Early spring
by SoulMan1978

Comment:
I really like the sharpness and color in this photo. However the bee blends into the stem of the plant too much and is not very obvious. In fact I don't recall seeing the bee at all during my voting and that may explain some the scoring. After spending time looking at the photo I now can't understand how I could have ever not seen the bee, but the fact is I didn't see it when I first opened up this photo and it took maybe 5-6 seconds before I did see it. Great focus on the bee btw.

Curtis Falls
by surfdabbler

Comment:
I really like this photo and I gave it a 9 in voting. I like the sharpness and I do like the bright greens unlike karmat.

The brown water does stand out quite a bit compared to the rest of the photo but when my eye is drawn there by the color I like that I can see the details under the water. There is more to explore there and I find that interesting.

Just Thinkin'
by karmat

Comment:
Very cute girl. I really like the pose and the way her eyes are shifted down and out of the photo. I also like thsat the photo is a little soft, it works well for this type of photo. What doesn't work for me is the high-key look that hides her hair and the fact that the side of her head is cropped off.

B
by Venom

Comment:
I like the exposure on the bee and the background for the bee. The problem is that the only things in focus are the bee's hind leg, one antenna, and the flower in the lower right corner. A little greater DOF would have been of great benefit here to bring the bee in focus and some of the flowers higher up in the bee's path. I would have thought that f/9 would have been a sufficient DOF but the bee was apparently just at the edge of the focus range.

Overall I still like the photo even when the softness of the bee. It really tells a story.

March Madness
by Donna21

Comment:
I really like the overall look of this photo, there is a lot of detail in the branches that really jumps out at me. It's not clear to me what the subject is in this photo. It's a very busy photo. When first looking at it my eye jumps to the upper left of the photo and all of the branches. I then think, that's not the subject and my eyes jump to the tree trunk, then to the park benches then to the building. Through all of this I'm never sure what the subject is so my eyes start darting around again. So I think a tighter crop would be better to eliminate some of the competing elements.

The lighting is great and it really captures the feel of a snowy scene like this.

Going back to the branches on the upper left they almost look too sharp. If the photo was just that I would think somebody had done an emboss filter on them. It looks a little unnatural, although I'm guessing it's just because of the density of tree branches in that area.

I like the photo overall but as I said above think it could be improved by highligting a central subject.

I am smiling!
by actnout

Comment:
I read something that said for animal photos it's all about the eyes. If the eyes are in focus and tack sharp you can get away with a lot of imperfections in the photo. I have noticed this to be very true, the animal photos I like always has the focus on the eyes. In this photo the sharpest focus seems to be on the nose and whiskers and that is where my eye is drawn when I first look at the photo.

I think the lighting and color are OK and I like the way the sea lion (seal?) is coming from the top corner of the frame into the photo. Would like to see a little more of the body. My initial reaction when seeing the photo was "where are the flippers", because of the DOF and color the color blob on the right side of the photo doesn't look like it is part of the sea lion, it might be the flipper but it isn't clear.

Overall it's a good photo.

Just out of reach!
by briandsd

Comment:
Nice job capturing the action, but it looks like a snapshot. Perhaps having a shallower DOF would help. Or paying more attention to the background.

Polka, anyone?
by Lydia

Comment:
I kind of like the lighting on this. Don't like that the left edge of the pink dot is cut off. Overall I find the subject uninteresting.

Spring
by rachelmead

Comment:
The lighting is lighting the background more than the flower. The blue cast it gives on the flower makes it look unattractive.

Summiteers
by Tallbloke

Comment:
Looks like a B/W, not color. Hard to tell.