i got some inspiration from a similar shot i saw when stumbling round the web. every time i submit a free study entry i ask myself 'why?' f/s are killers for us amateurs.....ah well nothing ventured nothing gained. predicting maybe a 5.6 on this if i am lucky and all the planets align and dogs and cats start living together in harmony.......
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not that many people will be reading this but i would like to take this moment to say: THIS is my last free study entry. I am not trying to have a pity party, but I probably worked harder on the set up of this shot more than I have on any other. Do I think this deserves to ribbon? Not at all. Do I think this deserves better than 4.9? Without question. The problem with free studies is you can work your ass off on a shot but all it takes is one Northern Lights shot and 80% of the images immediately drop in the eyes of the voters. I do not fault people like Larus for this, if I had access to the Northern Lights you can bet I would be doing the same. Its just the nature of the beast and part of the reason I won't enter free studies anymore.
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Place: 366 out of 428 Avg (all users): 4.9225 Avg (commenters): 5.0000 Avg (participants): 4.8333 Avg (non-participants): 5.1087 Views since voting: 931 Views during voting: 217 Votes: 142 Comments: 10 Favorites: 2 (view)
One would have always have to try very hard in order to ribbon on a free study, but people freely give good scores in them in comparison to one of the themed challenges. scarbrd's photo has more eye appeal because of both the angle at which it was taken (eliminating uninteresting background) and the visual "pop" of his post-processing. Wonderful concept and awwww-factor!
Sorry you didn't score as well as you would have liked. I think the gray-ish background hurt your score the most. The lighting is a little flat too. My shot along these lines took several backgrounds and lighting angles to get something I liked.
It's too bad your picture didn't do better - I really like it a lot, I was one of the 9's. It is very original, creative and well taken. Free Studies are hard - I haven't entered one in a while as I usually don't do very well either.
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