DSS #125 My Town/City

JAG

Welcome to Round #125 of the Dgrin Sharp Shooters Challenges.

This challenge is for all dgrin members.

It will run from Monday, March 18, 2013 8:00pm PST time (GMT -8) on through Monday, April 1, 2013 8:00pm PST time (GMT -8).

The theme this round for your interpretation will be: My Town/City

Ok, dust off those shoes and get out walking to show us your town or city that you live in! What makes your town so special or unique? If you had to choose just one element of life in your town/city that describes it best, what would it be?

No editing restrictions!

Your Judge:
1 round 72 Hour Public Vote.

IMPORTANT NOTE: Your entry is to be submitted directly into a SmugMug gallery. It's pretty simple, just go to the gallery link below, and follow the upload instructions at the top of the page:

DSS 124 Gallery


Remember, the basics stay the same: 1 entry per person, and the photo must be fresh, taken during this contest period. Do not use a minimal save method (such as "save for web"), and your EXIF will be embedded in your image, no worries!

To avoid disqualification, read, in full, the Dgrin Sharp Shooters Challenge RULES.

grandmaR

Good topic. Everyone has to be someplace.

billseye

grandmaR wrote: »

Good topic. Everyone has to be someplace.

Personally, I always try to stay in the exact center of the surrounding area.

ShootingStar

Don't you mean Monday, 1st April?
Oh you corrected while I was typing this ...

JAG

ShootingStar wrote: »

Don't you mean Monday, 1st April?
Oh you corrected while I was typing this ...

I was in the process of fixing it when you posted, but yes, I did mean April 1st! Did I fool you all?

grandmaR

I'm having two problems with this. One is figuring out what to take a photo of. It is a small town, but an old one (for the US - not old compared to Europe). We do have some historic buildings but that seems lame. It is still winter here so no leaves on trees, and we don't have our boat in the water yet so no photos of sailing on local waters. It is also not the season for the county fair or the Oyster Festival. The Oyster Festival is our greatest event - one of the things that makes the area special, and features local food, but it is in October. So that's no good.

The other problem is that I seem not to have the trick of photographing buildings. In town, we have a very old house with a haha wall, and I'd like to somehow get the house and the wall in the same photo. (A haha wall is a wall that does not show from the house, but keeps livestock off the lawn. Since it doesn't show from the house, I have to take a photo from the other side of it and that looks funny (to me)). There are huge - really big trees on each side of the entrance going down toward the wall and even in the winter they are so dark that the widow's walk on top of the house disappears into the sky. If it was summer, you couldn't see the house at all. The other problem is that you can't see the history in a photo. You don't know that the house was originally stucco so you couldn't see the brick pattern. You won't know to look at the wall unless I say. (And there are no livestock to be kept off the lawn anymore - they've build a bunch of houses where there used to be fields.)


I normally like to take photos of details, but details seem too small to me to give the essence of a place.


I drove around this afternoon, but am not happy with what I got. I think I will go up to town again on my scooter tomorrow afternoon, and see what I can get.

richtersl

grandmaR wrote: »

I'm having two problems with this. One is figuring out what to take a photo of. It is a small town, but an old one (for the US - not old compared to Europe). We do have some historic buildings but that seems lame. It is still winter here so no leaves on trees, and we don't have our boat in the water yet so no photos of sailing on local waters. It is also not the season for the county fair or the Oyster Festival. The Oyster Festival is our greatest event - one of the things that makes the area special, and features local food, but it is in October. So that's no good.

The other problem is that I seem not to have the trick of photographing buildings. In town, we have a very old house with a haha wall, and I'd like to somehow get the house and the wall in the same photo. (A haha wall is a wall that does not show from the house, but keeps livestock off the lawn. Since it doesn't show from the house, I have to take a photo from the other side of it and that looks funny (to me)). There are huge - really big trees on each side of the entrance going down toward the wall and even in the winter they are so dark that the widow's walk on top of the house disappears into the sky. If it was summer, you couldn't see the house at all. The other problem is that you can't see the history in a photo. You don't know that the house was originally stucco so you couldn't see the brick pattern. You won't know to look at the wall unless I say. (And there are no livestock to be kept off the lawn anymore - they've build a bunch of houses where there used to be fields.)


I normally like to take photos of details, but details seem too small to me to give the essence of a place.


I drove around this afternoon, but am not happy with what I got. I think I will go up to town again on my scooter tomorrow afternoon, and see what I can get.

I'm in almost the same boat that you are. The town I live in now is small and doesn't have businesses down town. Nor does it even have a sidewalk. Anyone walking around with a camera will be looked upon with suspicion because it's in the middle of nowhere. There is a highway with strip malls that parallels the main street but I don't think an image of a Walmart or a Lowe's is going to look very nice. I only have one potential photo so far which I may enter.

But I'm not ready to throw in the towel yet -- especially with a snowstorm heading our way. And yours too!

grandmaR

I figured today would be the best weather we were going to have, so I got on my scooter and went and took photos. I met two girls also with cameras taking photos. They said they belonged to a local camera club that met every Wednesday and did critiques etc of each other's work.

Unfortunately, Bob really wasn't listening when I said I'd go up to town on the scooter today, so it was not fully charged. We live on one big hill and town is on the next big hill. I almost didn't get up the hill to town. Once I got there I took a bunch of photos, and going down hill was good, but going back UP the hill --- I was going so slowly that a crawling infant would be faster, and the needle was all the way over in the red. I got about 50 yards from our driveway and got my phone out and called Bob, and he came and pushed the scooter home and I walked. But I did get home and he didn't have to come get me in the car.