Nice find, i like the bold contrast between the leaves and the background. It would have been nice if you could shot more from an angle to create some depth.

Nice photo!

great contrast

Yummy

like the use of DOF -- great lighting as well

I think that shirt in the back kind of says it all!

This is awesome! I love this shot! Greatly taken author!

Grats on second place!

Nice Job Congrats

It looks like you've over-sharpened this photo, there's a terrible white "halo" effect around the trees. You might be able to correct it somewhat with Image>adjustments>selective color>whites, but you may have to select just the trees and sky, so as not to adjust the rest of the image...

The black of the front most rail car is also a bit too black and over dominates the image, anchoring the eye in that corner.

Selecting just parts of the photo to adjust would be against the guidelines for photography..."no selective editing" I see what you mean here, but in keeping with photography rules and acting only on the entire image, there is nothing I can do about the minor halo

Halos are the one major downside of digital cameras...
Edit: It looks better, now. the halos are not so bright and obvious.

I think that the image adjustments that Mossy has described are acceptable & within the guidlines - the same methods are used for some 'selective colour' entries in other comps.

@Fallinghorse: the described adjustments by MossyB are not allowed, the fact they are allowed within a 'selective coloring' contest is what 'selective coloring' contests are about and what makes them a special kind of contest.

The adjustments that Mossy is talking about are not about creating a selective coloured object. It is about adjusting the colour which by the guidlines on the site are allowed as per item 6.5 in the guidlines. The tool says 'selective colour' but it means that you boost(saturate) or desat the colour in the image to correct ie. whites. In fact I can say that there is an entry this week that uses this exact method

What Tools/Alterations Can I use?
In general, you should try to avoid editing your photos, whether in camera or with some editing software on a computer. Being a good photographer also means being able to take good shots without having to edit afterwards. We understand that enhancing pictures after the fact has a long tradition in photography and thus we allow for certain digital darkroom techniques, which is readily available in most photo handling software today. As a general rule, you are allowed to all adjustments which act on the whole picture and on exactly one picture (a.k.a. non selective editing). This includes:

- 6.1.: Level
- 6.2.: Curves
- 6.3.: Hue
- 6.4.: Saturation
****- 6.5.: Color adjustments/shifting****
- 6.6.: Brightness
- 6.7.: Contrast
- 6.8.: Gaussian blur
- 6.9.: Noise reduction
- 6.10.: Sharpness
- 6.11.: Crop and rotate
- 6.12.: Lens correction
- 6.13.: Camera raw editing
- 6.14.: Healing brush to remove dust and scratches from a scan or speckles from dust on your camera's sensor
- 6.15.: Duplicated layers
- 6.16.: Layer blending modes

Except you can't adjust just the trees or sky as Mossy said - it has to be over the whole image. .... sorry missed that bit lol