Unconditional Love

Unconditional Love

Unconditional Love

Private Fair stands proudly at the entrance to the Dayton VA Medical Center, as a never ending reminder, to all, of the Unconditional Love … given by the men and women who have served in the Military and in some cases made the ultimate sacrifice. Private Fair, we salute you all!

36 hours to go!

36 hours to get your images posted.

36 hours to go!

36 hours to get your images posted.

Unconditional Love...?!

This is a great twist to the ever long and sterotyped V-day crap. Gary, I think you've hit it head on! This is a tough one, and I look forward to seeing everybodies work!

Above all things, do this for our Lord, and then have fun doing it! Peace,
jeff

And the winner is.......

O.K. let me first apologize for the way the judging was handled. At the beginning of the challenge I set up guidelines for the judging but then when it came time for the judging I forgot to tell the judges the guidelines. So the judging was not done on a point basis as I had planned. I also want to apologize if you think the judging was a bit harsh. I wasn't going to allow the judges to post critiques but then I decide that it was good for us to hear what other people think when they see our images so I allowed the critiques to remain a part of the judging process. Please try and take the criticism with a spirit of grace and meekness. The 3rd judge in particular was a bit harsh but I felt that the judges remarks are what you would expect in a true photography competition with open professional judges. That said I am going to instruct all of the judges to tone it down a bit in the future. My intention for this blog is for it to help us learn about photography and our cameras so that we will be better photographers. If I don't allow critiques from the judges we will not learn how to compose our images better in the future.

That said I will now explain the way I chose the winner for this months challenge. I had 3 judges judge each of the images 1st through 4th place. Each image was awarded a place by each judge. 1st place = 4 pts, 2nd place = 3 pts, 3rd place = 2 pts and 4th place = 1 pt. So for instance if an image received 1 1st place vote and 2 3rd place votes the total scores would be 8 points. The image that scores the most points will be the winner for this months challenge.

4th place winner = Eyes of Time with 5 points by Earl Pitman
3rd place winner = Elowen with 6 points by Bryce Holland
2nd place winner = Brown Eyes with 8 points by Jeff West
1st place winner = Eyes with 9 points by Gary Phillips

Winner of the challenge wins the opportunity to pick the theme for an upcoming challenge and bragging rights for the next month.

Next month is the month of Valentines day so I thought it would be appropriate for the theme to relate to love, but I wanted to narrow our focus a bit so instead of just saying the theme is love I decided that the theme for February will be "UNCONDITIONAL LOVE". I gave you a head start but the image still has to be shot on or after Feb 1st and on or before Feb 20th.

Congratulations to everyone but I really want to get more people involved. I would like to see about 10 photographers by March. I want everyone to try and invite one other photographer to participate and have them signed up by March 1st.

Photoman

Brown Eyes

Here is an image by the remaining participant of this months competition. I sure hope we can get some more people to get involved. Rodger is still having trouble with his email account and has not been able to accept my invitation and he didn't even know until a day so ago what the topic was for this month. He was supposed to try and email me the image so that I could upload his as well but I never received them. So it looks like just four of us this month. Judging starts in 45 minutes. Good luck, I think I will probably post the next challenge tomorrow sometime so we will have more time to work on the next competition. I hope you all had fun submit some of your ideas for topics and I will try to rotate in some of your ideas as well.

Photoman

Eyes of time

Eyes that have seen 90 years of joy and sorrow but can still look with excitement to the future. Smile on Ruth (her Eyes reflect her beautiful smile)

Eyes

Photography Challenge post

Thanks goes to a couple at church who loves photography themselves! Her name is Elowen.

By the way, it's harder than you think to shoot close-up pictures of a 6 month old baby!

3 more days until the deadline!

Just wanted to remind everyone that there is only 3 more days till the deadline. I got my image today and will be posting it on the 20th. Don't forget to get your images posted before the 21st.

Photoman

True Dat!

Hey photographic challengers! It's your whiny friend. Actually Gary, I didn't whine....I flat out complained! It was a legit question though, in my defense.

I have to say, the "10 ways to tell if you're a photographer" is TRUE DAT! Hit it right on the head!

As far as emailing the images vs. uploading them to the blog, I could go either way. For the sake of competition, I'd side on the emailing. Since we're all friends, and only bragging rights are involved, I kinda side on posting them. That's my worthless 2¢.

Peace,
jeff

One vote for email!

10 ways to tell if you’re a photographer

1 GB of memory lasts most people a month but barely lasts you the afternoon.

You know what aperture-priority means.

You delete more photos in a week than most people make all year.

You need just one more lens.

You’ve crawled on the ground to get a shot of something rusty.

Your camera equipment is worth more than your car.

No one else brings a camera to an event if they know you’re coming.

Your family doesn’t recognize you without a camera covering your face.

You have thousands of pictures and you’re not in any of them.

You’ve been up before dawn or out in the freezing cold or even done something semi-dangerous… all for a photograph.

I found this on facebook and I thought it was so true, I had to share it with you guys.

Our First Challenge

The competition just got announced today and we already got a whiner. I'm not going to mention any names but Jeff oops did I type that, has already started complaining. So yes it has to be physical eyes at least for this month. I just realized that there is no way to make a post without your name going on with it, so we have 2 choices. 1. We can all upload and not worry about the fact that the judges will know who the images belong to. OR 2. Each of you can email me your images and I will upload them all. This way, no one but me and you will know which one is yours. I will let you guys decide what you want to do, so make a post with your decision of which way you prefer to go. Whichever way gets the most votes is the way we will handle it. As for making adjustments to the image, I would have to say that I think minor adjustments in Adobe Raw would be o.k. but only minor. I am allowing exposure adjustment as much as-1 stop to +1 stop but no more than that. So other minor adjustments in Adobe Raw (no LR) would be o.k. BUT NO CROPPING, None Whatsoever. All Images must be full frame right out of the Camera. Remember we will have other challenges later this year that will be more creative and will have a no limits to what you can do, until then you will have to live within these confines. I like Ansel but he would suck like the rest of us in this competition. If we all play by the rules we are all on a level playing field.

O.K. guys it is Jan. 1st, I hope that everyone who is a part of "A Photographic Challenge" whether as a participant or as a judge has a great time and a good year. This is a new endeavor as you all know and I am figuring this out as we go, so I hope it isn't to bumpy of a road we are heading down.

Let me explain some basic instructions and then I will get more specific with instructions for this months challenge. As you should know this is the first of 12 challenges that will occur each month. Here are some of the rules that I would like us all to adhere to (keep in mind there is no way that I can enforce these rules). If I find out that you have knowingly violated a rule you will be eliminated from that months competition and the next one as well. If repeated offenses of the rules are happening you will simply be kicked out of the competition. I am sure that none of this is necessary but without rules their is no competition. Rule #1 - All participants must use a digital SLR (sorry no film). Rule #2 - You must shoot in a manual setting i.e. M - manual, AV - aperture priority or TV - shutter priority. No automatic settings please, the purpose of this competition is for us to learn more about our cameras and become better photographers. Rule #3 - No manipulation of the images in computer. (exceptions to this rule are: sharpening, dpi, B&W, minor exposure adjustments 1 stop up or down max.) Examples of illegal manipulations - Cropping, colorizing, removing objects from image, clone stamping, straightening image horizon, hue and saturation, etc. Once again, let me remind you that the goal of this challenge is to encourage us to become better photographers, these things should all be done before we take the photo. Rule #4 - All images must be posted by the 20th of each month. Images posted after midnight on the 20th will not be allowed in the judging. Rule #5 - All entries must be shot between the 1st and the 20th of the competition month to be eligible for that months competition. I.E. if you have a great image from last year that would fit this months competition you can't use it. If it is the month of March 2009 then the image must be made between March 1st 2009 and March 20th 2009. Rule #6 - All images must be uploaded Anonymously. When you upload your image you cannot write anything about it, just post an image only. No name or nickname for you or the image is allowed. I will give each one a unique I.D. # for the judges sake once they are uploaded. That is all that I can think of at the moment, I am sure that more general rules will become apparent once we get this thing going. Let me tell you how the judging will work. The judging board consists of 3 judges, who will have 7 days to judge the images and and email me with their results. I will then tally the results and post them for all to see, any discrepancies will be dealt with publicly on the blog so that everyone will know that I am not cheating. Rules for the judges - Rule #1 - All images must be judged by midnight on the 27th. Rule #2 - If a judge finds out who an image belongs to they cannot judge for that month and must let me know so that I can find an alternate judge for that months competition. Judging Criteria - (The basic criteria for each months competition will not change, some months there may be special criteria that the judges will be looking for.) There are 5 areas that each image will be judged for and 4 of the areas are worth a maximum of 5 points One area is worth 10 points, so a perfect score is 30 points. Areas of judging are 1. Composition - 5pts 2. Relevance to Topic 5 - pts 3. Artistic Expression 10 - pts 4. Focus 5 - pts and 5. Exposure 5 pts. As you can see the technical areas are worth less than the artistic area, I want you to push yourself to be more artistic than technical. But I also have it set up so that you cannot win it on artistic expression only. All images should be technically sound as well as artistic. These rules and criteria will be basic for each of the competitions, below you will find the Challenge for this month and any specific rules related to this months competition.
January's competition category is "Eyes" from a living organism, i.e. human, animal, bug, etc. No plants or non living organisms.
Remember to upload an image only, by midnight on the 20th.
Happy Shooting
Photoman

Tomorrow is the 1st are you ready?

I haven't decided yet what the theme for January is going to be, I have a few themes in mind and none of them really jump out at me as the one to choose. I will make a decision and before noon tomorrow you will see a post with the challenge theme. This first post will also have some general rules and judging criteria so it will be a bit of reading. Gotta get the rules out of the way though. Anyway look tomorrow and you will see what your challenge is.

Gary

5 days until the first challenge starts!

Only 5 more days and I will post the 1st photography challenge, so get out and shoot. Get your creative juices flowing I don't want to hear any complaints when I kick your butts in this competition next month! Don't forget to look here on January 1st for the theme and any rules that I will post to go with the theme.

Photoman

Air Force Museum Revisited

I love the U.S. Air Force Museum! Growing up, my Dad would take my brothers and me there every Saturday; so it was natural that my love for photography took me there to test my skills, and learn new ones.

So, when Gary asked me to make a test post for his blog, it was easy to decide what topic to post about. :-)



HISTORY

I first began shooting at the Air Force Museum with my Mom's 2.1 mega pixel Fujifilm digital camera. That thing sure tested my patience, since it would focus on the bright lights, instead of the aircraft I wanted. The auto focus and shutter reaction time was also super slow. To get around that, I would frame my shot, hold down the shutter button half-way until the camera focused, and then quickly press the shutter and move my hand so that I wouldn't shake the camera. After much trial and error, I was able to get pictures like this:

For this picture, I had my tripod down as low as it could, and I was sitting on the floor in order to look through the viewfinder. I could barely see what I was shooting, since this point-and-shoot camera could not handle low light very well. Still, it played a vital role in my learning experiences.


AIR FORCE MUSEUM REVISITED
I call this posting "Air Force Museum Revisited" because I have been back several times with my Canon AE-1 Program 35mm film camera. Each experience taught me something new. Plus, my beloved AE-1 was very patient with me, yet was not afraid to "tell" me up front when I messed up! ;-)
After wasting many rolls of film, I finally learned how to shoot with this camera; and so, back to the museum I went! In the beginning of my adventures with my AE-1, I learned quickly to not waste money on junk film, or on mediocre processing. I do all of my processing at Click Camera, and on this shoot, I used the Kodak 400 Professional Ultra Color film. I have many shots that I like, but this one has to be my favorite.


ON TO DIGITAL!
Members of my family blessed me greatly with a Canon EOS 50D for my birthday/Thanksgiving/Christmas gift! They saw that, although I love my AE-1, how it was becoming increasingly difficult to obtain film. The only place I can purchase the film I use is online at BHPhoto, but even their supply is dwindling.
Of course you know what my first thought was once I opened that box and beheld my dream camera... Air Force Museum!!!
Why am I so intent on shooting at this place? Well, I love it for one, plus the lighting is such a challenge! Another reason, is that there was one picture that always eluded me! On your way to the Cold War hanger, there is a tunnel. And in that tunnel, a light shines words on the floor that read: "City Held Berlin Hostage". Because of that light, and the glossy floor, and the people traffic, I wasted 12 frames of film trying to capture that shot! I was determined to get that shot... and I did!



THE "AH-HA" MOMENT!
Digital cameras are wonderful! They allow you to test different settings, and see your results in real time! That saves a great deal of headache, and can be a wonderful learning tool too! Such was the case in this Air Force Museum Revisit.
In the past, I had read about and seen examples of how aperture and shutter speed settings affected the outcome of a picture. Unfortunately, I never had the money to waste on film experimenting with this. Of course, with the 50D, that was no longer an issue! My good friend Earl was with me on this shoot, and he helped clear up my confusion about how your f-stop setting affects your shot. As he was setting up his camera (this was after lunch), I decided to give this a try. I set my camera to the "M" position, set my f-stop to 22, and adjusted my shutter speed accordingly (based on the meter below the viewfinder). After a 10 second exposure at an ISO of 200, this was the result:

At last! It all made sense! Unfortunately, this low quality JPG can't do this shot justice. I am shooting this uniform through a glass display box. On the RAW image, you can zoom in and clearly see the weave of the fabric, and the surface detail of the medal. COOL!! I was so excited!


Hmmm... I can see by the scroll bar on the right that this post might be approaching too long. ;-)
I have many more Air Force Museum pictures! If you ever want to see them, I can send you the link to my photo gallery.

Take care, and happy shooting!

Ice Abstractions Brings a New Story

FIghting Spring: The Chronicles of King White Winter is the tentative title for my new series on ice abstractions. I only have one shot so far, but I'm so enthralled with it, I can't stop thinking of it! Here it is...


I made a loose story line for this image too. It's pretty cool, at least to me! It's too long to tell over a blog, but if you'd like to hear it, give me a shout.

Peace,
jeff

First challenge starts January 1st.

O.K. guys I have sent you each an email telling you to check out this blog. I had hoped that one of you would give me some feedback but I guess you are all a bunch of slackers, as I haven't heard a word from any of you. So next month on the 1st I will post a blog with a theme for January's competition. If any of you have any ideas for a theme please let me know, I have several to get us started but I want this challenge to be a collaborative effort. I will contact each of you and get you set up as contributors so that you can post your images each month. On the 1st of each month I will post a challenge and if there are any rules or guidelines I will state them at the same time.