The photographer is Cindy Hatcher
Total judging points:
Judge's Comments:
#1 I find myself trying to figure this image out rather than just enjoying it: is that a path down the middle? Is that a tree in the middle of the path? What could those bright gold streaks be? I think I understand what the author was going for, but maybe I missed the point totally. To try to be more helpful; if it were my image, I would:
1) crop out the burned out top right corner, which then would require
2) cropping out bright yellow on the right side
3) and maybe I would clone out on of the bright gold streaks on the left, then
4) crop off the two faint gold streaks on the far left.
#3 Looks better with cropping the upper part of the image to remove the distracted overexposed area in the upper right.
#4 To me, the bright area top right and the bright streaks on the left detract from the soft painterly image.