My favorite so far out of the group! It almost looks like an illustration, which is awesome.

Oh, that one really is a great symmetric photo! Would have worked rotated 90° clockwise also, because that woul be even more puzzling.

wow ! I see it as a FLAWLESS symmetric photo!

Wow! Thanks for the great comments everyone.

Nice idea. What's the break in the middle of the trail?

I agree with Pi-Production, where's the bike?

Sorry Pi-Production and Jenseye, I thought it might be a bit too 'lateral', and I guess I was right. See those trails of light heading through the frame? They're headlights on bicycles.

aperture - it's two separate bikes. The one leading out of the frame was there when I opened the shutter, and the one coming into the frame got to that point when the shutter closed again.

This is fabulous. The invisible bike(s). I like how the breeze blurs the trees too.

i dig the idea, the missing bikes show the bikes in motion rather than the bikes just parked like most of hte other ones. nicely done

Oh man, that looks terrble. Truly portrays urban decay well. Its proper exposed and there is so much detail. Very nice Indeed.

Great shot Dave. Congrats on the feature.

Thanks very much!

go Dave.

Beautiful colors.

wonderful colors here. congrats on the feature

beautiful colors as the others mentioned. I would like to see a bit less of the blue skies on top - I might actually crop the top third off.. offer the more vivid yellows and oranges as the prominent colors.

Congrats Ashish. Wonderful colours!

I really like the muted, rusty tones in this. That said, I think a little more contrast would have been great to really make those light rays coming through the window stand out.

Tone is really nice. I just wish the picture had a center of attention where viewers eyes could linger for some time.

I agree that the tones are great. I also wish there was an item to focus on so the photo doesn't seem so "busy."

thanks for the critiques ... well taken. sometimes for me, lack of subject helps me experience the wholeness of something without centralizing the "subject" ... but again sensible critique. thanks.

Agreed, a bit too dark. This may have worked better in Landscape with less of the dark clounds at the top and allowing more light in the middle.

Agree as well that its a bit too dark. Hard to figure out what I'm looking at.

Definately too dark and seems a bit grainy.

I think this would have worked better in a landscape orientation, with the bright area right across the middle of the frame and an even amount of silhouette and clouds at the bottom and top.

I like the portrait orientation, but as many other, i find the picture too dark and it lacks of details a lot.

I really like this shot. The composition, mood and sense of solitude are excellent. I just wish that shadow of the tripod wasn't there!

Thanks for the comment Heath. I hate the tripod shadow too. I even tried to photoshop it out, but my results just looked bad, so I left it.

When I took the shot, I never even thought about a shadow, since it was pitch dark. A four minute exposure not only brings out all the light, but all the shadows from that light too.

double feature :-))))

congrats, heath!

Thanks Vernon. I wasn't planning on submitting it to either site, but I'm kind of glad I did!

xLeave & Craig - Thanks for your thoughts. This shot has actually gone through quite a few stages of evolution - tighter crop, wider crop, B&W, lighter, darker.

In the end, I thought "what would make it stand out against all the other b&w, half-lit, negative space filled self-portraits?"

This was the result, which I'm kinda quite happy with.

Agreed on the comments above - I think that you could also try a hikey (sp) bw approach to this photo. Double "Oh Yeah" on the lighting....

I'm thinking black and white too. I think the skin tones are too ruddy. But I really like everything else about it. You are right though in your observation about the style being a bit repetitive for a theme like this. This is a slightly different take.

Good light. Like Peter, I like the fact it's dark, and the negative space. The choice of the angle is interesting, too, and I'd like to see a version where you look at the camera.

I would love to see this in B&W also. Besides that its great, I like that you can see his left eye slightly makes it slightly more interesting (to me)

I'm with Craig. This isn't how I pictured you, Ana. I don't know what I did think you looked like, but it wasn't this :)

Very nice self portrait. Some great tones and a bit of mystery leave people wanting more. For those who are interested I am a very close mix of Brad Pitt, George Clooney and David Beckham. Hmm not quite.

Great intensity, great saturation and tone. Mysterious and passionate. As opposed to others, this image seems to parallel the personality I think I know from the many posts and comments here and on the WS. Really nice representation Ana.

This picture looks very sinister and mysterious! I like it alot! The saturation is nice and really complients the picture!

What I like about this picture is its "trashy" look: harsh light, saturated colors, hair in the face, posture, provoking eye... Punk attitude!