Yeah, I agree with Traff that this image is good. The tones seem a little off... maybe autolevels or curves would help - but I think this is the only thing that keeps it from being, to me, an *outstanding* abstract.
Even I'd have to acknowledge it DNMC and I like to be liberal on that (motion blur is not boke) but... what the heck this is an absolute killer image.
Maybe now that the challenge is over you could consider cloning out the bright highlights on the second boatman, they kind of intrude on the painterly effect for me. In an ideal world I guess the figure right at front would have been a boatman too - just a touch of a red stripe on his shirt would have really set the image off - but I'm being really picky now. Great work - its position in the challenge is not a reflection of its true worth.
Motion blur because you or the camera has moved isn't Bokeh, for Bokeh, the background is blurred because of the depth of field of your aperture, and the distance of the background from the lens. I'd guess you had to use a slow shutter speed due to the low light, which isnt ideal this challenge. Flash and/or a higher ISO setting would have been the only way to get the subjects in sharp focus, but any kind of true Bokeh would have been difficult in this situation.
I'm guessing that you are being trashed for using motion blur to produce bokeh. The guy that invented the term 'bokeh' as applied to photography specifically excluded motion blur and camera shake in his definition, I believe. Yours is a good picture under any definition.
While I think you'll get reamed for everything being out of focus, I like the atmosphere in this photo. The man on the right, however, throws it off a bit due to his non-uniform appearance.
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