Monthly competition #33 - Animal magnetism Competition

Hi, please explain to me, why was deleted my photos from this competition! I have to conclude that this is not the first time !!
Have a good day,
Velimir

This explains why http://www.pentaxuser.com/forum/topic/discussion-for-monthly--33---animal-magnet...
Read the rules before you enter to save disappointment.

The point of the Monthly Competition was to encourage people to shoot new images in response to the brief.

A slow burner, this one. I thought an animal-related theme might be a soft target that attracted a decent number of entries, but it appears my optimism was misplaced (although I did at least receive a number of decent entries). Combined, the past three monthly competitions have attracted only 25 submissions. Answers on a postcard.

My thanks as ever to those who took the time and trouble to participate. I’ve enjoyed thumbing through the photos – and a small field doesn’t necessarily simply the judging process…

Sun and clean sheets – davidwozhere
The competition might have started slowly, but when it began it got off to a flyer. This is lovely - beautifully lit for an indoor shot and very, very cat. The more elderly of our two seems to do this for about 23h 40m every day (and spends the other 20 minutes eating). Some might worry about the tail being cropped on the left, but that doesn’t bother me in the slightest. One’s eye is drawn only to the look of inverted bliss towards the right.

Where did I put it? – stu62
Nice idea, Stu, and the squirrel looks particularly purposeful. As with your swan shot in one of my previous competitions, though, the colours are a little flat. A two-second ‘autofix’ in PS Elements gives it much more oomph – and I’m sure most photo editing software has a similar facility. I’d be tempted to frame it slightly differently, too, to put more emphasis on the squirrel. I’d keep most of the tree and some of the grass, but would prefer it with a significant chunk cropped from the left-hand side and foreground. As ever, though, my personal taste might well be rubbish.

Canadian Timberwolf – perspicador
A handsome beast, certainly, and I like the facial expression plus slightly airborne front-left paw. The bulky harness gives the image a slightly unnatural feel, though, and personally I’d prefer to see the wolf offset slightly to the left (and possibly lower in the frame), rather than bang in the centre. To my mind that would create a more elegant balance.

Bye Bye Birdie – drobbia
I like the silhouette, but would prefer to see less vacant space on the left-hand side, ditto in the foreground. As it is, the blackbird looks a little lost. I like the distant OOF building to the right and feel more could be done with this to create a balanced whole, with the blackbird towards the frame’s lower left.

Jake – paulb531
This is terrific – nice perspective of a cat behaving like, well, a cat. Very crisp, with great sharpness around the eyes and pleasing colour rendition. From the exif numbers, I’m guessing this a tribute to the qualities of the 50mm f1.7. Jake looks mildly underwhelmed by his new modelling role, but that’s par for the course as cats seem to think humans exist for their benefit, rather than the other way around.

Rusty Oink and his girl – JudithAnn
In years to come, I suspect the family will look at this and say, “Ah, d’you remember when..?” It’s a lovely, happy shot, but that coat of many colours draws my eye to Hadassah and for this competition’s purposes I’d prefer the walking bacon to be the main focus. I do like it, though.

Why does life have to be so complicated? – vanzelst
A great pose, but the dog’s expression is masked by shadow (and the plastic container) – and that reduces the image’s impact. It doesn’t look wholly sharp in the important areas, either, although that might just be my eyesight playing tricks.

Chilling – johnriley
The latest in a sequence of familiar feline poses. Nicely sharp around the critical bits (eyes and nose, mainly), but my only gripe is that I’d prefer said bits to be pointing more towards at the lens. Very proficient in technical terms, but to my mind the angle of the cat’s head means its personality isn’t transmitted quite as powerfully as those of other moggies in this neighbourhood.

Coq-au-Vin – drofmit
A lovely portrait, dripping with character and blessed with cracking clarity around the eyes. I’m pleased to learn of Vinnie’s stay of execution. Dinner exchanged for a willing and readily available model? I’d call that a worthwhile sacrifice. I’d be interested to know how this might look as a squarer crop, because most of the interest is to the north of the frame and I suspect you could dispense with some feathery foreground without spoiling the image.

Froggy – coker
Initially I was slightly irritated by the blades of grass across the frog’s left eye, but that adds a natural element: the more I looked, the less I noticed the grass. Instead, I concentrated on the lovely lighting and detail around the right eye. I’m not altogether surprised to see a frog in a pondless garden: we get quite a few, although the downside is that the cats insist on bringing them in so that we can all have a closer look. The frogs are usually undamaged, but rarely seem terribly impressed.

After much dithering while cradling a 5.30am cuppa, the verdict is as follows:
3rd=: Froggy, by coker; Coq-au-Vin, by drofmit
2nd: Jake, by paulb531
1st: Sun and clean sheets, by davidwozhere

Over to you, David…

Er, that should say 'simplify' in the second paragraph, not 'simply'...

Thanks Simon, excellent, efficient judging! Monthly competitions do need new images, and I guess that puts some people off, but maybe as the summer encroaches and we're all out and about the Monthly might get more entries.

I wonder what our winner has in store for our April task?

Congratulations to David for a great winning shot. Thanks to Simon for the competition and the expert judging as ever. Pity there wasn't a few more entries - most people can borrow a cat or a dog I would have thought. Thanks also for the second place. l think Jake would have been traumatised (very highly strung) if he had been beaten by a frog - even though its a great photo.

Best regards

Paul

Thank you very much for the win - I honestly thought the frog would have croaked it - it's such a splendid and representative portrait. Now I have to think up a theme that might attract some more pictures

Vinnie says thank you for the comments... but he likes to show-off all his hackles...

Thanks for the third= spot... Vinnie is with us for the ride... although he will keep jumping on t'wife's back when she's weeding...
apparently he's not very genteel about it... if he's not careful he could be in for a roasting!

Thank you Simon for all your work in the judging. I could not have agreed with you more....I too noticed her coat was attractive to the eye, as well as bulky. Our Canadian winter is still blowing around, even though it is spring. So the coat had to stay, this time. I did not have any other animals to shoot, yet.

Congrats to all the worthy winner...Until next time....JA