1/4 sec @ f16, ISO 100, 50mm (zoom), Canon 20D
1/50 sec @ f8, ISO 200, 59mm (zoom) with Canon 20D
I chose to submit the two photos above for the Bracknell Camera Club Digital projection competition for this quarter. It is a themed competition with the title of "Rhythmn". The first time I have entered a themed competition and it was a little challenging to work out a way to interpret the theme in visual terms initially, but a bit of research suggested that having repeating patterns of objects that allowed the eye to travel through the photo was the way to go.
The first was a shot of a local wood I took while wandering about last summer, and taken specifically with the idea of experimenting with camera movement while taking the shot. I set up the shot with the smallest aperture and slowest ISO to give me the longest exposure time and then took a number of shots using different lengths and speed of stroke. This one was about the best I felt. Did two things to the shot in the computer, cropped the bottom of the shot to lessen the slightly dominant foreground, and brought up the exposure a little to give a lighter feel to the photo. I liked the higher key for this one. Not sure it entirely meets the brief of 'Rythmn' since the trees are a bit square on, so it will be interesting to see
what the judge says.
The second comes from a trip to New York and there was an obvious repetitive element to the arrangement of fire escapes that attracted me to the scene. As such I think it works much better than the first shot for the theme of the competition, though it will be the first B&W I have submitted. Frankly all the old boys are past masters at this and I am a bit intimidated.
The conversion to B&W was quite a simple decision, the original being rather monochromatic anyway. Did a fair amount of work on this one to bring it to the state I wanted. I converted to B&W in LR by desaturating all the colours, then subdued the wall in the background by working the Orange and Yellow sliders and brought up the fire escapes by working the Blue slider. I then dropped it into PSCS3 to edit the top right corner, which was showing a small triangle of sky. Did some D&B, primarily on the stairs to try and bring them out further. Sharpening was also done in PSCS3. Had to be careful with this since I found that sharpening the highlights had the effect of brightening them so that they blew. Worked around this by using Smart Sharpen and reducing the effect on the highlights in the Advanced tab.
Will the dark doorway on the left hand edge be a problem for the judge?
