A good b&w usually needs some BLACKS and some WHITES. Not enough contrast or range to interest me. I do like the composition and the position of the cat. I may have moved her(him?) a little to the left to enhance the composition a little.
A bit more tonal depth would have helped this, ie deepening the darker shades to black to outline the eyes, nose, ears, and the planks of wood. The cat is beautiful and sleek.
That's a very pretty cat, but I think the picture needs a little more contrast to it. Maybe if the grass had been cropped out, and just the wood was the background, or if there had been something white or black nearby.
What a cute cat, and great position. I'm trying out a new "style" of critque, please let me know what you think. IMO, what would've given your picture more impact is to have more contrast, getting rid of the grass in the background (the woodgrain and the cat are great for b&w, the grass is not) and moving the cat out of the center of the photo. I've taken the liberty to make a copy of your photo, crop it and increase the contrast. What do you think?
//www.pbase.com/image/2359894
Of course you wouldn't be able to crop it quite that same way for the challenge due to the sizing restrictions, but that's where I would try to go with this shot.
Good focus and nice textures from the available outdoor light. Looks like an overcast day, which can produce vey nice, soft, portrait lighting. Personally, I avoid shooting down on subjects unless the perspective is important to the image. If that's the perspective you wanted, I'd have tried to frame the image to exclude the grass. You could still crop most of it out if you rotated the pic CCW a little. A bit more contrast might help, as well.
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