Help I Need Your Votes (Again)

[Lamia]

These are all gorgeous! My favourites are 1, 2 and 5.

[Char]

4, 6 and 1

[Tonyblack]

Scores so far:
1. 26
2. 8
3. 8
4. 15.5
5. 7.5
6, 17
7. 5

[meerkat]

is there half a person voting?

[Tonyblack]

I like 1 and 6 then either 4 or 5.

Kitty couldn't decide on her third vote.

[meerkat]

[Penfold]

Wahay! The votes have been counted and the pics are printed, mounted, and ready to go.

I’ve deliberately avoided posting on this thread before now so as not to try and influence opinions. I can now answer a few questions and comments though.

1, 3 & 5 (4's possibly more evocative than 5 but the shadows look too fiddled/filtered with)

Quite right Jan, number 4 was very much played around with. This is the original;

I took the picture during daytime. Then I converted it to a negative (as in old film type) and added an infra-red filter before adjusting the contrast. Finally, I added a couple of illumination points to try and get a torchlight or car headlight beam effect. I never tried any of this before and it took about an hour and a half, which I found to be a quite interesting exercise to be honest.

Mucked about photos aren’t everyone’s cup of tea, I know, but the last two winners have had their photos photoshopped to buggery and beyond!
Now there’s a line you won’t hear in ‘Toy Story’.

Here is the winning photo of the first projected image comp, so you know what I mean.

Do you know if the judges are looking for beauty, message or technical showing off?

They bring in judges from outside of the club so no one knows just what each judge looks for. One judge might give 19/20 for an image while another might only give 15 for the same photo. While they do like a photo to have the ‘WOW’ factor, technical ability definitely comes into the scoring as does composition with the “Rule of Thirds” being almost religiously adhered to. This last cost me a couple of marks for the coot photo since the judge thought the bird should have been positioned more to the left (cutting through an imaginary line running down the left ‘third’ of the photo).

Personally, I disagree with the judge in this instance since repositioning the bird loses the concentric rings rippling away from it and the impact of the shadow, throwing the symmetry way off. (I tried it, and the photo just didn’t work for me.)

I think that the answer I gave to Jan’s comment covers the technical showing off bit.

I like the rat one,but something looks a little bit fuzzy to me ,and I don't mean the rat.
Good luck.

Thank you, and looking closely at it I’m inclined to agree. I’m going to go back to the RAW image and see if I can do something to get rid of the ‘noise’ which is sometimes unavoidable when using a high ISO setting (necessary for the size of lens and amount of light I had to work with). Unfortunately, the rat did not print well as it had to be cropped, cutting the reflection in half. As a result I will not be entering it in this competition but will include it for the next projected image comp where the full image can be seen.

That just leaves me to confirm the final entries which are;

1. Catching the Rays


2. Don’tgonearthewoods, at Night (Renamed to “The Dark Path”)


3. I Think That Bird’s Giving Me the Eye.

This was a photo that I was going to include in the last competition but went with the pheasant instead. As a bit of an addition to DJ’s question, not knowing what subject a particular judge has a preference for, I like to include different styles and subjects in my three entries (the max. allowed).

On a final note, I would like to thank you all for your input and helping me make my final decision, although I think number one was always going to be a nailed on cert for me to enter. Number 4 or 5 was a tricky one for me although I was also torn between these and the original of 4 (above) which will probably also be entered in another comp. “An Apple a Day” gets a couple of leaves on the left of the picture clipped when put into the mount, so that will also be put into a projected image comp where none of the photo is lost.

[Bouncy Castle]

Hey Penners.

You should take your camera up to this!!

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-e ... e-15520901

[Penfold]

Only provided that they don't expect me to actually run as well!

[TwoShotTino]

Good luck with the entries Penfold

[Penfold]

Well, I've just got back from the print competition and the results were;

I WON!!!!!!

Actually, I won the Intermediate Category for "Catching the Rays" but lost on the overall contest to a Beginners photo of two young boys playing conkers. That photo was brilliant, btw, and a worthy winner (hopefully I'll be able to put a link to that one at a later date - it really is something special and its very difficult for my description to do it justice).

The judge, himself, is a respected ex pro photographer and was a quite hard marker although he also gave very good advice on where a photo went wrong or could be improved. (My other photos scored 17, btw.) I definitely learned quite a bit from his comments.

At the moment I am rather overchuffed and on a high that such a critical judge was so complimentary about the photo and its many elements; most of which I have no idea how I achieved, if I was to be completely honest, although I could 'see' the shot there.

On a final note, the picture has been retained for display in the town's main shopping centre and for entry into an inter-club competition against a rival town's camera club.

[wicked woman]

Whoopee!!

Well done penfold, you are a worthy winner.

[Tonyblack]

Congratulations, Penners!

[Who's Wee Dug]

Well done Penners.

[SpyViolette]

4,5 & 2 in any order.

EDIT: Oh, heh, I missed the post about you winning. Congrats!