Well done, Glyn and Sandinista on getting third place. And thanks for the second place Darlene I was lucky the weather was clear enough to get that shot our I would have been digging through the freezer!

Cold Valley




A valley in Turkey from 32000 feet.

Taken 15/01/11
Pentax K7
ISO 200
Sigma 18-250
f16
1/60th sec.

Lovely shots, especially the first one. I really like the mono conversion you've done, the silver of the railings really stands out.
There's still some bands halfway up on the left side on the much improved second version. I sometimes use gaussian blur (on a duplicate layer)on a blue sky converted to mono to get rid of the blotchiness. Running the blur tool at 100% over the edges of bands like that (I get a lot of it on aerial shots for some reason) sometimes helps as well.

Thanks for the comments...think I shall go with No.1 then.

...I find "Ring" most intriguing; the two rings are not touching. Which makes me think one of three things:

a) you arranged it
b) the ring lying flush to the stone has rotted into place,
or,
c)it's a perfectly horizontal surface and the rings are not mutually dependent.

:alternatively, I may have had one too many......but that's four..

Excellent picture and I think Bob has answered your request............

Flaking and Eight look slightly OOF to me too.

The rest are your normal scabby rusty detail stuff. Which means they are very good indeed!

Edit:

PS: Kingdom Of Rust would be a very good title for a book of your work.....

I have this picture, of the Apple Store in Manhattan, which I want to submit to PPG (hopefully it will be my 30th acceptance!) but I have done four different versions and can't decide which I like the best! I find I am increasingly fiddling with any architectural pictures I take, which is a bit time consuming! I would really appreciate any input, and reasons, if any, for preferring one over another.

Colour (Original)




Colour with partially desaturated glass/ desaturated building.




Mono




Mono (Topaz)




Thanks,
Jon

Lovely colours, the first is my favourite as I really like the composition. Nice set!

Lovely colour, and amazing machines. I admire the people who put so much work into getting them looking like this, from the engineers to the signwriter. I do however think I prefer detail shots of trains indoors so the museum floor, other exhibits etc are not so obvious.