Stuffed pug with cushions
by Paul

Comment:
Gotta love the furry family members! I think this photo captures the theme of this challenge with flying colors! The funny thing about the 'still life' is that, when you think about them, there is no life in them at all. This pug is livin' the good life! This is my favorite photo in this challenge and I hope it wins... good luck!

Loop by Loop
by kanaj

Comment:
Nice :)

Blowing in the wind
by Neat

Comment:
Excellent picture. I have seen this one a million times and it doesn't seem to get old. I'd love to see someone take it from a different perspective. I'd love to see the camera pointed at the child from the front with the focus on the dandelion using a shallow depth of field where the child is a bit out of focus and the bits blowing off the bloom are out of focus in the foreground. Maybe I'll have to add that one to my own to-do list at some point.... This is my favorite of the challenge. Excellent choice for black and white.

Winter Symmetry
by DCrest01

Comment:
I love the detail of the pine cone. They are quite intriguing upon close inspection for sure. I can see that you have gone to great lengths to have a good exposure to capture the shadow detail. The shadow being cast to the right side feels strange, possibly due to post processing. I don't understand the choice of taking the pine cone out of a natural environment and placing it in a completely sterile white environment for a photograph. Maybe it's being considered for marketing or product photography where it's going to be cut out and place in other images. The overall impression just feels cold in this sense. Not cold in a sense of weather but in a sense of image appeal maybe. The subject is placed just slightly off center in this frame as well, which makes it feel odd to me. It might feel stronger if it was even further off center or if it was placed exactly in the center. The 'slight' nature of the off-center positioning creates a bit of discomfort in the composition for me.

2am
by jmsetzler

Comment:

Originally posted by kanaj: The high-contrast B/W processing is striking on this. I appreciate your notes and was genuinely curious about the story behind the choices you made. Great title, too. I like big swings like this.

Thanks :) I knew going in that this isn't a challenge friendly photo but I wanted to drop one in anyway.. I am finding that the free study challenges here aren't taken seriously by the participants. It seems like they are used as a place for leftovers from other challenges and that's a shame. The free study is a place to voice your own thoughts on photography. I'm not looking to win challenges at this point. I am just gonna hang out here a while and see if it's possible to pull some real photography conversation out of the woodwork to see if there are any hardcore enthusiasts left in the crowd....

Loop by Loop
by kanaj

Comment:
Excellent composition and choice of subjects for this challenge. I personally think the hands are essential in the terms of THIS particular challenge yet so many decided to avoid that. It's a shame. This is one of my top two in this challenge. The only thing I think needs improvement here is the exposure. I don't know the situation in which this photo was made, but I'm assuming it's fairly controlled. That being my assumption, I'd like to have seen the lighting on the lower right settled a little more to avoid the hot spots that are losing a good bit of detail. That bright spot also wants to pull my attention away from the real subject in this image. An alternate composition from this photo itself would still be amazing if most of the right half of the image was cropped out. Just some food for thought on an other wise amazing entry into this challenge.... great stuff!

Calligraphy
by LevT

Comment:
I SO want this to be one of my favorite photos in this challenge. This one had the potential to be the most compelling example of my interpretation of the challenge. Obviously I don't know the situation in which the photo was made, but my photographer senses are begging me for a slightly different camera angle where the camera is at a higher level pointing down at an angle so the artistry being created becomes an equal player with the hands in this composition. Great job on seeing a great opportunity and choosing it for this challenge.

Diana's Contraption
by DistantColours

Comment:
This looks like an intriguing piece of artistry and being hand made becomes obvious through the detail. The detail is where the fascination exists. As I look closer and for longer periods of time at this photo, I keep finding amazing smaller compositions that, in their own rite, would make great and compelling photographs. I would love to explore this item in much closer compositions.

Channeling My Inner Tree
by glad2badad

Comment:
Perfect... this is the only photo I gave a 10 in this challenge.. nice work!

Dream and Dare
by vawendy

Comment:
I saw your post in the forums regarding negative space and its interpretation. My thoughts on what it means in terms of the challenge is that the empty space (or the space not occupied by the primary subject of the image) sort of becomes the subject or theme of the image. It's a stretch to explain it because it, as with anything 'art', is subjective. It's one of the things that makes challenges difficult. Some find the challenges to be met or not because of different interpretations of what the challenge is. Your photograph here is extremely well executed. It has a lot of negative space... the darkness surrounding your furry friend. *MY* thoughts on your image are that you could create MORE impact with the negative space by moving the cat to the far left side of the frame and eliminate the 'negative space' behind the cat and have it all in front. I believe that having negative space uninterrupted makes it stronger. I have created two interpretations to share with you:



This one puts all the negative space in front of the cat. In my mind, this makes the negative space more powerful. Here is a more extreme version of the same idea:



I would have scored both of these interpretations even higher than the original.

Once again, it's all subjective. You might hate these ideas :) Cheers from western NC....