Red Sky at Night ...

Beautiful light on the water. I'd suggest a 4x5 crop of the top 1/3 that's out of focus.

Thanks for your input, Barry. I tried cropping it, but didn't like it at all. It lost the effect I wanted of using selective focus to allow the image to trail off. I wanted to keep your eye in the fore- and middle-ground.

That said, I know there are plenty of people who prefer everything in focus in a photograph.

Focus aint the problem, brightness is! Must see brighter, at least the bright portions (if youve never played with luminosity masks--nowz the time!). The red blue contrast will be killer (once i can see them better). Id also lose the nasty chalkboard surrounding bg, black would probably work just fine.

I think the impact of this image is in the contrast between dark blue and read and the patterns they form in the water. I don't need every image to be tack sharp, but not sure what purpose the oof foreground and bg serves. I like a hortizontal crop of just the middle, with a bit of lightening...there are amazing patterns and colors here...well seen

That's neat. Good eye for the unusual. But you shouldn't've told us what's going on. This is a cool abstract that's fine just to enjoy as is.

Margo,

A fascinating abstract. I do wish it had more DOF. The OOF portions distract.

great touch of light here

a little bit dark

Hamed

subtle shapes emerge from this; i'd be inclined to crop to square.

Margo,

I really like the patterns and abstract nature of the rippling water surface. The color contrast is the great eye-catcher too. I can understand you're thinking about the selective focus and I think this does work to keep the eye in the sharper area. But IMHO, selective focus/shallow dof is tough when using with a continuous pattern. In other words, the eye wants to follow and explore the continued/repeated patterns, but then when they become out of focus, it mentally seems like a DOF issue rather than a separating technique - if that makes sense.

Regardless, a very nice natural abstract. I would agree with a slightly brighter presentation, but that's minor.

Lon

This is pretty darn cool Margo. I think I would really like to see against a white background.

Thank you all for your comments. It was at the end of the day, when the water was nearly black. And on my regularly-calibrated screen at home, it is brighter than it appears once you upload it to these galleries. Certainly something to keep in mind for next time. I wish there were a way to update a photo. Ah well! Because there is lot of luminocity in the photo at home.