So say the comments, this is a piece about a contrasting good and evil in a natural setting.

Things I enjoy about this piece:
The lighting, especially the surreal red tinting with the black, it's dark, it's lovely, it makes me happy. The leading lines within the the tree especially toward the right are interesting and fun.

The use of texture throughout the entire piece is really effective. Your concept and execution work well for what you're going for.

Things I'm not so pleased by:

Whereas on the red half, things are very symbolic, very simple with good contrast and value, the green half when next to it looks almost plastic by comparison. The bright green leaves in the middle of the image are very detracting to me, they don't look like natural leaves and because of the stock images shading, they just really really stick out. The composition on the green half just looks unnatural despite it's supposed to be alive and um.. nature-y.

The white highlights on the rocks is just to bright. I completely agree with the other crit.

Overall, it's a neat idea and I wish you best in your contest, though I feel a few changes could be made if you ever do a future version.

Let’s start out with a good feature (How I start most of my critiques). I really like how you seem to be comparing the desolate landscape with feelings of fleeting hope. I feel that you succeeded in making the landscape look desolate by giving it the red sand that Mars (A very desolate planet) is known for.

Something that just doesn't work for me though, is the fact that the rocks seem to have whitish tips. This is possibly because of water reflecting off of them, if they are wet in the stock image that you used. This kind of takes away from the picture, and gives it a more mixed and matched photo feel. This is something that can be the death of artwork that stock was used in.

I like the way that you have vibrant greens, and blues to contrast the dark reds and blacks. I feel that it is a great contrast of dull and gloomy, with vibrant and hopeful. Also, this is so successfully portrayed by how you can see into the distance on the vibrant side, and it’s dark on the gloomy side. This gives me the feeling that seeing into the distance is to represent a vibrant future, as the other is opposite.

As for the title, I think it is very fitting for this piece. With such defining opposites in this piece, the titles "Good and Evil" or "Life and Death" works very well.

Personal opinion/Conclusion:
I feel that you have done a good job with this piece, except for the rocks at the bottom. In my opinion, you could have found a different/more fitting stock for this piece. Though over all, I feel that you did good, and portrayed what you intended to.