Thank you to everyone that participated in the "Friends" assignment, I enjoyed seeing your wonderful images and the interactions between friends that you captured.
Chris submitted a great series of images of the Andover baseball team, with my favorite being his image of
The Team. This was a wonderful image with an interesting mix of expressions. I think Chris did a great job capturing the multifaceted personality of
The Team. The mix of expressions definitely piques the viewer to wonder what #18 is saying to the team.
The TeamPhotographed by Chris Franklin
Chris' image of the players
Out in Left Field wasn't quite as sharp as the other two images, and I wonder if this might be due to a combination of factors. First, the longer the focal length of the lens, the more important it is to use good hand-holding or tripod technique to prevent motion blur. This is especially important with high resolution sensors like that in the D7000. The other potential contributing factor is that most telephoto lenses with this zoom range tend to loose sharpness at their longest focal lengths. Over time most photographers learn what focal lengths their lenses excel at, and what focal lengths the lens weaknesses show through in the images.
Out in Left Field Photographed by Chris Franklin
Chris captured more great expressions in his
Andover image; however this image wasn't quite as strong as the first, and didn't have as well-defined center of interest as Chris' image of
The Team.
AndoverPhotographed by Chris Franklin
Rick's image of
Man's Best Friend was a very strong composition with great clarity and wonderful expressions. More than anything else, what made this image was the light in Buddy's (the chocolate Lab) eyes. It's interesting to note that the slight shift in positions between Buddy and Bodie resulted in such great light in Buddy's eyes (lighting up the iris) with just so-so light in Bodies eyes. I've seen this same phenomenon in people, where I've noticed that there is often a small range of positions where the light is at the right angle to illuminate the iris. Rick managed a great exposure for this image, and captured wonderful clarity with his 105mm lens (obviously focused on Buddy's eyes). It's the wonderful expressions that make this image though, strongly reinforced by the light in Buddy's eyes. I should note that the white balance seems a little off on my calibrated monitor (and on Rebecca's Spectraview monitor as well), and a slight shift toward magenta was needed to correct the slight green tint in the image and give the colors more clarity. Overall though this was a wonderful, extremely well executed image that tied for
People's Choice and was selected as
Editor's Choice for Artistic and Technical Merit. Nicely done Rick!
Man's Best FriendTied for
People's Choice and
Editor's Choice for Artistic and Technical MeritPhotographed by Rick Pepin
Thank you to everyone that voted for my image of
Makin' Cupcakes. This wasn't a very strong image either technically or artistically, and I'm guessing that people voted for the image based on the fact that it captured friendship in action. I found that the most important aspect of capturing successful images of friendship was timing. It was a challenge to have my camera ready to snap a shot when the kids were interacting nicely as friends, while eliminating all of the other distractions in the scene. (You can tell that this image is cropped, which eliminated another group of kids in the background that weren't interacting quite as nicely.)
Makin' CupcakesTied for
People's Choice Photographed by Keith
The success of my
Infatuation image was based on timing as well. I intended to take a quick snapshot of Nina playing dress-up when Evan saw me putting the camera to my eye and ran up to be included in the image. His "google eyes" and silly expression lasted only for a moment but I was lucky enough to be ready to capture the shot.
InfatuationPhotographed by Keith
Rebecca's mom and aunt helped with McKenzie's tea party birthday celebration and were kind enough to pose (just a second) for this shot. I didn't have a lot of time to set up the image, but in retrospect I could have done some things better. I tried to include some of the table to set the context of tea time, but the image would have been stronger if I had actually included a tea pot and cup! And I had to crop the image to eliminate parts of the background that were distracting. Bouncing the flash off the ceiling helped prevent the roses on the table from blowing out as they would have if I had used direct flash.
Tea TimePhotographed by Keith
It was again the expressions that made the image in Marilyn's
Strawberry Friends composition, and it was Ashlynn's eyes that conveyed the most expression. Marilyn did a great job with the flash exposure on this image, with only the very tiniest hint of a shadow from the flash to indicate that she used a flash. Great capture Marilyn.
Strawberry FriendsPhotographed by Marilyn
Shee did a great job capturing expressions of friendship in her two images. Her decision to convert the images to black and white was very astute, since this helps minimize the impact of potentially distracting backgrounds and helps to focus the viewer's attention on the primary subjects and their interaction. Obviously timing was very important in the successful capture of Shee's
boys will be boys image as well. Nicely done Shee!
Little sister, Big brotherPhotographed by Sheila "Shee" Anchetta (burzilai)
boys will be boysPhotographed by Sheila "Shee" Anchetta (burzilai)
Thank you again to everyone that participated in this assignment. I enjoyed the wonderful expressions of friendship you captured in your images.
