Vote for your Favorite Photo! - June Competition

[CJ Swartz]

This voting thread is now open and will close this Monday June 30th at 10pm (PDT)

You may view the entries in the Competition thread or all together here: -- http://www.pbase.com/shadepuppy/competition

Voting is open to all RetouchPro members.

Post your choices (in this thread) for 1st, 2nd, and 3rd by listing the member's name. If you want to explain your reasons, please do.

Vote for the 3 entries you like the best - you might consider how well a photo captures your attention, how well it deals with the subject, how well it fits with the chosen theme, how well the technical details are handled -- lighting, composition, sharpness, etc., -- you are the judge of what appeals to you and what is important to you in an image and the subject category.

Votes will be weighted to give greater weight to First Place votes than to Second and greater weight to Second than to Third place votes. When you place a vote for First Place, that entry will receive four (4) points; when you place a vote for Second, that entry will receive two (2) points, and a vote for Third Place will receive one (1) point.


1. Entry X (their name) - First Place
2. Entry A (their name) - Second Place
3. Entry C (their name) - Third Place


The winner will be notified and will choose a subject for July.

[JD Spears]

1.)CathyH-Snowball-bush.jpg
Nice subtle back lighting, Good use of DOF, Good composition and framing.

2.)K_GiMiNi_M-bluefl.jpg
Nice composition and color. Good use of DOF. Nice diffused lighting but would like to see a little more punch. Some of the brown is distracting but over all excellent image.

3.)Swade23-My-WINNER.jpg
Very nice use of complementary colors; Yellow of the daisys against the blue background separated by the white petals.
Good composition and use of DOF. The bee add visual interest.

[Janet Petty]

This was tough. All of the photos had interesting or outstanding elements that I liked. And some, even though they were good, had elements that didn't quite pull together for me.

1. Martin K. I don't care if it was a studio shot or not. This one was very well done.

2. K_GiMiNi_M. Although IMO needed a tad more contrast and punch to the lighting. The composition was well thought out and DOF was well executed.

3. Blindy. Great shot of a flower. Your white balance is off; and there is too much saturation. It distracts from the flower itself and loses detail you might have in the flower.

3A. skauskas. I loved the flower. The background detracted from the whole.

3B. Swade. Love the composition, the flower. The bee is a nice touch but placement of the bee makes it the subject. And the subject is out of focus. Don't fault me for that observation. About two thirds of the pictures I looked at for submission had bees in them as well. I like bees on flowers.

GREAT subject. I absolutely love flower shots. Thanks to all who participated.

Janet

[K_GiMiNi_M]

1 CathyH
2 Janet Petty
3 Marten K

[CathyH]

This was very hard to limit it to just 3 votes.

1. K_Gimini_M - Great composition and love the colors, could use some sharpening and contrast.
2. Skauskas - The flower is in focus and I really liked how the background colors seemed to be repeated in the center of the orchid.
3. Janet Petty - Great focus, very nice composition and angle. I liked the over all colors too.

I would like to make some observation on the other entries.
AFrazier - I love roses, but I think you needed to give more emphases on one of them.
Charley - Nice colors and interesting treatment to the edges. It is interesting how it looks almost 2D.
Blindv - yours would have been 4th place, I really liked the color and contrast.
Fedje - I think it would have been better if it didn't have the shadow on half of the flowers. And maybe a different crop would have worked or a different angle.
Swade23 - I like the composition, but there didn't seem to be any thing in sharp focus.
Dweekly - Very good focusing and great colors, but with a different angle or crop it wouldn't have looked chopped.
Nebgranny - I love clements I would have loved to see more flowers then vines and the yellow iris is distracting. Good lighting, no harsh shadows.
Diamonds - I love the colors and dark background, I wish the flower had been perfect and not missing some petals.
Martin K - Love the clear sharp colors, but the composition seemed to be to stiff.

Well I hope my comments are helpful. This was very fun and every one did a great job.

[dweekley]

Love flowers and all the entries but here are my top 3....

Trillium_BCCH-day_JanetPetty - loved the soft colors, dof and detail
Snowball-bush-sm-CathyH - especially liked the composition and fresh summer colors
blueflk_g_m - color and composition were great. i think for me i'd have voted it higher if it had some sharpening applied

fyi, thanks for the observations on my entry Cathy, have to agree with you!

[carrie248]

1. J. Petty -Trillium
2. Martin K - small flowers
3. Skauskas - flower

[CJ Swartz]

Voting is hard - again!

1. - Martin K. -- I like the simplicity of the composition and the unusual choice of subject. Exposure is very good.

2. - Janet Petty -- I really like the placement of the bloom in the frame. Your use of depth of field reduced the distraction in the background but didn't eliminate it to my eye.

3. - Out of several that I considered, I'm choosing nebgranny's clematis. I like the overall look of the blooms/vine against the wood fence. The fence is crooked in the frame, and the yellow bloom at the bottom distracts from the subject, but the exposure and color balance is good as is your use of the light.

I truly enjoyed looking at each of the entries - each of you found something beautiful to photograph and shared it with us.

[Ruzzez]

1 K_GiMiNi_M
2 BlindV
3 JanetPetty

[DWThomp]

1) K_GiMiNi_M - blueflowers : Love the colors and softness of this shot. Well done.

2) JanetPetty - Trillium-BCCH-day : nice composition and color. Looks a tad out of focus, but that kind of works for this shot. I'd still like to see it a little sharper.

3) MartinK - Small Flowers : I like the simple setup. I wish there were more contrast tho.

[CJ Swartz]

Well, it's the stated time to close voting -- wish more of the entrants had voted.

This thread is now closed.


THE WINNERS of the June competition are: (the votes were very close in this one!)

1st Place -- K_GiMiNi_M

2nd Place -- Janet Petty

3rd Place -- Martin K

Congratulations to our winners!

Thanks to all our entrants for a beautiful garden of flower images!

Our 1st Place winner, K_GiMiNi_M, will let us know the subject/theme for the next competition, which starts in July.