Hi- Critique Club here - I gave your picture a 7 originally. Now I'm coming back to review it. Looks like your score suffered mostly from people not knowing what a Kiva was (or Anasazi, or snow for that matter). I wonder if the title had been more explicit like Native American Ceremonial Yada Yada, you might have avoided the "didn't meet the challenge" comments which were viewer ignorance.
That said I think this picture falls into the "Could have been so much better" category. Compositionally it leaves me wanting something more. Like where IS the sky anyways, and what about the other half of the circle. Although I like the half circle so I'm not sure what is missing. The viewers eye follows the circle around but it never comes to rest on any central focal point.
The contrast between the pale colors outside the hole and the rich colors inside the hole could have been better, maybe less dark inside, To show that the power of the scene rests inside the circle. Maybe the warmer reds in the hole could have been enhanced to stand out from the hazy blues of the background? You also have a great contrast of texture going on..The small sand in front and the small trees in the back compared to the uniformly sized but varied colored rocks lining the Kiva.
Perhaps the sand in the foreground really looked like that but it appears to be a bit over sharpened. Perhaps there is too much forground all together. That forground color and texture are not as interesting as others in the picture. It looks better to me cropped about an inch off the bottom, say where the inside rim touches the left frame.
The lighting is soft but the shadows are harsh, maybe repeat the shot on a less-than-unusually nice day. I think that with some cropping and some fiddling with the brightness and color balance this could be a stunning photo. As it is it is a keeper and deserved a much better score than it got.
never seen this place myself, but imagine that this is the best composition possible, down to the shading in the circle and on the mountains. so i guess this would be towards the national geographic kind of photojournalism.
i wish I understood what you are journalling here. Since I don't, I will give you the benefit of the doubt and vote (as I usually do) on quality. 6 nards656
Where and what is this? It looks very interesting. Title or no title I'd want to read the article to answer my 2 questions. Haze shows up well over the valley. Nice background - really adds to the whole of the picture. Good focus, colors, crop. Even the shadow is good. It shows why there is a remnant of snow. Great photo well done. PTL8
Wish the top part of the photograph was exposed a little better - seems washed out. A graduated ND filter or light that was less harsh may have solved this.
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