santamonica812

Perfect shot for the theme. A well-deserved high finish!

I love the idea of this, but the photo does not have any drama. If you had been able to take a photo where the woman's enlarged belly was clearly defined, that would have been a powerful and moving image. This image, with the woman wearing this particular shirt, completely hides her pregnancy . . . if you had not told us, I would never have guessed that she was almost ready to give birth.

Great composition. Love this image.

I thought this was such an interesting idea for a challenge . . . a real pity that almost no one voted on it. (I only looked at a handful of images after the voting, but even top finishers seemed to be getting 4, 5, or 6 votes, at most.)

Any idea why there was such a lack of interest from the voting public, or why almost none of the entrants bothered to vote in this challenge? It's not like there were no good images . . . I think there were actually many great ones.

Kokeen--don't be discouraged by the lousy voting turnout. Instead, be cheered by the high quality of many of the images that your challenge inspired.

Quiet and powerful message. Very emotional. Nice job!

Really nice image. Good choice to go B & W. A well-deserved win!

JeanPierre,
I am trusting in your own sense of integrity. Please do vote on all the images. The challenges are not for money. If there are better images than yours, give those high scores. If there are images that are worse (or that don't fit the challenge rules), then don't feel guilty about giving them low scores.

Why do I want you to do this? First, because most challenges have very few votes (often fewer than 10-15 per image). If you and others vote, then there will be a *minimum* of about 35 votes per image, and likely more than that. So, even if a few people "cheat" by giving unfairly low votes, that will be offset by the sheer number of "honest" votes.

Second, it really should not take more than 10 minutes to do. It can take quite some time to host, and it's probably not asking too much for entrants to spend 10 minutes in order to make the challenge more successful.

If you really want to contribute to challenges, leave comments in addition to the votes for images.

Yes. I am hoping to see environmental portraits. I think the 3 examples I posted should give an idea, in case some people don't know what an environmental portrait is. For an example of what NOT to do, look at the middle of the 3 examples I gave . . . of a guard in front of a large image of Chairman Mao. If your image looks like the actual Mao (ie, very close up, showing only his head and shoulders) then you have not followed the challenge rule . . . you will have submitted a traditional portrait, which is NOT this challenge.

Very nice abstract composition

I like the shot very much. But you should rotate it, so that the tower is not tilting to one side. (Even though doing so would require a tiny bit of cropping, I suspect that a lot of people would score your image higher.)

Nice composition. Spend a little more time on the title, so it's not so meaningless.

I like the image. How does the image related to your title? (Or, to the song itself?)

If it's an IQ test, then I think I'm failing it. :-)

One of the only clever entries in this challenge. You should have finished (much!) higher.

Boy, I do NOT get the voting in this challenge. So many of the top finishers show zero creativity, and the images themselves were not photographed particular well. (Not interesting lighting, etc.)

I didn't enter this challenge, so I have no dog in this fight. But this challenge is unusual (in my opinion only, of course) for the small number of creative photos, of well composed photos, and so on.

Such a disappointment . . . when I saw the challenge first announced, I was very excited to see what creativity people might employ. But shooting a yellow submarine for "Yellow Submarine"? Oh.....kay....

Sigh.

Great shot. Well-deserved win!!

Nice job on the post-processing. I've seen a bunch of excellent images in this challenge, but yours is (now) neck-and-neck with another image for my top picks.

I (respectfully) disagree with Znaark . . . I think there is so much visually interesting in this shot; I would not crop in closer. (Which just goes to show that, in photography, there's no way to please everyone!) :-)

Actually, I like those green objects in the b.g.. Since they are so out-of-focus and since the color is so muted, they do not take my eyes away from the apples. We always see a "clean" backdrop, and you (in my opinion, anyway) came up with a clever way to add a tiny bit of visual interest and a way to break up the usual monotone that we often get in studio still lives.

I'd like to see this image with the bottom of the front apple, but having it as is (ie, cut off) doesn't bother me.

Is there any way to remove the reflection of the light source that is coming off the left (from our perspective) side of the front apple? That is a bit distracting.

The heavy-handed use of vignetting really hurts your image. It needs to be much much much much much more subtly done.

I like the composition as it stands. Just to compare, maybe also try cropping out much of the right-side bison, so that you focus only on the 3 heads? And if you do that, maybe crop out a bit above the bison as well?

Having said all that; other than the horrific vignetting, I *really* like this shot. Great job on the actual taking of the photo.

I don't find this image to be visually interesting. Maybe crop in much closer on the heads (which would make it a vertical, I suspect). . . . I just played around with your image in PS, and (to my eyes only, of course) I liked it best with almost all the grass above and below cropped out, and in regard to the lowest horse, only its head remaining, in the lower-right part of the image.

A "simple" still life, but done expertly. As others have noted; not much at all that needs to be changed. Great job!