You've helped remove the high reflections, but now you need to add back the correct light source. The bottle shows no real directional lighting, although Mr. Potato Head is lit from the upper left.

I'd also tone down the bottle label more. It shouldn't be the brightest value when his arms are white, too.

This is a cute concept!

Love the richness of the reds, especially her lips! Great job!

Surreal or not, the perspective is wonky, with the lampposts being about 4 1/2 feet tall in relation to the door behind them... The lighting is not "surreal," it's nonsensical. Perhaps you do not know what the Surrealism Art movement was all about, but trust when I say it is not to excuse poor Composition.

Surrealism focuses on organic shapes, twisting lines, visual textures and lighting specifically angled and shadowed to help convey a mood, not just lights tossed around with no logical illumination or shadows.

Your lighting of the archway provides no illumination of the ground in front of it, and the midget lampposts do not cast proper illumination of the ground directly below them.

CMYK was being kind in requesting an SBS. Whatever your thought processes, buddy, they are far more "surreal" than the lighting in this entry...

It really shows a lot of promise, but it also shows some glaring continuity issues that "surreal" cannot hide or excuse.

Very imaginative, but the focus clarity of the image is too inconsistent to "read" smoothly to the eye, particularly the background behind the items in and on the water. Some selective blurring will help push the background down and make your focal point of the water stand out more. I would also slightly darken the background behind the ship sails to help them "pop" a bit more.

Also, since this is a "night" scene, you need to adjust colors. As a very old song used to sing "Red is black, and yellow, white..." At night, yellows are not yellow, and the green would be black...While there may be yellows, they would be from incandescent lights. Yours are giving a blue cast, making the color situation even more noticeable.

Very nice chop. The composition could be a little bit better by moving the pearl over to either side, rather than dead center of the image, and the white it too bright for being under the water, but never the less, the colors and edges are very clean. Good work.

There's a nice glow, as if the entire building is illuminated in each room by candle light. But the flames are too muted and muddied to read as "FIRE!!!!" They just read as a glow...

This piece shows good promise, but you need to really punch those flames up a LOT. Fire is not a timid thing, especially a large one.

Exquisite work. Congrats on a well-deserved win!
~M

I'm a cell-phone Luddite. I use a Trac-phone that doesn't even access the Internet...

But thank you, I understand your image better now, although the politics behind it are still somewhat foggy, but that's the cell phone industry, not your chop...lol!

Best of luck, author!http://www.pxleyes.com/#

Cute back story! Nice chop.
~M

Okay, I'm having a terrible blonde moment, author, please help me out.
How does the eagle fit into the title, or conversely, how is the title supposed to relate to the image? Thx!
~M

This wouldn't load for me for the last day or so, but it worked this time. Awesome does not begin to describe this. Love the way your imagination works!!!
~M

Simply excellent! It tells a story, and makes the viewer part of the experience. Fantastic effort, and VERY cute! My fav.
~M

Excellent work! Very creative and well done.

Fantastic contrast and DOF, it looks like a Photoshop cut and paste, NOT an easy thing to accomplish. Good work.

What a beautiful bowl!

Nice texture, but it doesn't show the grain of the wood, just surface cuts...

EDIT: Much more interesting photo! You can really see the grain, as well as the effect of time and weather. Nice job!

The concept and overall composition of this is very nice. But the too bright background jumbles everything together and overpowers the gumdrop trees. Distance (*even imaginary types) is often conveyed by a graying effect, as red and yellow tones are more short light waves. If you were to slightly desaturate that background with a gradient adjustment layer, and possibly increase the color saturation of the gumdrop trees just a bit to help them "pop" a bit more, your "candyscape" will have a much better visual presence. As is, if you squint your eyes slightly to blur the entire image, you will see that is a somewhat amorphous blob needing a more distinct focal point.

This isn't square. The height needs to be equal to the width. You have the right idea, though.

Really well done. I particularly like the translucence of the ear piece. Great job!

The lens looks opaque, not clear. Even with a light reflection, something of the background should show through...

The Canon T2i has a color oversaturation of about 111%, which can give you 'comic book' colors on Auto Mode. You will have to switch to a mode where you can make 'Picture Style' adjustments, and reduce your saturation slightly (-1 should bring to very close to a more natural color saturation). I believe you will find the information on or about Pg 92-94 of your user manual.

That's one of the joys of modern cameras, they allow for pretty easy 'point and shoot' capabilities, but have some very powerful tools built in to let you tweak the settings for even better photos.

Also, the Photography Contest rules DO allow you to make saturation adjustments with Photoshop so long as your adjustment (saturation) is applied to the entire image, and not just a portion of it (selective editing).

Hope this helps you, some!
~M

I wasn't talking about adjusting your values, I was suggesting cropping the too dark bottom off a bit, so that it is less 'bottom heavy,' composition wise.

And as for "the real deal," that is dependent upon the camera you are using. Some cameras record value levels differently than others. Having seen enough sunsets, I'd be willing to bet that the shoreline was not nearly pitch black with that much light still in the sky...

Excellent work.

It's so dark, the lower third is basically black. I'd suggest cropping a large part of that away, to bring the focus up. It's weighing down your composition.

Nice job. Good balance.

Wonderful composition, excellent photo. Most enjoyable to look at again and again. Well done!

What model camera are you using? Some oversaturate the colors on Auto...

Excellent focus and color. I'm not a fan of wasps, but I am a fan of this photo! Great job!

Stunning photo, it looks like a sci-fi structure. Great color and depth.

@Wayne - I was rounding up, you rascal!
@Author - MUCH better!

LOL - Fire your magician...Different cameras have different amounts of rectilinear, or barrel distortion which varies by model and focal length. Some cameras can adjust for it internally, some require external plug-ins like Fisheye-Hemi for Photoshop. But magic it ain't...

Cropping the left would lessen the distraction somewhat, and while it would square your image, the improvement in overall composition might be worth the trade off...

Shame the left edge of the umbrella was cut off, with so much empty space on the right...

Those are the exact words that came to my mind, too! Great capture, author!

The contrast seems somewhat blown out.

I love this photo. The expression on his face makes me smile. WONDERFUL lighting with the glint in his eyes. Excellent job!

The fish eye distortion of the lens combined with the HDR gives this a very disconcerting effect...interesting.

Of course it looks fake and oversaturated, that's obvious from the color of the shadows and the foliage...that's what makes it interesting. Nice job.

Wonderful mood. Well done!

The photo is off level. The foundation line of the building shows that the image tilts down to the right 1.29 degrees. I think that is what Wayne was referring to...

Nice perspective!

Very nice composition. Good contrast, color, and placement.

Black and white does this image no favors. The grays are of too much a similar value, with the shadows in the center detracting from the facial expression, since the tongue almost disappears, and the cake is hard to recognize.

Nice capture, but it would have been even better if the lines of the light were level, the slight downward tilt to the right throws the visual balance off a bit.

Excellent photo, beautiful color and focus.

Great capture, but the image would be MUCH stronger if you only had the center boxers in color. The blue ones at the bottom are too dominant, and steal the focus on the wild purple pink ones.

Excellent composition. Great job!

The HDR effect is too extreme, with the halo effect on the uprights distracting from the sky. Less is more...

The blur on the RH side is distracting, especially since you cut off the LH edge of the book. You might consider cropping that blurry part off, which would help direct the focus back onto your subject.

The slight tilt to the left weakens this photo.

Wonderful mood, great job!