. That can be corrected back to normal skin color. I use photoshop and would apply a color filter on the image to get rid of the tint.

Lastly, your image isn't as sharp at it could be. I can't tell if you already applied any sharpening, but my guess is that you could have gone a bit stronger with it and you'd still be okay.

My guess is that those changes would have changed your score from 5.2 to 5.6 or 5.7.

PM me if I wasn't clear or you have more questions about post-processing.