Weekly Competition #2 - Play

Welcome back, Viewfinder, and with a proper camera and a decent picture, too! Congratulations.

G

Here is my entry

By William Shakespeare

Act One -






Howard

Vandals at play during reception.

Wimbledon 2007, Playing between the showers

Oh wow! Quite a bumper entry, and I'm sure my choices are going to upset some people, but it's my decision so it doesn't have to be right! As the pictures were posted over the course of the week, I agonised mightily over several different shots.

I'll follow John's lead and run through the pictures in the order they were posted. Apologies if I am not as perceptive a John, but I am new to this judging lark!

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Johnriley When I saw this I did wonder if anyone else would even try and enter the competition this week! Lovely use of the diagonals and a nice way to combine two images to capture the scene. Really good example of using editing software to tell a story. Second Place

amoringello Good use of a limited palette of colours and shallow dof. I must admit something like this sprang into my own mind when I came up with the subject of "Play". Maybe just a wee bit too dark?

Rodger Fooks Captures the fun of play, and I like the way the net seems to divide up the scene.

niblue Good balance between freezing the action by having the face sharp and focussed, but the slight movement blur on the feet and the arm position convey a lot of action. Not only is it a good photograph in difficult circumstances but also conveys the fun element in "play" First Place

Lee Ash Like the use of lines and diagonals in the climbing frame, fence and clouds. Is the horizon straight? Big dof. Would have liked to see it larger!

petekd I like the motion blur which gives energy to the scene and the bright colours. Just feel that the foreground on the left is a bit empty. I might have cropped in tighter on the action on the see-saw.

Prieni Like the low angle which almost makes it seem that it is a real street shot from a rooftop. I assume some PS work with a blur layer to keep the main street in "focus"?

Lilly striking colour combinations add vibrancy and energy, a very crisp image showing a lot of detail in the saxophone.

deecy captures the enjoyment of playing a musical instrument, nicely focussed on the subject's eyes.

justgetoutandride Wow, that gets your attention! I like ike the use of dof and the grain which adds to the menacing feel. Hope you don't know where I live! Commended

stevejcoe Good timing to capture child looking for wave, dynamic body position and good framing - space left for the child to surf into

bettyswolloks Witty take on "play". Do the two circles also allude to other spherical obects?

Galoot Fantastic expression, good control on dof, and the highlight shining on the head of the guitar, real or fake is a great touch. Third Place

ChrisA The grain gives an impression of energy, but the smooth black background jarred a bit

viewfinder A lot of energy in this shot. The focus on the eyes really grabs your attention. Shame there is slightly too much refection in the dog's eyes. When you get the software loaded up, you'll be burning to your hearts content! Commended

LiamDHigh speed action well caught, but seem to lose some detail in the horses.

pschlute Interesting placements of subjects in the frame, like the contrast between the straight lines on the cloth and the curves of the wheel. I might have made the ball the point of focus as that would be the "story" of the picture.

HowardJ Ah, the play's the thing! Need to keep those lines vertical and horizontal.

Don I like the expression and the pose of the girl, and the hand "caught in the act" of shrink wrapping the car. Good use of low angle to avoid problems with flash reflections. Highly Commended

confused Excellent timing to catch the ball and racquet in the right positions and the player watching the ball onto the racquet, so it looks like his coach taught him well. Great effort especially as most spectators are not in the best positions for good action shots.

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So well done to everyone, and especially Niblue. Over to you mate, for next week's competition. If the quality continues to escalate at this rate I don't envy your job! Please start two threads, one sticky for the photos and one for the comments.

Thank you.
the image was a candid (she was posing for the onlookers, not nescesarally, me. the image was cropped a little and colorbalanced, thats really about it.
lighting was done with a homemade diffuser (cutoff bottom of a translucent waterbottle, (rubbermaid, perfect fit to 360 fgz) with a tinfoil wrapped business card to direct some light forward.). I blurred the licence plate in pse. Entering was a last minute idea....

Congaratulation to our sencond winner niblue, who is now invited to start a new thread for competition #3. Deadline next Sunday at 12 midnight.

What will the subject be?

Many thanks to Ammonyte for the current judging, you did just fine!

A final note, do please keep the next thread to posting pictures and not comments, until the competition is closed and judged. Then it's open for anyone to chip in. Any comments that do creep in early will be deleted because it's not really making our judge's job any easier to be distracted by others' opinions.....

Have fun!

Tim,

tough job judging this and you chose the right winner IMHO. My entry, BTW, is in fact a shot of a real scene, taken from the local lighthouse. And yes, blur layer used to create a shallow DOF as you would get from a macro shot.
You can find a few more of these shots at
http://picasaweb.google.com/Prieni/FakeModelPhotos
and also the link to the tutorial that "inspired" me to try:
http://recedinghairline.co.uk/tutorials/fakemodel/

niblue,
congratulations to this wonderful shot. I think it fits the theme brilliantly!

All,
well done, some good shots again!

Prieni

Congratulations to the winner and all the entrants.

Yep, well done all,

Well done all, special mention to the judge for a very balanced critique, not an easy task with so many fine entries.
I'll try and ensure I get an entry into any further challenges.

It's looking as if niblue has disappeared somewhere and is totally unaware of this win, which of course delays our next challenge.

I'll wait until Wednesday evening and then I think we'll carry on with another competition. Hopefully niblue will return, but we shall see.

And PeteKD has disappeared too, at exactly the same time. Is there a connection? Enquiring minds want to know.

G

He hasn't really disappeared. He was entering competitions elsewhere this morning.