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Monthly #51- Empty Bottles Competition Competition

Competition Details
Closing Date: 30/09/2016
Judge: nonur

I think empty bottles are interesting subjects for photography. I hope many of you would find them as attractive and interesting as I do, as they come in different shapes and sizes, they are transparent and reflect light in many different ways.

Entries should be shot any day in the month of September, 2016, using a Pentax, re-badged Samsung equivalent or any camera made by Ricoh. Your work could be in colour or mono and there are no rules except the usual monthly competition rules.

If your exif data is lost, please indicate the date your entry was taken when uploading.
The winner is expected to set, comment on and judge the next competition.
The competition closes at midnight BST on 30th September.
Good luck to every one! I will be looking forward to see your works.
Nezih
Competition Entries
nonur
Posted 01/10/2016 - 19:17 Link
Only twelve entries this month, a little more in number than the month before. I must thank you all for the entry and also for the technical quality of many of the shots. I must add that I liked all the submitted works and that made the task more difficult for me. Another important point to be made is the fact that any of the seven images I personally favoured more than the others could have been chosen as the winner. However, there has to be a winner.

Jarring by Perspicador

A nice sharp shot of one single cleaned Ajam Paniki jar. Top and bottom of the subject are too close to the edge of the frame and it is not pleasant for the eye. The whites are blown up and there's some colour aberration or reflection at the rim and bottom of the jar. I think if aperture priority or manual exposure had been used, they could have been avoided.

Bottles by the Window by JAK

This is one of the seven shots I mentioned above. It's shot using the pleasant ambient light coming through the window from behind. I like the variety of the glass and ceramic bottles, the shadows and reflections on the wall and on the windowsill and what looks to be a worktop. I also like the textures, clarity and natural look of the image.

" Refreshes the parts other beers cannot reach " by davidwozhere

This one is also one of those seven images mentioned. The emptied Heineken beer bottles lined up on a vertical axis set up against the matching background are used as a well thought of good subject. Use of DOF, colour harmony and the clarity of the image are excellent. I also like the reflections on the bottle, which add much to the overall effect.

10 Green Bottles by nicesparky

Ten empty green bottles lined up on a mossy stonewall in front of green leaves of mahonia bushes is another quality image submitted. Here again I like the sharp focus, clarity and colour harmony. Camera angle and the reflections of light on the bottles are good points that should be mentioned as well. The different sizes and shapes of the bottles and the orange-labeled wine bottle are positive aspects as they could be taken as elements that break the monotony.

Every garden shed has at least one..... "that shelf" by tonir

With all that "dust and grime" the variety of bottles and bowls in this image and the particles on the shelf make me think that the garden shed must have been used as the atelier of a blacksmith as well. What I like most about this image is this particular dirty and grimy look of the bottles as it adds a sense of time, story and depth to the image. I also like the subdued colours and light reflections as well. I think the consistency of the image is somewhat disturbed by the fence wire and the sprinkler, though some people might say that they are the elements that prove the image was taken in a garden shed. This evaluation depends thoroughly on personal taste. The image appeals a lot to me, as I am very fond of things old.

empty bottles by Rwscholte

I like this monochrome quality studio image, which is also one of those seven images I mentioned. Although personally I would like it to have a little more light, I think the photographer's choice was to achieve a subtler play of light. The subdued brightness of light reflections and the different size, shape and surface textures of the bottles add to the pleasant overall effect of the image. I also like the way the bottles were set up in two groups.

Ready for recycling by tyronet2000

Cleaned bottom up empty jars in a container. Well exposed and captured, nice sharp image. I like the overall blue tone and light reflections.

Carafe d'eau by paulb531

The second monochrome photograph is also one of the seven images that I favour more. It is a wonderfully well focused and exposed work. Great use of DOF and compo. What I like most in this shot is the management of available light that comes from a source hidden on the mantelpiece. The way the light hits the bottom of the bottle and brightens up the carafe and enhances the look of the water drops caused by the coldness of the water left inside makes this image even more appealing. I also like the tonal range and the cozy atmosphere of the background that gives the context in which the bottles exist. Another good aspect about the background is that is rendered in exact amount of blur.

Carboy by GlynM

I like the shape and the colour of the bottle, the coloured reflection and the light coming from the window. The tiles and the clarity of image make it very pleasant to see. A well composed charming image, simple and beautiful.

Empty bottle by Noelcmn

Wonderfully well exposed and well-saturated great image. Very good use of DOF and the light on the bottle foreground the point of focus so well. Another aspect that I like is the clarity of the bottle and those trickling thin streams of water on it. The matching colours of the fire hydrant and of the label look just wonderful. However, I am not so happy with the portrait format. It is understandable that the photographer wanted to include the inscription on the fire hydrant to make his point, but I would prefer to see the greater part of the fire box cropped out a little below the top to make it square format which would enhance the composition to a great extent. Still, the image appeals a lot to me.

Curious was I....!!! by dformit

This brilliant shot taken with use of flash really satisfies the curiosity. As is stated, now we know what lies inside a glass-bottle recycling container. There’s lots of information revealed for a researcher about what people drink most in the vicinity, their status etc…

Green and Blue by MikeInDevon

Shame that the image needs rotating, but it doesn’t matter. Curiously enough, an enigmatic situation occurred when I copied it to my desktop, I saw to my amazement that the copy needed no rotating. (John Riley should know the answer.) Shot against light, the image has well saturated deep bright colours, which are reflected back on what seems to be a venetian blind at the back. The high contrast effect, I think, increased the power of the light shaft between the bottles, and that is a bit disturbing for the eye.

Thank you all folks for participating with great images. The winner is paulb531 with his work Carafe d'eau, and the second is tonir with the image titled as Every garden shed has at least one..... "that shelf".

This ends my task, I congratulate the winners and hand it over to paul531 to set up the competition for October.
davidwozhere
Posted 01/10/2016 - 23:39 Link
As soon as I saw the 'carafe' I thought, "that's the one!'. It's excellent. Well done.
Only 12 entries? As Nezih says, they were all good ones.
Both the *istDS and the K5 are incurably addicted to old glass

My page on Photocrowd
drofmit
Posted 02/10/2016 - 07:56 Link
Congratulations to the winner and the runner-up...
thank you Nezih for the competition and the constructive comments.
It was fun trying to find a suitable, non-cliché subject...
and others must have had the same thoughts... there aren't any here!!
With my own collection still in boxes in the barn....
I needed to hunt for an idea... which came as I did the monthly recycle run.
My problem occured when I went to take the photos originally... the bottles were near the very top....
I had to wait for the bottle-bank to be emptied.... and then, fill up a bit!!
For safety's sake, the WG2 was attached to my wrist by a length of cord.....
shooting blind is interesting.... I was having to take a picture and look at it...then make adjustments!!

Alas, as I mention above, all my best bottles are still packed up... six years after moving.... still trying to find somewhere to display them...
by way of explanation... I collect bottles for the designs on them, some embossed, some printed, some etched....
others, it is the label that attracts.... but, they do need to be on show, somewhere!!
But, at present, other things intervene...dat's life folks!
Never be afraid to talk about your techniques...
"Give a thousand photographers...
the same camera, lens and scene...
and you'll always get a thousand different takes!!"
Anon.
GlynM
Posted 02/10/2016 - 10:44 Link
Many thanks Nezih for a great competition using a what I thought was a really good original subject. That was quite an achievement on its own without your excellent reviews and well considered judging.

Congratulations to Paul for the well deserved win, tonir for runner up and everyone else for another great set of images.

Glyn
Noelcmn
Posted 02/10/2016 - 12:18 Link
Congrats Paul, that is a very well deserved win, and like Davidwozhere, had an inkling that would be the podium winner. Such lovely light and reflections there, not to mention great sense of ambiance. And congrats extended to Tonir. Thanks to Nonur for a fine challenge, which I also thought was original, and for the comments and critiques-as always appreciated. I'l revisit this one and have a look at changing it to a landscape. If I remember correctly, I did take one in landscape mode,but was not too happy with it. In any event, I'm glad to know that I am not the only one taking images of empty bottles .
Mag07
Posted 02/10/2016 - 12:25 Link
Congratulations. Some lovely submissions I must say
'Photography...it remembers little things, long after you have forgotten....' (Aaron Siskind)
paulb531
Posted 02/10/2016 - 19:09 Link
Thanks to Nezih for competition and analysis. Chuffed to bits to have won. I took this photo after consuming a fair bit of wine. The locals must have wondered what this crazy Brit was doing with the empties when the camera came out. Unfortunately, my French wasn't good enough to explain my actions.

Regards

Paul
tyronet2000
Posted 02/10/2016 - 20:06 Link
Congratulations to the Winner and other places. Thanks to Nezih for the interesting subject the judging and comprehensive comments.
Regards
Stan

PPG
nonur
Posted 02/10/2016 - 22:35 Link
Thank you all folks for your appreciative comments!
Regards,
Nezih
nicesparky
Posted 03/10/2016 - 08:49 Link
Well done by far the best.

Regards. Brian
Posted 03/10/2016 - 19:41 Link
Thanks for the competition, a very good winning shot, it really tells a story.

Regarding my 'rotated' image, here's a bit of back ground. The original image had its rotation data recorded and displayed on the camera in portrait mode, I then used the in camera effects to create a high contrast version, this version then displayed on the camera in landscape mode. I transferred this image file on to my netbook, where it displayed correctly in portrait mode, so I unloaded it into the competition. Then when I had a look on the web site it was now in landscape mode, very confusing!

Any insight into this would be welcome.

Regards
Mike

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