Weekly Competition #129 - Festivities! Competition

Sorry for the delay in posting these results (certainly when compared to the last few competitons!) - I had a very late night last night and today has been very slow to get going!


Patrick: The first entry got us off to a chilly start! Obviously food for a festive feast, but it doesn't really say 'festivities' to me. Perhaps once it's all cooked and laid out on a table...

Escaladieu: Keeping to the French theme, we have a funny little mannequin as part of the decorations. The lighting's a bit stark, presumably just from a floodlight, and the foliage looks a bit too dry and wilted.

Hyram: I'm not a great fan of this sort of photoshop work, but that aside, I find the bow a little too central for my taste compositionally speaking. I want to be able to see more detail in the pic too.

Nathanever82: Exactly why I chose not to have the theme 'Christmas'! A nice shot of this traditional decoration, using the window for added reflections, but I wonder if this would have made a more interesting picture if taken from the side, picking out just one candle in focus?

Belinda B.: An atmospheric shot of this lovely statue (I like church architecture and ornamentation). In an ideal world the sharpness and noise could have been better but sometimes we just have to make do with what we can manage in the circumstances. But I would love to see this taken with an SLR on a tripod at ISO100.

Dr. Mhuni: Ah, the modern day cathedral! Nice use of the fisheye, and good exposure. I might have prefered the viewpoint being further forward, to see the complete tree and the steps leading down to it?

Tickhiller: A good portrait of this decoration, but I'm not sure about the cooler light (from a window) on the right side as we look at it, and the composition's just a bit 'straight on' for me.

Davidtrout: I'm sure your daughter's friend will love you for posting that here! A fun photo that captures the spirit of the occasion, with good exposure showing detail in the black dress without obviously burning out any of the white areas.

Johnriley: Although it's lit with flash, this seems a very noisy image, and this detracts from the shot for me. Looking down on 'B' also doesn't look right - bend your knees and get down to her level! (Tut tut!)

Matwhittington: A nice, simple, well lit shot that captures the essence of christmas tree decorations. Well done.

Madmazda86: Not quite as simple a shot as Mat's, this has a more muddled look to it.

JudithAnn: Another christmas tree decoration, this has lovely colours and definition, with quite a dreamy look to the left hand side. Nice shot.

Thoughton: This made me smile as soon as I saw it, with the bear's humourous expression, and the hint of a christmas tree in the background - it's well taken, simple and effective. Not sure the eyes are quite sharp, the focus looks to be slightly behind them, but that may just be an effect of resizing, reducing the quality?

Haworth: I really like this one, which for me captures the burning pudding excellently, and has lots of other nice touches - the girl's expression, the mince pies etc. I like the movement in the image too.

MarjutL: I find this one just a bit too dark overall to be an effective composition. Although there are some details in the background, it's just not enough to give me a proper sense of what the photo's about.

GaryJohn: This was my wife's favourite, but I'm afraid it's not mine. I like the idea, but I look for a sharp detail as a focal point, and I struggle to find one - was it really 10 seconds at f/38? If so, I think either the lens doesn't perform so well at this aperture, or you need a sturdier tripod. I want to like this, but the technical aspects spoil it for me.

Mikew: I like the colours, but I'm not sure I'm a lensbaby man. I find the way the brown beer bottle lable cuts the edge of the frame bottom left a bit distracting too, would have prefered it to go to the corner I think.

Womble: Yep, she definitely likes that present, and you've caught her at just the right moment too. The flash has balanced the exposure nicely with the background, but I find that the face isn't quite sharp, the top looking more in focus.

Ben76: Wow, that's a lot of cake! I think I'd prefer this picture with the bottom of the fireworks and the right side of the cakes in shot - it all looks a bit too tightly cropped to me. Exposure's always going to be a bit tricky with this sort of subject but you've done well here.



First Place: Haworth
Second Place: Thoughton
Third Place: Davidtrout

Commended: Matwhittington, Belinda B.

Thanks all for taking part when you probably had much better things to be doing, and apologies again for the late judging!

Gee thanks Dan, that's my first third place. It was a fun competition to enter. You are right, my daughter's friend might not be amused at my entry so I'm not even telling my daughter what I've done. Thanks for the excellent judging and I agree with your winner, Haworth's was a good choice. Congratulations to him.

Dan

Another top weekly comp - many thanks for my commendation..., and big well dones to the winner and the judge!

Cheers

Mat

Well done Dan good judging and well expressed comments. Well done Haworth for an image that sort of sums up the drama of the Christmas meal.

I must say I thought David's image was good at summing up festivities and also JudithAnn's which seemed both apt and in no way mawkish which could happen.

Mike

Good Heavens, Cheers Dan!

Didn't expect to be placed to be honest - the shot was grabbed just after the pud appeared (unannounced) and I really thought the clutter on the table would be it's let-down.

Well done the others- I had Thoughton's bear down for top place, really made me laugh!!!

Crickey, better think of a theme quickly. Give me time to have a quick slurp of liquid inspiration and I'll be right back.
H.

Congratulations to Haworth and thanks to Dan for the competition and judging.

I really liked the colour of mikew's entry and of course the bear from thoughton.

I had a feeling that Dan would not like the PP effect of my entry but I wanted a change from ultra sharp shots with lots of detail

ok - but the big peace is frozen ... i can't cook smoked salmon ... but all was good ! anyway, thanks for the idea ! what's next ?

Thanks for the crit! After I posted it I looked at it and thought that I should've cropped it a bit to get rid of the surrounding space. There was nothing deliberate about the composition at all - I just took a pic of the cracker to demonstrate to my brother how close I could get while maintaining the focus and it turned out unexpectedly nice.

There were some great entries, I enjoyed looking at them. Those mince pies in the winning pic look far more tasty than they ought to given how many I've eaten already XD Also, much love for the bear - there's just something about his slightly cross-eyed look that's endearing...

Thanks Dan, and whatever else we could say at least there's been a certain consistency!

Thanks for the judging and the 2nd place Dan!

I liked lots of the entries, in particular the richly coloured entries from Mike, Judith and MadMazda.

Cheers for the judging Dan (not the kind of responsibility you need really over Xmas!) and congrats to Haworth and the others.

Many thanks to Dan for the competition, the judging and my Commended.

Congratulations to all the podium finishers.

At the time that I was taking this with the X70, Hyram was using two K20's to photograph the stained glass windows, but our tripods were back in the UK.

Perhaps next year, we will take a tripod with us and I can retake the shot.