I apologize for being tardy in offering my critiques. I am in Wetzlar at the LHSA event and Internet access here is limited and expensive.
flashover: Shades of Cartier-Bresson's Behind the Gare Saint-Lazare. Although reversed, the jumping person, a woman in this case, and the corresponding shadow bear an unmistakable resemblance to that famous photograph. However, there is not much else that I can recommend about it. It is not always fair to comment on "print quality" when commenting on digital images but overall this image is too flat -- it just lacks the snap (i.e., sharp contrast) of a beautiful black and white image. Other than the jumping person and her shadow the image just lacks interest -- the background is cluttered with too many points tugging for my eye's attention -- all of which pull my eye away from what has to be the main point of interest. The presence of the boat is both distracting and presents promise. Would a crop that cuts the background and all the dead space on the right produce the sense that the jumping girl is chasing the boat? All in all, the similarity to HCB, whether intentional or accidental, is cool but otherwise this image as presented fails to impress.
raid amin: The colors in this image are wonderfully subdued. The out of focus yellows in the background add a nice depth to the overall image. Looking at the image, though, was unsettling and I decided that the orientation of the image must be wrong -- it looks to be upside down. I rotated the image 180° (put the black circular shapes into the top third of the image) and it registered correctly to my eye. (I was looking at a downloaded image file "File Colors.jpg".) I would have probably cropped a little tighter to eliminate some of the empty space in the lower right (where the out of focus green leaves are). All in all, once oriented the way I think it is supposed to be, this is a very nice image.
shiro_kuro: This is a dynamic image made moderately surreal by the claw things held by a couple of the beachcombers. The hazy background enhances this surreal effect. (Of course, it is not really surreal and it is pretty evident what is going on here.) Compositionally speaking, the image would be greatly improved by an 10x8 crop that eliminates the dead space (and the distracting black blob) on the left of the image. Just lopping off some of this area just to the left of the boy's hand would correct a compositional imbalance and bring the kids' activities more front and center. I love how the kid on the far right is half in and half out of the frame. All in all, I really like this one.
gabrielma: This is a very sharp, intrigue image. My eye is drawn immediately to the lamp on top of the post. From there it is drawn down and along the stones to the right to the people and the ships. I reluctantly force myself to look to the left of the lamp post since there is a lot of image area there. But there is nothing there except for hill and darkness. Compositionally the hope is that the left side of the image nicely balances the far more interesting right side but to my eye it does not. If the idea is for the eye to begin in the darkness on the left and then be drawn to the happier area on the right then this doesn´t work because the lamp post interrupts the flow. Individually there are some beautiful elements in this image (beginning about a third of the way over from the left at the two larger stones) but as presented as a whole it doesn´t quite work.
