Cacti

This photo has lots of beautiful aspects to it with all of the cacti, mountains in back, and the beautiful golden hour sun that permeates throughout. The cacti especially magnify this through all of their spines. You can see this on literally almost every branch.

Besides just the cacti, the sun is also casting a beautiful glow on the mountains which really has a nice effect on the image.

What an interesting species of cactus with how its branches grow all over the place like that!

Well done on catching the sun at that angle where it was bursting through the cactus.

Tremendous job on this fabulous composition and taking a photo good enough for first place!

This photo is especially great in the way you have composed it such as your use of lighting, sharpness, black background, rule of thirds, etc. Only a small portion of the cactus is shown here but yet there is still a lot to look at.

The cactus blends in with its black colors, but slightly pops in the areas where the thorns are, giving it a nice balance.

The flower is super pretty and is completely contrasted with the background. I love its colors.

This photo has a fabulous amount of sharpness which really lets you see each part of it.

Well done on this fabulous and also unique cactus photo!

This photo, besides just being a fabulous scene, is made super unique by the cacti! Out of all the things you could find along a beach, for me a cactus would definitely not be one of them. Besides it just being a cactus, it is a really interesting one with how many branches it has.

Nice job on framing this scene to where the tallest branch is just barely not touching the top of the image!

It's great that it is a bit off center because this allows us to also get a good look at the fabulous sea.

I love that you captured it with the perfect amount of exposure. It was obviously a sunny day, but yet nothing looks too bright here.

Well done on turning what would already be a great sea image, into something even more unique! Great job.

This is an interesting cactus photo, because no part of the cactus itself is visible! It's great that you made sure to focus on just the flower part because cacti in my opinion have prettier flowers than almost any plant around. They have so many details and colors, and like this one, grow in numerous directions! The black background tops this photo off because it makes those colors really pop. There's also green from the leaves at the bottom, adding another color to the photo. This was a unique and fun photo to add to the top ten. Awesome job!

This photo is really interesting because it is minimalistic, but also has a good amount going on. Mainly there are the cactuses, and they are growing in all kinds of directions! There is a lot to look at with just them alone. Next you have the sky. It's partly cloudy and has puffy clouds here and there, blue sky in some spots, and darker clouds in others. And last you have the wall which has lots of details in it. All of these elements combined created a unique image that is minimalistic, but still has a lot to it! Awesome job.

This is a beautiful and as you said, "creative" photo.

I looked up this area and it looks like you inverted the colors of the cacti to red rather than green? It's a cool result and gives the photo a really different mood.

The lighting is nice here with how it's bright in the center and slowly fades towards the corners. I wonder if it really looked like that and you had shone a light on it or something, or you did that in editing.

It's nice that the sky is a bit dark as that makes the cacti pop even more.

Nice job on a creative and interesting image!

What an interesting photo you've got here! "Repeating Patterns" is a great title for it.

It's not too often that you see so many cactuses of this size, all growing together in such a small amount of space! They are all growing in different directions which makes this photo confusing in a great way as it makes us take more time to look at everything.

Because of this photo having not many standout colors, this blends everything together even more which contributes to its overall look and feel which is pretty much abstract.

I've never seen a cactus photo like this before! Awesome job.

There are lots of nice elements here that boost this photo and make it an even better composition.

Besides how pretty landscape and cacti are, you've got that bit of mist at the top lingering. The best part of it is how it is hovering above ground and in a straight line. Normally mist is scattered all over the place which makes this a unique site.

Another great thing is the lighting. Well done on catching this photo at the right time of day where the sun wasn't too bright, and where it perfectly highlighted the cactus spines, giving them a nice glow, while also keeping the rest of the landscape darker. A great contrast for sure!

I like that you placed the main cactus just a bit off center. This way it's still the main thing in the picture that you see, but we can also view the rest of the image without it blocking the center of our view.

The glowing cacti at the bottom tend to lead our eye more to the bottom of the photo than the top. But if you take a moment to look at the rest of the scene, you realize how beautiful this landscape is because besides the great rocks and cliffs, there is green everywhere! It's great to get to see how a desert can look with even just a small layer of plant growth throughout it.

Great job on everything here. This is a fantastic composition!

There were so many different species of cactus entered in this contest, and besides that, types of photos of cactuses, such as this one. Since the entries were already unique, I thought it would be fun to add some different types of photos to the top ten, such as this one. What a great idea! An abstract cactus photo. Something rarely seen since cactuses are able to be photographed on their own and look strange enough.

The way you composed this image is fantastic. There is a super shallow depth of field, letting only a few spines be in focus while blending the rest of the image together. The colors are all over the place and liven up the photo even more. And besides that, the lighting is perfect! I like the direction of the light too with how it is coming from the back which gives it more of that abstractness, shines through the spines, and gives it an overall great effect.

Fabulous job on such a different type of cactus photo!!!

This is a very different and super pretty cactus shot! I really like the way you have composed it.

The red flowers are right along the center of the image, especially the main one. This really lets us take it in.

Your use of depth of field really worked out here because the flowers are the only things that stand out, and by having everything else blurred, it makes them stand out even more.

I like the filter you used because it really changed the outcome of the photo. I don't think I've ever seen a cactus photo that looked like this before. Great job on your creativity!

Before I finish my review, I thought I should add that if you wanted, you could crop the top of the photo down just a bit to bring the main flower higher. This might draw our attention to it even more. It's still great the way it is, I just wanted to add that if you ever wanted to change it a bit some time.

Well done on this beautiful photo!