Weekly #409 - Below the Belt Competition

In the unlikely event I will ever be chosen as a competition winner again then please will my friends on here remind me to pick an easier subject to judge! Some fantastic entries I thought with lots of imagination shown. A very difficult job picking the winner indeed..
To those excluded from the judging part its no reflection on your work it just did not meet the criteria set out in the competition instructions. I sincerely hope you understand


Kite Surfer by Mudge

Great idea plenty of impact and interest with good composition. Its let down rather by the technical side. Not an easy shot to take for sure but the noise in the background and the chromatic aberration could have been fixed in post processing.

Crocs n' frocks by paulb

Now this was the sort of shot I wanted. One can almost here the gigling as this was taken. I would have liked to have seen a bit of time spent in software taking care of the skin blotches on the legs. Probably caused by the sun but easy enough to tone down the colour and eliminate some of the marks.

Happy Christmas by michaelblue

Great image Michael. You read what was required and delivered it. Waited and took the shot at exactly the right moment. The street based entrepreneur is almost smiling and the dog looking up and assessing the size of the donation is classic stuff. The motion blur in the hand makes one think pickings have been slow and the guy is making a grateful grab at what's been offered to him. Just
enough in the frame to convey exactly what is happening here, wonderful composition.

Heading home by davidtrout

Nicely composed giving her room to walk into. Technically perfect with either nice use of colour or a clever touch in post processing to get that pink background which compliments the other shades here so well. Good shot and well spotted. Another that delivers exactly the type of shot I had in mind when setting this competition.

I like your perfume by davidwozhere.

I love a clever title and if the top honours were for that David your the winner. This is a defining moment photograph patiently waiting for those feet to get close and the rest of the shot to be just
right to press the press the shutter. They have a very relaxed look by the body language on show so Im assuming this was a candid shot. Looks like two old boys who go for a walk to meet up and chat to pass the time on. Very nice moment you have caught here.

Lazy morning by closhlav

Nice idea indeed and if it was not posed well caught. Love the position of the feet. Not keen on the very small depth of field employed here. The severe blur serves to drag the eye towards it rather than emphasise the feet.

Legging it by tyronet2000.

Im not a macro man in fact never taken one in my life but to me this looks as good as it gets and I loathe spiders lol. Its a super shot but does not meet the competition criteria ie crop below the belt.Where a spider wears his belt is your problem fella your the macro man!

Practice by velimar

A super super shot. Great angles superb composition and a really nice tonal range achieved in the black and white conversion. But I have to be fair here to all entrants and the competition requirements stated quite clearly the entry needs to be cropped at waist height for the main subject.

The invisible mans broken leg by johnriley.

A different approach indeed and really good fun at that. No problem for John cropping at the waist! I keep looking at this and thinking where the heck did you get the props to set this up? I like this my man.

Any way you look at them they are not pretty by ken2390

Well Ken I hate to tell you this but not many are going to argue with you! I live in a hot climate and always wear shorts but its not the most flattering garb for me either. Good fun technically sound entry .

Best foot forward by Shabach

A slipper fest indeed. my congratulations on collecting so many slipper shod folks together at one time. Nice fun shot and well executed. Impact may have been improved with your subjects lying down forming a slipper circle and a bit of improvised dramatic lighting?

Babys feet Mothers love by JudithAnn

Judith we had problems download your picture as you know and I was informed I can only judge images posted in the competition area. So I could only judge your from a thumb which is hardly fair to you so for that reason it was not taken into account for judging. I will say however it looks like a wonderful idea.

Standing 'n' the shadow by simonarron

A master stroke of right time right place and simply spotting the opportunity. Like the vertical legs set of by the diagonal shadow. A great entry.

Dancers Feet by nonur

What can I say other than just stunning. great DOF employed and a wonderful conversion to mono which was the only way to go with this shot. Great entry.

Tree Surgeons Legs by GlynM

Technically very good nice composition here. Not a lot you could do Glyn but I found my eyes drawn towards his chainsaw and tool belt rather than his legs.

How far can you go by davidhamilton

A good question fo a dog owner and if this mutt is like mine the answer would be no where near as far as my four legged friends who are always ready and available to go walkies. Nice shot David but I think I would have chosen a different blanket for this shot. The paw is lost in the background to these tired old eyes.

Philip Underfoot by Noelcmn

Further proof to my theory that modern art and sculpures should come with a manual that explains what its supposed to mean or represent. I like the way this foot has some space to walk into and the shine on the sculpture has been well captured. There is a blured line running through the shot which unfortunately spoils it. Its easy enough to clone out.

Odd One Out by SteveF

Nice idea and one I was expecting. This does not quite make it as the third shoe just looks placed there. I would have suggested some fancy post production work to copy a leg for the third shoe and make the shot a composite in fact. Not easy on a train but different trousers for each shoe would be good maybe.




Winner Dancers Feet by nonur Simply a stunning shot

Second Place I like your perfume by davidwoxhere Well spotted and well taken

Third Place Heading home by davidtrout Again well spotted

HC Happy Christmas by michaelblue
Standing 'n' the shadows by simonarron


Special prize for making me laugh goes to johnriley for Invisible Mans broken Leg

Congratulations to the winner and other places, Thanks to Steve for the interesting subject, the judging and comprehensive comments.

Thanks for the competition and detailed critiques Billy - and the prompt posting of results. Congrats to Nonur and davidwozhere for their first and second placings and thanks for my third slot.
What a pity Judithann's beautiful baby image couldn't be judged. It was stunningly beautiful.
David

PPG: http://www.pentaxphotogallery.com/artists/davidtrout

Congratulations, Nonur, that is a fine shot, lovey mood and atmosphere, and giving just enough to hold attention and wanting more. Congrats too to davidwoxhere, Davidtrou, the Hm's and Johnriley. Thanks Billyspad for another fine judging exercise and constructive comments. I agree with your sentiments about artists and their works, though some artists of course love to leave interpretations open to speculation. And with the stiff brief from the judge about keeping it below the belt, the plot would have been lost if I had posed the full sculpture-which can be seen here
[/url]Children at play by Noel Bowers, on Flickr]link. The blurred line, as well as the shine and the white spots are from the fountain water.

Congratulations the winner. A stunning shot. A good competition and well judged. As for my entry you are spot on i don't spend much time as i should on photoshop , just not very good at it.

Regards

Paul

Its all about practice Paul. Im no hotshot but I can use it. Honestly fella its worth the effort.

I did everything I could do for Judith as I also thought it was stunning but I had to follow directions from admin.
Your shot was very good fella great colours in there. Some interesting entries for a rather bizarre subject I thought.

Many thanks for setting a new and intriguing competition subject, your detailed reviews and judging. I thought it was great fun.

I was disappointed that that we did not get to include Judith's picture, particularly when we appeared to initially have similar issues with mudge's entry which got resolved.

Congratulations to our winners and everyone else for a wonderful set of images.

Glyn

I'm not sure why we've had a couple of issues with image sizes recently, but it's always been the case that if an image isn't big enough it won't display in the larger format.

So do please watch your image size. I would make it 100 pixels on the longest side and around 400K and you won't go far wrong. Start to go above 2000 pixels and loading will become slower with no real benefit for quality.

With my "System Designer" hat on I think there needs to be some sort of trap to detect this in the down-load process, reject the download and ask the submitter to submit a bigger image. It seams daft to me that the system accepts then displays an icon for an image that it can't them display.

Surely you mean a 1000 pixels on the longest size which appears to be what the images in the gallery get to be down-sized too for the larger display although the initial display appears to be reduced even more to 750 pixels.

As an aside perhaps we need to have these size limits given in the rules laid out in the competition forum. At present, for the weekly competitions, they still say the images should be no bigger than 800 pixels and there is no mention about a minimum size.

Glyn

I resize mine to (landscape) 1000 long side and 700 vertical for portrait or square. That just fits the monitor without clipping anything off.

Otherwise .....
I certainly didn't expect a place in the face of some of these super shots. Thank you for the 2nd! And congratulations to Nezih and David

Yes, thanks, I did mean 1000 pixels, it seems I mis-keyed that one!

I have changed the guidance in the competitions rules in the forum, many thanks for pointing out that it was out of date.

Well done to the winner, a fascinating subject well judged
Thanks also for the generous comments on my photo
I also thought your photo was great Judith

Very nicely judged, Steve. Ta for the kind words and compliments to the top three.

Thank you Steve! This is my first to win a competition. I had no expectation to win, I entered just for the fun of it.
I am also thankful to all those who enjoyed seeing my shot and congratulated me here.
Kind regards,
Nezih

Hey...No Worries...we win some....we lose some...The pic did not upload right...there is alway next weeks comps......

JA CONGRATS TO ALL OUR WINNERS. It was a wonderful topic.