Fragile, handle with care

[Bambi]

our photo club had a competition night last night and the category was 'creative'. It is defined as follows:

Creative: This category depicts a departure from realism often through the use of deviations such as motion blur, montages,
patterns, selective focus, zoom exposures and other techniques. The purpose of these techniques is to alter reality to the point that
the picture is essentially surreal or abstract.

I really worked hard on the following entry:

fragile, handle with care by bambe1964, on Flickr

There are 3 judges who score out of 5: 2 is the lowest possible which means that either the entry is substandard or does not fit the category. My scores were: 5, 4, 2. It's the 2 that's bugging me, to be honest. And yes I realize that I'm focusing on the one bad score rather than the 2 very good scores. I was like that when I got 97% on a test too.

[Realist]

I think the judge who rated you low like that probably didn't understand it. Did you have a picture title with it, or did they only see the image? I think the title makes it easier to try and see what you were trying to do here.

[theantiquetiger]

JMO, but they second Earth(bottom one) is taking way from the image. The star burst is a little strong and could use softening (at least the rays). It is a great piece of art but the lime green is hurting it as well (like I said, JMO).

I really like the concept and story you are relaying here, "Fragile Earth"

[Runmonty]

I love it Bambi and have been sitting here wondering why you would get the 2. I really cant think why, unless that judge was looking for more photographic content (as opposed to design elements)

It is win from me anyway.

[Lucky-Luc]

You have a great idea well composed here, what bugs me the most is the lightning. The main light come from the top left, the light should impact more on top of the earth and the eggs also, the earth should create some shadow on the egg shell. I also see an earth reflexion, but the eggs dont have one. Just my grain of salt. that image has a great potential.

[Matt K.]

I really like what you have achieved, Bambi. I think it is very creative and well executed. And do not be discouraged by scores ... as it says in my byline: beauty is in the eye of the beer holder. In our club we had members leave (and actually start their own club) because they thought their images were not judged appropriately. Well, there are CAPA guidelines, and as such it should be rather uniform. We score in our club out of 100 points. 30 points max for technical merit (exposure, sharpness, white balance saturation and such), 30 points max for composition (does it follow rule of thirds, the golden rule or any other freaking rule), and 40 points max for impact. Some of our comps are on impact only, so all 100 points are allotted to the WOW factor. We have 5 judges at a competition, and the high and low scores are thrown out, then the rest is averaged ... that seems to be quite fair. ...

[ewaizel]

In my case I feel from a creative point of view this is really great.
I think the execution of the idea can be improved. The Earth seems disconnected from the eggshell. Probably some shadows, highlights and contrast were missing to make it look like something that came out of it. I can imagine myself watching an egg yolk and replacing the yellow parts for the planet shape.
As usual with art, all opinions are valid. Just my point of view in this case....

[Bambi]

thank you guys your comments are very helpful.

[Paul72]

I like the concept and idea behind the image and my only criticism would be the use of green maybe a different colour?But over all I like it a lot.