Protea and Bees by Dan Matyola - A real tough exposure situation. Were you doing it in B&W, the old "expose for the shadows and lengthen developing time" (which I recently learned from Shel, but haven't used yet) might have helped. As is, the centre of the bloom, and more importantly the bee, are a bit underexposed, while the top petals and leaves are pretty bright - maybe even blown out a bit in the case of those top petals. Too bad, because it's a wonderful photo otherwise. Nice composition and cropping, lovely subject, and of course those bees make it. Other thing that might have helped would be fill-flash, but it's too late for that now, isn't it? I don't want to make too big a deal about the exposure, as it was a very difficult one, and you did well in the way it was dealt with. Plus, the rest of the photo makes up for it, IMHO. Well done. Interesting photo.
flower by Pentaxsky - Beautiful. Simple concept, well executed, you caught a beautiful pattern in the tight petals of the flower. I like the way the "hole" in the centre is dead centre in the frame as well. Nice use of light and shadows. And of course, the colour is vividly beautiful (and properly topical <g>). I like it! Rosa 'Fragrant Cloud' by Kostas Kavoussanakis - Quite entrancing. There's a lot to like here, from the understated red of the petals (love the grey/black in there, too), to the almost perfect shape of the bloom, to the lovely OOF leaves in the background. It all might have been a bit brighter, but that may be my monitor. The one detail that I just love, and it almost "makes the photo" for me, is the single droplet of moisture on the bottom petal. Almost as if the rose is crying. Beautiful. Triad in Color by Harald Rust - Edward Weston eat your heart out <vbg>. Okay, it looks nothing like a Weston, but every time I see a pepper... I like this one. Nice colours, I like the "natural" look of the ice as a backdrop (if fruit markets are natural, I guess...). Nice placement/framing of the fruits (or are they vegetables?) - that pattern seems to work very nicely. Again, the droplets of moisture are a nice touch. That would make one of a nice series, nicely framed and on the wall of a restaurant. Very nice! Strawberries by E.R.N. Reed - Looks scrumptious! Vivid reds, I like the sheen on them. Nice framing, I like the way you got most but not quite all of the leaves of the largest berry in the frame - cutting off the very edges of those leaves sort of adds to the "jumbled" look of the subjects. Now, if we just had a bit of whipped cream (real fresh whipped stuff, not that crap in spray cans or plastic tubs)... <vbg> Bubbles by Thomas Moraitis - I like the concentration on his face - real innocent looking, as if his bubbles were the most important thing in the world (which I suppose they were, to him at that particular moment). Nice and sharp, I like the shape/blur of the bubbles, Framing/cropping is very nice, with the bubble just about to go out-of-frame. Nice green bokeh; too bad about that little hot-spot over the boy's head. Just a minor quibble, though, for an overall very strong photo. More later. Cheers, frank -- "Sharpness is a bourgeois concept." -Henri Cartier-Bresson
