Total judging points: 18
Judge's Comments:
1. Colorful beech leaves against a blank sky present a problem: How to capture, or make, an image with "pop" that would make it stand out to the judges. This is a very good image to show the colors of autumn, but the blank sky over-powers and detracts from the overall image. (Comment: This judge could not have captured a better image in this situation, and, moreover, has made many such images this autumn.)
2. The variety of leaf colors portrayed in this image is lovely, but the relative sharpness and brightness of the background detracts from the beauty of the leaves.
If the opportunity were there, I might have framed this photo differently to hide the bright sky. I might also have tried zooming in to focus more closely on just a few of the most interesting leaves, perhaps finding a large tree trunk in the background to serve as the background. And I might have opened up wider than f/8 to throw the background out of focus more strongly.
Lots of good image elements here. Just a few simple changes would allow them to come out more strongly.