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Weekly #580 - The Car and the Open Road Competition

Competition Details
Closing Date: 26/08/2018
Judge: johnriley

The car has been getting a very hard time lately, so here's a chance to celebrate the joy of the car and the freedom of the open road. In other words, anything to do with cars, old or new, and motoring in general.
Competition Entries
johnriley
Posted 27/08/2018 - 00:54 Link
The car and the open road....one that perhaps Jeremy Clarkson should have picked up and entered? But he didn't, so he won't win, and the point of this preamble is that we love to see your pictures, so do please enter. You have to be in it to win it, but even more importantly you have to be in it to have your interpretation seen and enjoyed.

So on with the pictures and firstly many thanks to all who did enter. It's a fine choice of pictures to choose from.

Perspicador is first off the starting line, as usual, and the red of the wedding car is the striking feature of the image. It is possible that the colour saturation and contrast are a little overdone, which has resulted in the whites being over exposed. However, it is still a powerful shot.

Abe_Normal gives us the classic East German Wartburg 311 and it's great to see such a fine example of the car still in use. The angle of view gives us a good sense of its lines and there is little in the way of competing detail to distract. The other car serves to put the location in context.

davidtrout's Urban Motoring is a rather more mysterious, looking like a movie shot of a car waiting for the actor to come out of one of the buildings in the background. It reminds me of the style of filming of, say, The Saint or The Avengers. It's bold, brash and stylish.

stu62 offers a bleaker view of motoring with From Car to Open Road. The subdued exposure suits the situation perfectly and we can get a real feel of the situation. A subtle and effective image.

Roll On by NigelK hits the spot with a fine study of Rolls Royce classic cars. The night shoot enhances the effect further. These are absolutely gorgeous and photographed with skill and precision.

Here Comes the Sun from RobL is classy and clever. A lesson in how to show an Autobot transforming? I especially like the side on view. This suits the feel of the image and also of course helps to show off the movement. Excellent.

Stephen-s is Driving The Past, which just about encapsulates everything that I described in the brief for the competition. We have the classic car, the goggles, the action of the splashing through the ford and even the cyclist, casually observing the grandeur of classic driving. A cracking shot.

A Gleaming Riley – JAK need not worry about influencing the judge! Nicely observed, with a suitably tongue-in-cheek description, and a very high quality photograph. I suppose the red jacket is a shame, but I'm not going to be that picky!

Abraxas, Red and Italian is a fine composition and includes a very attractive backdrop. The cars are strong in the frame. I do think that the areas on the car bonnets that are over-exposed detract slightly, but the overall feeling is a well ordered and powerful image. The low viewpoint helps this feeling of power.

Noelcmn is clearly drivng on the wrong sort of roads with Car on the open road - what a state it is in. It shows very clearly the muck and does the job just fine. Even though it's not amongst the winners it is a well shot image.

In fact the overall standard of the set is very high, so please don't be discouraged if you are not in the top choices. My choices are:

The Winner is without doubt stephen-s with Driving The Past. It could not fulfill the competition any more perfectly, a superb shot.

Second Place is Roll On by NigelK, a really amazing collection of fine cars shot in a way that really enhances the subject.

Third Place is awarded to RobL for Here Comes the Sun. Very elegantly shot indeed.

Also, Highly Commended are stu62, Abraxas and davidtrout.

Thanks again for entering, let's get the numbers of entries up and up if we can, and I hand over the baton to stephen-s!
Noelcmn
Posted 27/08/2018 - 07:37 Link
What a fabulous winning shot, quite agree with the comments and choice of our judge on this one- certainly notches up the feelings of nostalgia! Such excellent details and colors, not forgetting the composition. Congrats Stephen-s. worthy winner. And extended to NigelK and RobL. And not forgetting the HC's Stu62, Abraxas and Davidtrout. Thanks to our judge for the CC's, as always much appreciated! Quite agree that the standards in this challenge was quite high and I certainly had no intention to be on the podium. Just wanted to show the "joys" of being a car owner .
Edited by Noelcmn: 27/08/2018 - 07:38
davidtrout
Posted 27/08/2018 - 09:22 Link
That was fun and John's commentary and choices are superb. A classy winning image so congrats to Stephen-s extended to the runners up NigelK and RobL and to my fellow HCs Stu62 and Abraxas. I just loved noelcmn's bird toilet photo - looks like a flock of flying ostriches has just swept over. What? Ostriches don't fly? Don't see any in the North East of England so I'm keeping an open mind.
David
stephen-s
Posted 27/08/2018 - 11:03 Link
Thanks for the positive feedback... I wish I was driving the past, although seeing the cars in action rather than static museum exhibits was refreshing. Congratulations to everyone who placed or entered, it was quite an entertaining cross section of the automotive world. I am really thankful that I don't have the results of Noel's photo to wash of my car today.
drofmit
Posted 27/08/2018 - 13:36 Link
Sorry John, very busy with life at the moment....
and when I saw Stephen's shot.... that you have chosen as the winner, that finished it for me.... it is an absolute cracker!!
Although I have masses of car photos... I have nothing like that!!
Perhaps a little too much of my photography these days consists of record shots....
Heyho, there you go!

Congrats to the winner and other podia.... and I need to go and clean a car that has been used for pigeon target practice!
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.
RobL
Posted 27/08/2018 - 20:31 Link
As soon as I saw the Bentley in the ford I knew that would be the winner, perfectly timed, well done. My shot of the Z4 was an experiment, I had tried multi-exposure but the moving parts were too ghostly so I tried merging separate images in post. Lightroom only has HDR which didn’t work so my only other available option was a focus stack programme I had on a free trial. It worked quite well but there are some strange artifacts so, if anyone knows a programme which will merge images other than Photoshop I would be interested to hear of it.
Nigelk
Posted 28/08/2018 - 21:16 Link
Excellent winning shot. Thank you for my second place, well done all, a lovely eclectic mix of entries.
Edited by Nigelk: 28/08/2018 - 21:17

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