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Weekly #508 - Textures in Close Up Competition

Competition Details
Closing Date: 09/04/2017
Judge: drofmit

I would imagine that all of us have these photos... taken for interest, fun and a sense of the unusual...
a lot of people think of close up work as nature photography.... because most is... but there are far more interesting textures to be found as well... weathered stone, concrete, cloth, leather, carpet... and closely packed objects that create a texture in their own right... stacked card, paper, pencils, crayons, pages of a book that is slightly open.... or loose objects like rice, sugar, sand, pebbles, grains of mustard or pepper.
And the angle you use is an important factor... straight on and flat... or at an angle...the latter being where the DoF needs to be increased to give a focus on what you saw as the texture. And the lighting don't forget... that creates texture in a relatively flat object.

I will be looking for pictures that create something unusual from the mundane...
pictures that are obviously shot from around the closest point of focus of the lens used...
and pictures that leap off the screen!

Usual weekly rules... Pentax cameras and the listed clones, you can trawl your archives...
but that doesn't exclude you taking fresh pictures... if the exif is absent, please place it in the description.
Winner
Competition Entries
drofmit
Posted 10/04/2017 - 08:44 Link
Thanks to everyone who entered... some people understood "texture" some didn't...
not that that really matters too much... the interpretation is interesting.
Also, a lot of the pictures here demand a tighter crop to bring the subject out... given the quality of pictures that we get nowadays, never be afraid to crop to get a result.

So... on to comments...

Shady roof by Perspicador
I can see what you were getting at with this one... though it is more of a pattern than a texture.
To have been in with a chance, though, you needed to crop to just a section of the roof. That would have shown the texture of the bitumen sheeting... patterned by the shadow of the tree in blossom.

Cape Leveque Textures by i-Berg
A winderfully coloured shot this.... but again, the lumpy rocks need cropping out... they pull the eye to the top of the picture.... crop them out, leaving just the slab disappearing into the water... I do like the blend of texture from the dry rock to the water.

Bench Back by mudge
Ah! This is closer to being a shot of textures... wonderfully weathered wood... in this case texture is here.... but it again needs cropping... just the two "eyes" and the central column would work much better... and remove all the distracting elements in the background... including the texture of the lichens on the tree behind.

Seed Swirl by JAK
The first real texture... both soft and downy and hard lined at the same time... here, the out of focus elements in the picture add the softness... the infocus parts add the hardness.... very nice.

Pistachio anybody? by pixelshot
This is a good still life close-up... yes, there is an interesting texture in the nut...
but there is too little texture... and too many distractions.

Window Art by bps
The title says it... there are some wonderful textures in the glass of the ornament... but there is far too much background... crop right in to the dragonfly... make it a square... crop the same distance above, as the tail is from the bottom... and use the same spacing either side of the wings... that would also get rid of the distracting shadow top left... a shadow that pulls the eye away from the little dragonfly.

Bread by GlynM
This is more what I was looking for... gluten through a handlens...
I like the choice of B&W in this shot as it enhances the texture of the "crumb"...
17 stacked shots... this is something no one could have really dreamed of thirty years ago.
This is definitely in with a chance.

Eggs by smudge
"Just a box of eggs" says it all... there is some texture on the foreground egg... but there is too much o.o.f. for it to be in with a chance... sorry.

scouring pad by wozfromcov
Very different... I love the texture in this... at first I thought it was frog spawn!!
But, no, it is a macro shot of a soapy scouring pad... lovely.

Chains by tperris
Here the links of chain form a continuous mass. The only distraction being the steel bar at bottom right... this would be best cropped out... or the link that it is lying over "repaired" with PottyShop to place it in the background...
There is really nothing here to give scale; also nice... we are left wondering... 4" links is my guess. Too big and heavy to feel funning through your fingers. A nice picture with the slight "rust" tones...I wonder what a B&W conversion would look like...

Drafting brush bristles by go4IT
Another "macro-with-stacking" picture... nice colours...an interesting texture that would be better, I feel, with the top cropped down to remove the background...and cropped up to remove some of the o.o.f area at the bottom...

Nike by laupd
Nice use of B&W here to make the viewer concentrate on the texture[s]... there is more than one in this picture... the material is one... the areas over-stitched with an approximation of the Nike logo, another.... and a third where the cords pass. Nice...

Tangerine Sunset. by Nigelk
Sandstone texture used... with a tangerine as a sun... to create a mountain at sunset... not what I had in mind when I set the competition, sorry... but a very creative piece of photography, nonetheless... it was simply the sandstone texture I was looking for.
This picture, though, could set a monthly up..."A landscape scene created from nearby objects"... with apologies in advance to the families of GlynM and others, should someone set it in the future!!

Combustion Chamber by Crossed-up
Textures in the metal of a cylinderhead... could be a B&W photograph, save for the touch of colour by the valve stem opening. Lots of very interesting textures of a similar nature in this... nice.

Caught on the wire by paulb531
Lovely texture on these hop leaves caught on barbed-wire.... but the texture is again too little in a large picture... to be in with a chance, it needs to be cropped in at each side to almost touching the leaf... that removes the distraction of the background holly, too.

Feeling brittle by ken2390
The soft cushiony texture of a pincushion-type moss transformed in close-up into a fragile landscape of miniature sticks!
I feel, personally, that this shot would have benefited from a much larger DoF to show the heads of the "pins".
You had plenty to play with... this being shot at f2.8 at 100ASA [ISO if you prefer]... you could have gone to 400 and got a smaller aperture to play with... also coming away from the subject and cropping-in in PottyShop or its ilk.

shellcomb by johnjm
A lovely rough texture formed by the barnacles, rather than limpets... and old, yes, but not dead... once the tide comes in all the closed windows in the futuristic townscape will open.... the inhabitants frantically waving their arms in the water trying to filter something edible from the detritus flowing past. This looks like a city from one of the Starwars planets to me... a wonderful spot...

Industrial sculpture by davidtrout
What an amazing set of textures in this old bit of railway engineering... I love the hammerhead marks on the part that has tolerances that are so tight that it always needs to be hammered back into place... these contrast nicely with the filed and polished metal that surrounds them... and that nut with its pressure plate... milled out of round bar by the appearance of it. To me, that is real "subject" of this photo.
A good photo, too with the distractions of the "background" dark enough... or darkened enough... not to distract.

Toe texture by Noelcmn
Lovely texture here in the weathered stone... assisted by some moss, or lichen, or just dirt... but the pattern created by the sculpture itself, seems to distract from the texture. And there is a slight loss of DoF towards the big toe that distracts.

Great reed mace explosion by davidwozhere
A lovely, soft cushiony texture to finish with.... two main textures spring out of this picture... the loose mass to the left ready to be distributed by the wind.... and the collection of make-up brushes on the right....well, that's what it conjours up to me, anyway.
Photographically David you've left room in the picture for the seeds to fly away into... but in this instance to show textures, I feel a crop.. just into those looser seeds... is warranted.... as well as a crop out of the most o.o.f bit at the top. That would give a nice dark background to match the darker part of the subject... top left to bottom right and leave a strong bright, rightward ascending diagonal of texture. Great picture...

So... twenty pix, a lot of new names to me, too... nice to see... and also nice to see some pix that were shot for the weekly!

First place goes to johnjm for "shellcomb"
Second goes to GlynM for "Bread"
Third equal to davidwozhere for "Great reed mace explosion" and go4IT for "Drafting brush bristles"

HCs to Industrial Sculpture by davidtrout, scouring pad by wozfromcov and Chains by tperris

A great selection of pix to look through, thanks again for entering....
now over to johnjm for this weeks subject.
Edited by drofmit: 10/04/2017 - 08:52
davidtrout
Posted 10/04/2017 - 09:14 Link
Thanks for the competition Tim and in particular for the very detailed comments. Congratulations to johnjm on a superb winner and to GlynM ( this was a subject right up his street) and to the equal 3rds, davidwoxhere and go4IT.
Thanks for my HC and congratulations to wozfromcov and tperris for the commendations.
David
laupd
Posted 10/04/2017 - 10:21 Link
Interpretation was wide and interesting! Well done to the winners. Enjoyed this one.
Paul
GlynM
Posted 10/04/2017 - 10:41 Link
Many thanks Tim for a great competition and as David mentioned is just the sort of challenge I really enjoy.

Many thanks too for awarding my entry the coveted 2nd place .

Congratulations to johnjm for the fantastic wining shot, my fellow runners-up davidwoxhere and go4IT, the HCs plus everyone else for another fantastic set of diverse images.

Glyn
Edited by GlynM: 10/04/2017 - 10:45
i-Berg
Posted 10/04/2017 - 11:11 Link
Congrats to John and the placegetters and HCs. Thank you Tim for the comp and feedback.
mudge
Posted 10/04/2017 - 12:49 Link
Congratulations to the podium winners, and to Tim for an interesting challenge, with some excellent feedback!

I'll certainly use my feedback when entering one of our Club's monthly Set Subject Competitions (which so happens to be "texture") scheduled for later in the year
Posted 10/04/2017 - 14:26 Link
Thanks Tim for the win, feedback and competition. It's always the ones you least expect that do the best, I took this to use as a textured overlay, but have yet to find the right image for it. Thanks once again and I hope I can generate half the interest with this week's comp.
Noelcmn
Posted 10/04/2017 - 14:34 Link
Wow that was an interesting challenge, loved looking through all of the entries, and add to that excellent feedback makes for a satisfying challenge. Thanks to Tim are in order, another learning curve gleaned from all the comments and critiques. Congratulations to JohnJM, loved that image when I saw it, its lovely, and spot on color rendition. Worthy winner! Congrats extended to GlynM for the gluten lust created (thank you ) Davidwozhere, Go4IT and not forgetting the HM's Davidtrout, Wozfromcov and tperris. Great stuff everyone!
paulb531
Posted 10/04/2017 - 19:33 Link
Congratulations to johnjm on a superb winner shot. Thanks to Tim for the competition and the detailed comments.

Regards

Paul
davidwozhere
Posted 11/04/2017 - 00:18 Link
Great set of comprehensive comments Tim - thank you for a really good challenge (and a third place!). I hope you ate the bread afterwards Glynn following that processing marathon. I was tossing coins for that and John's barnacles. Well done both of you and congratulations to the three commendations too.
Both the *istDS and the K5 are incurably addicted to old glass

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