great work!

Very nice.
but its weird, the water is focused but the hands are not focused

Great work!

Amazing , great work++

Great!!!

wonderful ++
great work

Great lighting & editing.

great!

amazing, Warmest thoughts and best wishes for a wonderful holiday and a very Happy New Year!

very nice

so beautifully done

If see was looking directly at the ball, with a smile, it would have been funner.
The capture of the water is great !!

Excellent

Genial!

Astounding!

Beautiful.

cwill's right. very good effort, certainly better than I could do, but there's flaws that keep it from being amazing. when I first saw this, I really wanted to love it, but the eye line and the soft hands/sharp ball kinda ruin it for me. it's only magic if the viewers can't see what the magician is doing.

cwill, you don't even have photos of your own on this site. You sound like you have lots of valuable experience to share; show us some of your work so that we can see examples of the kind of excellence you are describing.
I think the title says it all; this is not supposed to be real. There are plenty of examples of excellent photography on this site where it is clearly not realistic. It's all about artistic expression and I like this image. Could it be done differently? Sure it could, but that doesn't mean that other people can't appreciate this version.

Good effort. You need to be careful though that when adding elements that the focus of the element matches the focus of the image at the depth where it is placed. It is incongruous that the ball is sharp but the hands are soft. That you have blurred some of the droplets to compensate does not make it work. I think the result would be worth you fixing it. Why do people only ever say blindly positive things and suppress their critical input? Comments like, "stunning" and, "really cool!" wont spur any growth. One commenter mentioned the expression. I disagree as it could be better. She looks like a person trying to look awestruck, not an awestruck person. Her eye-line is also off. She is looking above the orb. And watch those flyaway hairs! If you are skilled enough to drop in the orb than I'm sure you can manage some stray hairs. I hope you can get the model back because I would like to see this successfully done.

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