Thank you to everyone that participated in the "Compelling" weekly photography assignment. I have to say that between this assignment and the Zen assignment, I feel like my photography has been reinvigorated. It's wonderful to see our images take on real meaning, instead of just being pretty pictures. Many of your photographs for this assignment really moved me.
The
guidelines for this assignment were to strive to compose a compelling image that precipitates a change in your viewer's beliefs or values, or causes them to behave differently towards a subject.
I really enjoyed Dave's entire series of images of Winter at the Arndt Ranch. To be appreciated to to their fullest, the images need to be viewed as a group, in Dave's slideshow here:
http://www.prairiepathways.com/galleries/winter_ranch/ That series of images helps convey the special relationship between the rancher and the animals in his care.
Dave did a wonderful job with the exposure for his
Winter Feeding image (and the others in the series) noting that an exposure compensation value of +1EV seemed to be about right for most of the high key landscape shots (otherwise the default camera metering would have tried to make the snow too dark). Dave was also very successful at portraying the environment, noting that he tried to "keep a feel for the scale of the surroundings, using a sparse aesthetic and lots of open space around the rancher and animals to keep that feeling one gets on the central plains." Thank you for sharing this wonderful series Dave, and for helping to give us a better sense of what life is like during winter at the ranch.
Winter FeedingPhotographed by Dave Leiker (Prairiedust)
Michele's image of
A rainy day, every day really tugged at our hearts. Michele was very smart to choose a rainy day to photograph this image, noting that she "took this photo in the atmosphere it deserves." The gray skies and muted light definitely helped convey the emotions associated with the loss of a young child. The diffused light provided wonderful depth to this image which helps to draw the viewer into the scene. This was one of those multi-layered images that invited the viewer to discover new details each time they viewed the image. I can imagine Evan leaving his favorite shells or rocks for a lost friend, and it brings tears to my eyes. Yes, it compelled me to hug my kids a little tighter. Michele did recognize that the image would have been more powerful if she included the entire grave. That would have made the image have more immediate meaning, since we would have known right away that this was the grave of a young child. I can understand Michele's decision to respect the privacy of the boy's family. Because of the emotional impact of this image, I've awarded it
Editor's Choice for Artistic Merit.
A rainy day, every day.Editor's Choice for Artistic MeritPhotographed by Michele Bollhalder
As Marilyn said, Luc's image of a
Shop sign in Nazi Germany was a "strong reminder of why we must learn from our past and find opportunities to cross boundaries." The image had a bit of a double image effect (light halo around the letters), perhaps from being taken at a very slow shutter speed (1/8 second). However, that effect didn't detract from the composition at all, and instead worked to reinforce the concept of a "distorted" view of the world. This image was a great reminder that hate and intolerance can infect otherwise normal people, and that we should not ignore intolerance, but instead should consciously strive to find ways to "cross boundaries" and understand and appreciate other cultures.
Shop sign in Nazi GermanyPhotographed by Luc Bigler
Luc's
ambulance in the hills of Nepal was another outstanding image that provoked us to question our own values and priorities in life. Do I really need that big screen television when other people in the world are struggling with basic subsistence? (Actually our TV is an old CRT model about 20 years old.) And these people struggling to live within a harsh environment will carry another person for 6 days to get them to needed medical care? What have I done lately that even approaches such a level of caring for my fellow man? Outstanding image Luc, and one that compels us to reconsider our priorities in life. This image was the
People's Choice for this assignment.
ambulance in the hills of NepalPeople's ChoicePhotographed by Luc Bigler
Marilyn did a wonderful job capturing and conveying the emotion of the event in her image of the
3-day Breast Cancer Walk. It's an image that reminds us of the powerful effect we can have when we support a worthy cause. Well done Marilyn.
3-day Breast Cancer WalkPhotographed by Marilyn McKinney
Julie's image titled
20 Years of Marriage was a wonderful way to symbolize their caring and commitment, and helps remind us that nurturing our relationships should also be a priority in our lives. This was a beautiful, well balanced and nicely captured composition. I'm sure Julie used a tripod to capture this shot, and hopefully she used a cable release and mirror lockup too, in order to prevent the movement of the mirror from slightly blurring the image, and remembered to turn off image stabilization too?
20 Years of MarriagePhotographed by Julie Schroeder (WriteHeart)
I noticed that the image did not have an embedded color space, and so the reds displayed a bit too saturated on my wide gamut display. I pulled the image into Photoshop and embedded a color space. Adobe RGB seemed to be the best fit, and then I converted to sRGB for web display. I also used just a tiny bit of selective sharpening on the rings using smart sharpen and a layer mask in Photoshop. Here's the image with the embedded color space:
20 Years of MarriagePhotographed by Julie Schroeder (WriteHeart), color space and selective sharpening by Keith
Julie's image titled
I will always be with you! was a fun composition that used a long shutter speed to allow her to produce the "ghost" effect sitting next to Lorin. Well done Julie. You might have been able to get a little sharper result by opening up the aperture to f11 or so, and dropping the ISO down to around ISO 320. These settings would have still allowed for a 1 second shutter speed, but would have reduced the softening of the image due to diffraction effects as well as the softening due to noise reduction. Just minor suggestions though for improving this fun image.
I will always be with you!Photographed by Julie Schroeder (WriteHeart)
Rick's
Smokers? image was very well composed and nicely executed. I liked that the moderately fast shutter speed (1/200th of a second) was still slow enough to convey the strumming motion of the musician. This image worked very well as a black and white, effectively removing any distractions that might have been caused by colors in the background. Very well done Rick. (I liked how that man's torso formed a diagonal in the frame too.)
Smokers?Photographed by Rick Pepin (TrvlRick)
Lorin did a great job capturing the excitement of Foxy playing in the snow in his
Come Play!! image. Great job on the exposure on this one. It sometimes takes a faster shutter speed than we might anticipate in order to prevent motion blur when photographing a running animal. The larger they are in the frame, the faster your shutter speed will need to be.
Come Play!!Photographed by Lorin Schroeder (wildshutter)
I embedded a color space, added a catchlight to Foxy's left eye, and just a touch of selective sharpening to the version below:
Come Play!!Photographed by Lorin Schroeder (wildshutter), catchlight added by Keith
I pulled the two images of the Brazilian Favela from my files, but ended up cropping the images quite a bit in order to focus viewer's attention on specific areas of the photo. See the blue catch basins on the roofs of the shanties in the second image? That's their water supply. All of the residents are "squatters" on land outside the city, and due to lack of space they have built their shanties literally on top of each other. For the most part their are no utilities, except for the electricity they steal from "hot wiring" into the live electrical lines. Viewing these images again was a good reminder of how fortunate we are to live where we do.
Favela - Electrical Death TrapsPhotographed by Keith
FavelaPhotographed by Keith
Rebecca did a great job capturing McKenzie's desire to go out and play in her
Outside image. Her use of fill flash was so well done that it isn't even apparent that she used flash in this image. The flash opened up the shadows enough to provide nice color and tonality, but still left enough gradations in shadows from the window light to provide nice modeling on McKenzie's face. Nicely done.
OutsidePhotographed by Rebecca
Cindy's
Hard Labor was another very compelling image that reminded us how fortunate we are. The expressions on the faces of the street builders speak volumes. Thanks for sharing these images with us Cindy.
Hard LaborPhotographed by Cindy Miller Hopkins (cmhimages)
