Weekly Competition #313 - Wood Competition

Thanks to everyone who took some time off from the wonderful weather we’re having (at least in these isles) to upload an entry for this week’s competition. Wood, whether in its raw or processed state, is often a thing of beauty. But I have tried to judge the photographs not principally in terms of my liking (or even disliking) of the wood pictured but for what the photographer has done to interpret the theme and produce a result that deserves a fine frame (wooden, of course).

My thoughts on each submission are as follows:

Perspicador’s ‘Wacky Propulsion’ is fun. It has a slightly less obvious focus on wood than I was expecting (I take it the canoe is wood rather than aluminium or fibre-glass). Mercifully, the pirate is in the tradition of Swallows and Amazons rather than Blackbeard, so our waters remain safe.

Tyronnet’s ‘Tree House’ is, as the name suggests, unambiguously about wood. The bright sunlight shows off the wood to good effect, while the architect/builder has obviously had the chance to indulge a few fantasies. It is a shot ‘of record’, technically perfectly good, rather than one that stretches the imagination (though the tree house itself may do that).

I was interested to see JAK’s ‘The Totem’, having previously only seen Hockney’s representation of it. I hadn’t realised that vandals have since destroyed the original seen here. JAK has made a good job of photographing the ‘Totem’, though the lush vegetation of high summer last year (plenty of rain to encourage it, remember) didn’t allow him to hint at the clean lines of Hockney.

Hayzeeday’s ‘View of Crow Point’ brings out the texture of the sea-washed timbers. That part of the town across the estuary seen through the central uprights is visually distracting. Perhaps some repositioning of the shot or limiting of the depth of field might have helped.

Michdoom’s ‘Hmm forest’ is a reminder of the cropping (think forestry, not photography) necessary to get the wood shown in most of the other photographs, and to the extent that the photograph shows stumps, cut logs, and growing trees, it tells a simple tale well. It is impossible to be dogmatic about other possible opportunities with this subject, but I wonder whether getting closer to that wood pile (with due caution) would have offered any interesting shapes or striking patterns.

AxelLuther’s ‘Old Wood’ is intriguing. It is like one of those puzzles where you are shown something taken at an unusual angle, with its context removed. For the life of me, I cannot solve this one. The visual impact of the photograph is strong and the orangey squares of wood (‘encouraged’ in the processing?) about three quarters of the way along are effective at drawing the eye into the photograph. Rotating the square to make a diamond was a good decision, enhancing the interest of the composition.

Noelcmn’s ‘Saddened Wood’ looks suitably glum, and the pale streaks in the wood do look as though the tear ducts are in regular use. It’s nicely observed, though the photo doesn’t appear sharp to me. At a focal length of just over 100mm, the speed of 1/30 (if I’ve made proper sense of the exif data) may have been too slow. The stonework seems to show signs of over-sharpening in processing, or perhaps the image shown here is a severe crop of a larger original (?). I’ve never really settled in my own mind what I think about doctoring reality, to the extent of removing objects from a photograph, but I’d be sorely tempted to lose that water tap…

Geordie01’s ‘Driftwood’ might almost have been part of JAK’s vandalized ‘Totem’. The detail of the wood and bark is nicely captured in this photograph. Although it is obvious that the wood is the central subject, it is a confusing background, all in sufficiently sharp focus to pull the eye this way and that. I wonder whether it would have been helped a little by opening up the lens further, blurring the distant objects, but this strikes me as inherently a difficult shot to get ‘right’. I had a look at your PU Gallery, Geordie01, and thought there were several shots there that were much superior to the one you submitted on this occasion – but I would not be surprised to hear that they’re ineligible, having already scooped up prizes in earlier competitions.

Jim-w’s ‘A Hoot in Wood’ helps along the carver’s intention that we should, at least momentarily, believe the owl is in flight. I’m not sure whether the mimicking of the film dyes of the (?)1960s in the processing contributes much to the effectiveness of the image (I’m just displaying my own bafflement at the popularity of this particular retro fashion). I feel more confident in suggesting that a wider aperture than f8 would have helped focus the viewer’s attention more on the bird, less on the background.

At first I thought VonBatCat had been to the same gardens as Jim-w, where there is also a sculpture in wood of horses, in a comparable arrangement to his. But VonBatCat’s horses don’t look as though they’ve been hewn with a chainsaw! This is an effective composition and the brown on black works well – or would do if the shadows were opened up just a touch. At present, the horses are very dark horses indeed, and the grain of the wood rather too incidental.

Hiddendragon28’s ‘Toys’ would once have been unexceptionable: even as recently as the middle of the last century most toys were made out of wood. Things change and so a wooden toy almost automatically draws our attention these days. Your exif data hasn’t come through so I can’t see what aperture this was shot at, but slightly too wide: take it down a stop and the dragon’s head would be in focus as well. The background is a bit distracting (and what I’ve just suggested will make it more so, I’m afraid). If it were possible to change your viewpoint, or even move the toy, so that you have a plain background the result would be improved.

johnriley’s ‘Knowledge into Wood’ is an evocation of how things have been in Europe since the late Middle Ages, though Kindles, online etc are certainly modifying how we pick up our knowledge these days. Wood pulp was not used until the mid C19 to make paper on any scale, so this photo may be showing us books made of rag-based paper. But the shelves seem wooden enough! At first I wasn’t sure about the foreground: the glass sets up the reflections nicely but by the same measure obscures the opened book. Looking at it again, I decided that’s probably an asset, giving the open book an almost ethereal quality. One surprise (to me) is that this was taken on a Pentax Q. What excellent rendering for such a tiny sensor.

GaryJohn’s ‘Cable Drums’ deserves a medal of honour for being taken especially for this competition. I like the overlapping circles and the different textures of the weather-bleached drums. What a pity you didn’t have free access to find the angle you wanted. If I had a hot dinner for every time I’ve found myself in a similar position …

ArsenAl’s ‘Before the Storm’ captures the co-existence of bright light – in this case illuminating the tree and its foreground – and the darkness of the coming storm creeping across the mountains in the background. It is a simple composition but effective.

mudge's 'Painted Wood' nicely contrasts the plain blue of the door and shutters with the variegated leaves in the left foreground. The plants are possibly a little too obtrusive, but short of heaving a planter or two out of shot, there's not a lot to be done about that. I like it that we can't see into the window.

Guided by the question ‘which one above all would I choose to hang on my wall?’, the first place goes to Axel Luther’s ‘Old Wood’. The components in his picture are uncomplicated yet the overall effect is pleasingly puzzling. Second prize goes to mudge's 'Painted Wood', with its few straightforward parts in careful harmony with one another. Third prize goes to ArsenAl’s ‘Before the Storm’, which captures its moment well, with a solitary tree taking centre stage.

So, the order is:

1: AxelLuther
2: mudge
3: ArsenAl

HC: johnriley and Hayzeeday

My thanks to all the participants.

Chris (CMW)

Congratulations to the Winner and other places. Thanks to Chris for the subject and comments.

Hi Chris - thanks for the topic and your prompt comments. I was really surprised this morning when I saw the result - the nice detail - another wood competition was my very first competition I joined here in PU - I really like the topic . Congratulations to ArsenAl and mudge for the podium and John and Hayzeeday for the HCs. Looking at the podium entries shows, how wide this topic can be interpreted, which makes such competitions very exciting.

Just to solve the riddle of my entry. It is the wooden roof construction of a very old ring wall of the benedictine abbey Comburg (the abbey was built 1100 - the ring wall in the 16th century).
The construction is turned 90° and mirrored, so the left and right tips are actually the top of the construction. The acute angle is not natural - I made it to get a nicer perspective effect and also to get the square proportion. The orange part was natural - at this spot, a window in the roof itself allowed some sunlight to shine in the dark construction.
To make the mirroring not too obvious, I also added some asymmetric parts by copying different fragments of the construction into other areas.

Many thanks for the competition and for the insightful judging. Clearly our judge thought carefully about his assessment and that effort shines through in the comments.

Well done Axel, your competition is already up and running (did everyone get up early today?)so now on to looking at that!

Congrats to Axel for the win and to the other podiums and HC's.
Thanks to Chris for taking the time to set and judge the competition.

Chris your comments on my entry did make me chuckle, first of all, at no point before, during or after my processing of this image did I make a conscious decision to 'mimic the film dyes of the 1960's' or of any other time, what I did was what a lot of people do, and that's to process the image in a way that I thought suited the image and in a way that I liked. Also at no point did I go out to create a 'retro or fashionable' image.
If you don't like my image that's fine I have no problem with that, but would have appreciated your comments to be based on what you can see rather than on assumptions.
Please don't be offended by my comments Chris I really do appreciate the time and effort you have put into the judging.
Looking at my image again on here I still like my treatment , but have noticed it's on the wonk .

All the best.....Jim

Jim -- you are quite right about not making assumptions about people's intentions. So easy to get it wrong, as I did. I'm quite happy to accept that you did not set out deliberately to echo the retro look I complained of.
Best,
Chris

CMW- thank you for my podium! Congrats to Axel ( great! ) and other winner's!!!