DSS#49 Unofficial Feedback Thread (WTH is that![a close-up identification challenge])
bf2015
Registered Users Posts: 523 Major grins
So, here is the official gallery to give your C&C for DSS#49
Gallery Here...
Once more into the fray. This unofficial feedback thread is a catch-all of sorts, lets make it happen
Anyway, let's start feedback on DSS #49!!
This thread is:
It's easy to post thumbnails (with help from our Moderator).
With the image selected in the gallery, copy its URL from your browser, add "-Th.jpg" to the end, delete the jumble of numbers and letters preceding the hashtag (#), change "gallery" to "photos" and that's it.
Example
Change this url
To this (minus the space in the IMG tags)
Happy Feedbacking
Gallery Here...
Once more into the fray. This unofficial feedback thread is a catch-all of sorts, lets make it happen
Anyway, let's start feedback on DSS #49!!
This thread is:
- a place to post a list of your top ten favorites. (be heard, and let everyone know what images moved you.)
a place to post your "the making of my image"
a place to ask someone "how did they do that?"(for us all to see )
It's easy to post thumbnails (with help from our Moderator).
With the image selected in the gallery, copy its URL from your browser, add "-Th.jpg" to the end, delete the jumble of numbers and letters preceding the hashtag (#), change "gallery" to "photos" and that's it.
Example
Change this url
http://challenges.smugmug.com/Other/DSS-44/11173146_XPbWE#784726765_MXFDd
To this (minus the space in the IMG tags)
http://challenges.smugmug.com/photos/784726765_MXFDd-Th.jpg
Happy Feedbacking
Brian Friedman
www.bf2015.smugmug.com
www.bf2015.smugmug.com
0
Comments
www.HoofClix.com / Personal Facebook / Facebook Page
and I do believe its true.. that there are roads left in both of our shoes..
Also here is my image...are you curious to what it is? It is a thinly sliced banana with one useless seed. If you ever saw a seed of a banana close up this is what you actually eat. I had the banana slice layed on top of my white polyurithane cutting board with my SB800 flash undernieth it. I was excited that the colors and textures came out so well!
good job
But some of those that stood out to me are;
As many of you know, my "Alien Cave" is a macro shot of the top of a grape where the stalk has been pulled out.
Tim
Don't you always say that???
All I could think of was ancient food stuck to a high up surface
In short, those are white printing papers. The reason they look goldish in my image is because I used a gold gel on my flash when I lit them. In order to create the curves, I ended up sticking pens between the sheets of papers and started playing with the positions of the pens to create a shape that I was happy with the most. I am using Pocketwizard's FlexTT5 traceivers to fire the flash remotely. The gel is located inside the diffusing dome. In case you are wondering why I am covering the flash with a sock-like shield is because Pocketwizard's latest radio triggers have radio frequency interference issues with the Canon 580EX II flashes, so if you buy these radio triggers now, they will come with these shields (called AC5 shields) that you need to use to cover your 580EX II flashes with in order to reduce these interferences, otherwise you will get a lot of misfires. These are my setup shots:
Looking forward to reading about how you shot yours and finding out what they really are.
Los Angeles dance photographer
Website: http://www.allenparseghian.com
no, thats a entirely new excuse
For those of you who did not know what mine was, it was a sugargum tree pod. These little spiky balls that litter my yard every year!
Still Learning.......
I was pretty sure that this was the edge of a book. I am impressed with your creativity with the pens! It's so cool when your setup was almost exactly like how I envisioned it to be... sans pens.
Thank you wats! I really like your entry too.
Los Angeles dance photographer
Website: http://www.allenparseghian.com
I was definitely going to go with a book first, as a matter of fact, I did, but then the text started to bother me. I did not want any text to show on the sheets, so I switched gears and went with blank sheet of printing papers.
Los Angeles dance photographer
Website: http://www.allenparseghian.com
My first challenge here and I have to say it was fun. Thanks to all who commented on my ideas thread and gallery. Later today I'll post a non-macro shot of my entry
http://www.infinitevisionsphotography.com
Thought it was pages or paper but couldn't think of how it was done - the separations just flow so well; so I thought maybe a part of sculpture or something. Thanks for showing the setup
http://www.infinitevisionsphotography.com
Anywho, here it is,
You can see the grape in the bottom right or the picture. It was stuck on to a pin that was itself stuck with a lump of blutack onto the top of a jamjar. You might just be able to make out the pin just in front of the lens.
Just to the right of the jamjar you can see my home-made lighting, a set of 3 high-powered LED's ( 3 one-watt LED's ) that I arranged close to the grape and then I used a A5 sized white envelope on the other side to serve as a reflector.
As you can see I mounted my 7d on the tripod, attached a Eos-to-M42 adaptor, then the bellows and the extension tubes and finally an old 50mm f1.8 M42 lens.
Focus was initially found by moving the jamjar ( holding the grape ) back and forth until I got some of the grape in focus. ( Using live view, I love having live-view, such a life-saver for macro) Then I used the focus on the lens to focus on the nearest ( to the lens ) focal point, and then took a total of 11 frames working my way backwards to the farthest focal point.
Then I combined all the frames using CombineZP, opened the resulting image in Photoshop Elements and just cropped, added a little usm contrast and a little usm sharpening.
Tim
First...I DO NOT condone looking down the barrel of a loaded gun, and am not responsible if somebody does.
Now that that's out of the way...
It is a Glock G27 (.40cal)
To make the shooting process safe, I removed the recoil spring so there was no way the slide would retract and chamber a round.
This is the setup I used (camera on my phone since I have only one digital camera)...
With the slide locked open and the clip loaded, the light reflected off the brass of the bullet and produced a nice "copper" light all the way down the barrel.
I used a low f-stop and took several shots at different focal planes so that I had every inch of the gun in focus. Then it was just a matter of focus stacking the images (I used PhotoAcute for that). Because of the "geometry correction" of the stacking, it placed the bullet dead center in the barrel (no pun intended
The only thing I did in PS was add a slight Surface Blur to soften things up and then cropped.
Thanks for all the wonderful comments. It turned out way better than I thought it would.
www.bf2015.smugmug.com
I just wanted to pop in and say how impressed I was this round with the artist's choice of titles.
Great imagination and way to enhance your image!
www.HoofClix.com / Personal Facebook / Facebook Page
and I do believe its true.. that there are roads left in both of our shoes..
I know that this will be viewed as a sour grapes post, but I have to get this off my chest. If we have a theme, shouldn't we adhere to it? This isn't the first time I have seen a beautiful picture selected that is clearly not to theme.
This photo is not only recognizeable, but it is iconic. It is a gorgeous photo taken by a talented photographer, but it just doesn't fit the "What the Heck" theme in any way.
Gear: Canon 7D
Canon 24-105 f/4 L
Canon 28mm f/1.8
Tamron 17-50 f/2.8
Still very curious to find out what this was. (My personal favorite.)
Gear: Canon 7D
Canon 24-105 f/4 L
Canon 28mm f/1.8
Tamron 17-50 f/2.8
Hi Mark,
I'm sure it will be a great investment for you. It's so awesome the kinds of things they allow you to do, but as you said it means ordering more flash units which I had to do, heh! What I like about Pocketwizard's latest release is, you are no longer limited to sync speeds up to 1/200 sec anymore, you can go as high as your camera shutter speed allows you to go. This is so great in situations where you are trying to overpower the sun while keeping a wide open aperture for a shallow depth of field.
Thank you for your comment.
Los Angeles dance photographer
Website: http://www.allenparseghian.com
Still Learning.......
Well there's at least 4-5 images in the gallery that are easily recognisable, not just the one you have singled out. But what you have to remember is that there is no explicit direction given to the judges, nor should there be, IMO. Therefore there will always be a strong element of personal opinion by the judges in their choices.
This means that in every round there will be shots that get chosen to go through to the final that some of us may think are not theme-worthy, but you have to assume that the judge/s that chose them thought that they were enough on-theme and liked them enough to put them through.
If you arent happy about that, put your name down to be a guest judge ( or if you are fortunate enough to win a challenge ) and then you can judge a challenge to exactly the standards you set yourself.
It wasnt until I judged one of these challenges that I realised that it is not as easy as I once thought. What I mean to say, there may be more to the choices of the judges than meets the eye, and picking on just one photo is a bit harsh on the photographer who submitted that photo. There was more than one easily identifiable ( to me ) shot that got through to the voting round.
There is nothing against the rules about submitting a photo that is not "perfectly" on theme, and nothing against the rules for the judges to pick such a shot.
Just the ramblings of a semi-deranged fool with a camera:D
Tim
Tim[/QUOTE]
aren't we all?
I understand where you are coming from and you are right, there was more than one easily recognizeable, and right again on it is the judges call.
Still Learning.......
"It happens", I think we all have said WTH about a entry or two,,, heck Ive seen winners that I wouldn't put in the top 40, we all see it different, my only advice for you is that you need to remember that the artist thinks it is theme worthy. If you dont like any specific image its your choice not too...
but IMHO this qualifies as "close-up"... and "WTH".... i didnt just look at it for its face value....
and that was the icing
Thank you CaiusMartius for giving us your feedback and opinion. I am really glad that you prefaced your thoughts, explaining that you liked it and feel it is an iconic image, because I feel that this is probably the very reason why the judge that picked it had an emotional reaction to it.
Photography is all about creating a 2D image that captures a fraction of time. That capture hopefully instills some sort of emotional reaction. The reaction can be positive or negative. Normally it is the most positive or negative emotional images that will stick in your head or cause you to have some sort of memory that brings back smells, images, etc....
In essence you have actually given the photographer much more by commenting, you have explained that you didn't feel it met your interpretation of the theme and at the same time have put the image up on a pedestal saying that it is such a good photo that you felt it was iconic.
Now on to theme worthiness;
If you remember or read in the challenge thread itself, I mentioned several times that it was up to the individual artist to choose how close or how unrecognizable the image should be. I also mentioned that it was up to the artist to find a way to instill the theme on the two judges. How you do that is an artistic decision.
The themes are a starting point, they are not meant to be an exact science.
Hence the reason every round will have images that a judge connects with and feels they are theme worthy regardless how anyone else views it.
This is also why we have an ongoing "blind judges" joke.
What's troubling to me, is the attitude that "whatever the judges feel" is more correct than the guidelines people work hard to try and fulfill. You may have the right to be 100% subjective in interpreting people's art, but don't for a moment act surprised when artists who try to play by the rules get discouraged when those rules get tossed out the window.
Fujifilm Finepix S100fs
and my other hobby... tidewaterforge.com
Well, one solution is to completely eliminate the judging all together and just post all the entries up for voting just like the way they are doing it over on the "people" board. I for one do not understand why we can't do this except for the fact that it will create a lot of work for the moderator (Sean in this case) to list all those entries for voting. There are times that some great entries don't even make the voting rounds, entries that I strongly believe would have finished top 5, had they made it. I can also see the "drama" that judging can create which can be viewed as exciting by some people.
Los Angeles dance photographer
Website: http://www.allenparseghian.com