Challenge #4: Stand Out

This has been a busy week and I've not had a lot of time to devote to this weeks challenge, but I'm trying to keep within the simple guidelines that we established at the onset; Shoot the shot and process it during the week of the challenge.

I proudly present the 2010 Hornet Bantam Girls lacrosse team.  They won their City Championship series against the Sabrecats 2 games to 1.  Well done girls!! Champions definitely 'stand out' and so does the girl in the green jersey.

This week's shot was my first real foray into on camera flash bounce.  I used a Honl bounce on my speedlight.  This was a rushed setup and I'm not really pleased with the outcome.  I'll have to play with it a lot more to get things working the way I would like.  While there's not a lot of specular light in the shot, I was hoping to get more out of the speedlight for this shot.  I'm looking forward to playing with speedlights and Nikon's creative lighting system a lot more.

I printed (most of) this photo on Ilford Galerie Classic Pearl paper.  I didn't like the way the photo appeared on this paper.  It's somewhat similar to Inkpress's Luster paper.  It may be a profile issue, but the image appears darker than it should.

Challenge #3: Heavy

One of the things that I've discovered with this weekly challenge is that it can be very difficult for me to find inspiration for the topic at hand.  I originally intended to shoot the literal interpretation of 'heavy' by shooting a heavy object.  On my way to the location where I planned to shoot I was reminded of this sculpture.
 

This heavily Photoshopped image features Dennis Oppenheim's 'Device to Root Out Evil', aka the 'upside-down church'.

You can't get much more 'heavy' than the battle of Good vs. Evil.

I printed this image on Ilford Galerie Smooth Gloss Paper.

Challenge #2: Aqua

Inspiration for this image came from a weekend of over-indulgence of fine tequila while at an out-of-town lacrosse tournament with our daughters.  Conrad graciously offered to share his Cabo Wabo Repesado with me on the Friday night.  We packed it in around 1:00am that night which may have seemed kind of early to some, but only until you realized that we had to be up at 5:00 to get our daughters to their game 7:00 game on time.  That was a rough morning.

We gathered again on Saturday evening, but it was fairly apparent that I couldn't party like I did in my younger years.  I was in bed and asleep shortly after 11:00 that night.

The inspiration for the shot came on the Sunday after driving home from Edmonton when I realized just how parched I really was.

If I were to do this again I would shoot it on a less busy surface and crop more off the right side of the image.  This image was printed on Ilford Galerie Silk paper - Very nice stuff.

Challenge #1:Arranged

I titled this shot 'Organized Crime'.  This is a shot of a new sculpture (?) in Calgary's Olympic Plaza.  Each pole in the sculpture represents a park in our City.  The older the park, the taller the pole.  The old sandstone building in the background is Calgary's old City Hall. 

This pic was shot on an overcast day with a flat sky.  The 'as shot' image was full of converging lines; the poles on the outer edge of the frame were leaning towards the center of the image.  I used a lens distortion filter in Photoshop to correct the convergence and straighten out the poles.  There's still some slight convergence to the image, but not as severe as it was in the original.

A point to note: This was shot at 12:50 on a Monday afternoon.  It was rather odd that I was able to get a shot like this without any traffic or pedestrians in the frame at that time of day in a very busy part of the city.  Timing is everything!

So Here I Go...

I created this blog because I need a place to store what I've learned about what I'm doing.  What I'm  doing is working with images.

I've long been interested in photography.  I was the president of the school camera club in grade nine.  I had my own darkroom, worked in a pro photo lab in high school and dabbled off and on with photography for years.  I somehow lost my passion for photography over the years, but whenever I'd pick up a camera, I'd always ponder over the possibilities of what could be caught on film (and later silicon).

I recently re-kindled my passion for photography.  Over the last few years I've dedicated more of my time to shooting and, recently, to post production of my images.  I've invested in some technology (yeah, I know equipment doesn't make the image, the photographer does - whatever) and have taken some courses at SAIT to help further my skills.

I've made a friend who share this passion and we've entered into a friendly weekly challenge to encourage both of us to shoot and use what we've learned in our classes.  The challenge is based on the Photo Friday website.  This website issues a weekly challenge (on Fridays, oddly enough).  The challenge is simple - interpret what the challenge means to you and shoot/produce it.

We've completed three challenges so far.  They were 'Arranged', 'Aqua' and 'Heavy'.  I'm learning with each image that I produce, and I welcome Conrad's input, both positive and negative, and look forward to our critiques shared over a pint or two.