Composition : I really like the use of the earth (foreground) and sky (background) and the proportions of each. While the horizon line doesn't exactly cross the 'third', the portion of the sky that is brighter does and i think it does it very effectively.
Exposure/Lighting : The full moon really was your friend for this shot as it lit the ground quite nicely :) Very nice catch of the meteor. The stars have hardly any rotational 'tail' at all! I see this is a combination of the 30 secs exposure and of shooting North (where the rotation is far less noticeable in the northern hemisphere). Excellent!
Focus : The smallest of nitpicks would be to point to the bush and ground just to the left of the center on the bottom as being 'soft' focus. I'm curious to know if that was someone(thing) moving there during the exposure? Otherwise, excellent!
Emotion/Challenge : I can think of MANY publications that would use this kind of shot in a heartbeat, so in my book, you nailed the challenge. I have to admit that I thought the title took away from the effectiveness of the shot though. It was a Sky and Telescope picture with a National Inquirer title. But it's not a title challenge :)
Opinion : I absolutely love this shot and hope to emulate it someday. Terrific capture! Congrats on 6th place.
I'm still trying to determine how I feel about this photo in regards to the photojournalism topic. I think I am leaning more towards it successfully meeting the challenge. I feel it is a strong photo with some very nice subtleties to it with the detail in the hills, the stars, and of course, the meteor. Even the stars form a nice shape. what bothers me a little bit is the blurred bush in the foerground clearly due to the long exposure and I'm sure, unavoidable. I may have cropped the photo at the base of the mountains but I'm not sure. The colors are true and I'm glad you didn't try to oversaturate them. The beauty of this photo lies in it's simplicity. It does not overpower you yet it drws you in to explore the details. Nice job.
Thanks for all of the positive and constructive comments guys! I've been out of town for the past week for Thanksgiving and was welcomed home by a 6th place finish! Wow! What a surprise! Thanks everyone.
I spent about 1.5 hours and 80-100 attempts before giving up and accepting only three shots with a meteor in them. This was the best of the three.
Good capture. I'm not so sure this is front page type news, but I bet it would make the paper somewhere. Lighting is nice and the little bit of landscape is great. The one little piece of brush at the bottom just left of center is a little distracting, but overall not taking too much away from the shot. Good job - Inspzil
excellent capture. the title is humorous, but i dont think it needs that or even benefits from it. the picture and the event is great enough to stand on its own. to exagerrate a bit, it would be like titling a pic of the dismantling of the Berlin Wall something like 'crazy germans mad at bricks!' . know what i mean? beautiful pic. mag99
Boy, you had to be waiting on this one! I like how you captured a truly rare moment. The bad part is that the focus of the picture is the mountains, in a way. 7 nards656
I'm glad that SOMEBODY got to see the meteor shower, and that they did a great job of capturing it! You should be very proud of this one -- the landscape is beautiful, and the sky is just incredible. Excellent work all around! One of my two 10s this week. I should also add that this image is so crisp that it appears that you can make out the two "twin" stars in the handle. If I recall from astronomy class (um, 20 years ago?), Alcor and Mizar (not sure of the spelling and too lazy to look it up!) are the two stars that look like one star to the naked eye -- the second one in on the handle. - alansfreed
Composition ~ Wonderful!!! Just enough ground to give perspective and wonderful ground at that! Exposure ~ Again, excellent!!! There is no rotation tails on the stars and you have beutiful detail in the ground!!! If I hadn't known you had a full moon working as your lighting crew, I'd have suspected something illegal :) Focus ~ Fantastic! I haven't seen all the shots this week, but if this doesn't place in the top 3, I'll be very surprised. ~ Myqyl ~
Great shot, even without a title. I would have cropped at bottom of mountains and gotten rid of what's out of focus. Maybe left it in for size? Doesn't keep it from being a 1st place photo anyway. PTL 10
Great shot of the meteors. That was my first time trying to take some night shots and I had over 80 shots and only like 3 had anything in them and then it wasn't as bright as this one. The moon sucked that night didn't it. 10 for the difficulty and the great shot. Jubei
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