nice direct eye contact and a beautiful little girl
i would like to see more contrast in no1
lovely treatment in no2 which really makes the eyes jump out, however the hair has been largely lost so perhaps hold that bit back next time
no 3 i like the blue toned b&w
overall i prefer no 2

Brilliant idea, well worth exploring a little further. Using reflectors and/or a torch to lighten other parts is a good idea.
I also wonder whether it might be effective to change the viewpoint so that instead of looking down on the bulbs you had them piled up with the light shining up through?
Also as the bulbs aren't going anywhere I would have used a tripod and a longer exposure to increase the depth of field

i like the restricted colour palette very much, the warm pinky red has a lot of impact paired with the black silhouettes and shadows.
You have raised an ordinary subject into something rather strange and lovely, and I'm guessing that you have put thought into the composition (rule of thirds in play here) but I find I'm not sure about that part of it. Maybe it's because there are four figures and we naturally find odd numbers more satisfactory to the eye? Hmm, or am I just over analysing, although I would like to tidy up the left side
Perhaps if you enabled mods next time we could all have a play with different cropping?
You have found an attractive abstract that shows an eye for something different
hth, merille

Hmm I like the cut strawberry, the fleshiness is a nice contrast to the shiny dimples of the other strawberries. The lighting is good, especially the backlit leaves, and you have even caught the tiny tiny hairs on the strawberries.
It would be good if the corner top left was completely filled with red strawberry (I think there is a bit of leaf maybe?) but overall I think this is a good sharp image with lots of detail and lovely colour

It is difficult to add much to the previous critiques, this is a good take on the challenge and shows an interesting and creative imagination.
I also like the fact that the girl is looking directly without obvious expression, that together with the bubble and the dof softness creates a very enigmatic image.
V2 for me, although I would like to see slightly more space all around the bubble
merille

Hello gaz
I like this shot a lot, I can see it's a rose and I agree they do have a surprising amount of texture on the petals which you have captured well.
I agree with Fishnet about the flash, those flash shadows are rather unattractive. My suggestion would be to control the lighting by putting the rose into an area of soft light that doesn't make harsh shadows and then use a reflector to direct the natural light into the areas you want brightening. For flowers in my garden I sometimes use a paper plate covered in kitchen foil as a reflector, and sometimes I will bring them indoors and use a window for light. A tripod can then be useful if light levels are low, that would probably help improve the sharpness too
I like your composition and the use of negative space which in my view balances the yellow which otherwise might be too strident.
Looking at your portfolio I can see that macro flowers are not your usual thing but I think you have done really well here!
hth merille

Hello sandra,
You have already had some good critiques and I will try not to repeat the others.
Looking at your portfolio I can see that you are already very adept at macro work and you have some very good flower and butterfly images. I get the impression that you tried to do something a bit different for the buddy upload but didn't move far enough out of your comfort zone, by that I mean your subject is different but the approach is similar to your previous work - that's easy for me to say but I'm also trying to do something different to my usual style, and I know it's much harder to actually do satisfactorily.
You could perhaps try getting in closer with a wider aperture to get a more impressionist view of your subject, or alternatively try a more 'studio' approach by controlling the lighting with reflectors and using a tripod to maximise dof.
I hope that provides some food for thought
merille

a lovely sight
I might be tempted to leave out the sky and just concentrate on the purple and green

this is beautiful, the baby looks very peaceful and very new.
I think the shot would look even better with a small rotation anti-clockwise so that the baby's head is not lower than her feet.

A lovely wedding portrait of the happy couple, and your processing works well with the mood - I especially like the desaturated colour.
Slightly nit-picky but I would trim the top edge slightly to tidy up the background

I have done a mod for you
I don't have the full version of Photoshop but use its little brother Elements which I think is very good

Description:
First step crop the original then make a copy of the layer
I tried to reduce the brightness of the background by selecting the bright areas and adjusting the levels slider by moving the dark and mid points to the right, I also did a little light cloning to bring in the dark edges.
I cleaned up the baby's chin with the spot healiing tool as there was a little brightness from some dribble
Then I made another layer and applied the diffuse glow filter, this also added some grain to the image, I reduced the opacity of this layer to 70% to let the detail of the lower layer through
Then I converted to black and white, and sharpened a little before uploading.

I hope this description doesn't seem like too much gobbledegook to you, and hopefully will help if you do decide to buy PS Elements at some point......
merille

I think you've taken a good picture, there are plenty of flying sparks which add to the atmosphere, especially as you can see from the trails that they were moving quite fast, and the exposure looks about right to me.

I hope you took care not to look directly at the bright flame when you took your picture though, it can seriously damage your eyes as magnesium burns with a very bright flame. (I am a school science technician and usually hand out small pieces of blue filter for viewing burning magnesium.)

If you get the chance to take this sort of picture again I would recommend checking your background and, if possible, moving sideways a bit to hide clutter, eg pots of glucose !

Good luck in the competition and I hope you post some more of your science pictures