Initial thoughts Reasonably nice landscape, spoiled by overprocessing and overly dominant shadows.
Composition/ Content The scene presented here is a pleasant one with some interesting curves in the road (I think a vantage point showing a more complete zig zag would be even more appealing) and an intriguing glimpse of a city below.
The off-centred composition of the main hill provides a nice diagonal and balance.
Background The clouds are forming some wonderful shapes and add so much more than a plain sky could have. I like the sense of depth provided by the haziness of the farthest hills and the city area.
Camera Work & Processing I don't know whether the processing is an attempt to correct exposure problems but it strikes me as very excessive.
There is the strangest very bright line of separation between the main foreground and the background sky and cityscape. This looks very unnatural.
The shadow on the front of the hill is very dark and, because the hill is such a large part of the image, means too much of the image is too dark, in my opinion. Shooting with the sun in a different position might improve this by giving some lovely greens and details in that main area.
This darkness is contrasted against a really bright background and I think that overall contrast is just too high.
Fits The Challenge In my opinion, the Waldo challenge is about hiding a person in plain view, so to speak, rather than hiding a person by making them so small as to be a mere few pixels. Whilst the person on the hill isn't hard to spot he or she is almost incidental to the image for me.
That said, the image does fit the challenge in that it includes a person that the viewer has to search for.
My Opinion On The Photo Poor use of natural lighting and overprocessed but does have potential.
Thank you all for the comments. Initially I was a bit uncertain as to put this photo in the challenge because of multiple people in the frame, but I glad it did well to get in the top 10.
Not exactly hard to find waldo but a gorgeous picture nonetheless. I love the leading lines of the road, the hill is great and the clouds add a nice touch. My favorite of this challenge
Wow. Looks great. Is Waldo a statue? He looks quite big compared to the hill.
I love those clouds, and the detail in the hills, and the curves in the street, and the view on the village, and the triangular composition, and the DOF, and the sharpness, and the ribbon right next to the file name ;) 10.
Edit: I just noticed that there are people on the street...strange, now I'm not so sure where Waldo actually is. I still think you'r referring to the figure on the hilltop.
I like the idea and the composition in general. However, the picture looks to me somewhat over-processed (too much tweaking of levels and/or curves maybe?), thus a bit unnatural.
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