This competition has now finished and the reviews and results are up.

Glyn

But perhaps the best pictures are not just an accurate depiction of an item but have a little extra something that makes the rest of us want want to own or rent it .

Glyn

Here is the pace for any discussion on monthly competition #5 - "Sell Me Something".

Inspired by some of the dreadful pictures some people use to try and sell things on eBay I want you show how it should be done.

To try and make this open though I am not restricting this to a product shot but anything related to selling, from objects, services, food to even concepts and places to stay or visit. I would also be happy to see good examples of others selling and certainly here, with the run-up to Christmas, shop fronts and markets must be brimming over with good examples.

As is traditional I will stop looking in here once the first entry has been posted.

Good luck,

Glyn

With thanks to John Riley for the first entry the competition is under way so I am out of here.

Feel free to discuss without influencing the result.

Good luck everyone,

Glyn

In having to come up with a new subject, now chosen, for the weekly competition I have updated the list:


Weekly

1. The Number Six
2. Play
3. Heat
4. Flight
5. Self Portrait
6. Wood
7. Age
8. Reflection
9. Water
10. People Communication
11. Solitude
12. Hard and Soft
13. The Industrial Landscape
14. Motion
15. Favourite Places
16. Patterns
17. The Mark of Man
18. Shadows
19. The Monochrome Landscape
20. My Day
21. 'Something' on toast
22. Red
23. Light
24. Recycled
25. Christmas
26. Buildings
27. An abstract, subject matter: any plant in MONO
28. Watching the watchers
29. Paper Scissors Stone
30. One of My Best Photos
31. The Eyes Have It
32. Love is...
33. My Town
34. Street Furniture
35. Sky's the Limit
36. Spring
37. Movement
38. Long Exposure
39. Wildlife
40. Upside-down
41. Natural Light
42. Our House
43. Local Shop & Keeper
44. Rain
45. Blue
46. Public Transport
47. Sea and Shore
48. Tools of the Trade
49. Decay & Dereliction
50. On Ice
51. The Street
52. The Ugly
53. The Pleasure of Summer Holiday
54. Sleep
55. The World Today
56. My Home Town
57. Proverbs
58. Sweet Tooth
59. Contrast
60. Alone
61. Bridge(s)
62. A Touch of Red
63. Cute
64. Mysterious
65. Desktop Backdrop
66. Colour of Autumn
67. Evening
68. Children's Expressions
69. Architecture
70. Transport
71. Music
72. Contre Jour
73. Glass
74. Brewing up a Storm
75. Boots and Shoes
76. Still life in black & white
77. Feelings & Emotions
78. New Year's Eve
79. One Hundred Yards from Home
80. Nearness
81. Flower Power!
82. Bicycles
83. For Sale
84. A Face
85. Italy
86. An Instrument of Time
87. This Modern World
88. Reflections!
89. Abstract
90. Heavy
91. Made of Steel
92. Long Exposure
93. Vegetables
94. Woods and Forests
95. Orange
96. Used
97. Smooth
98. Protection
99. People at Work
100. Self Portrait
101. The Inconvenient Truth
102. Celebration!
103. Something Green...
104. Craftsmanship
105. Spots "n" Dots
106. Action
107. Dream
108. Smoke
109. Something bright or sparkling
110. Moment
111. Serenity
112. Hurry
113. Texture
114. Distance
115. Yun
116. Shadows
117. Street Photography
118. Its a funny old world
119. Quirky Small Buildings
120. Reading and Writing
121. Windows
122. Crystal
123. Freedom
124. Fog/Mist
125. Brickwork
126. Favourite Food
127. History
128. Weightlessness
129. Festivities!
130. Cubes, Squares, Oblongs
131. Companions
132. Steam
133. Street Portraits
134. Size Contrast
135. Culture
136. Suffering
137. Wood
138. Generations
139. The hand of man
140. A trick of the eye – perspective compression
141. The Four Seasons
142. Macro Mystery...Lets Get Close!!
143. Curved Surface
144. Ground level
145. Retro!
146. Evolution
147. Late
148. Catchlights.
149. Water of Life
150. Life in Motion
151. Optical Illusion
152. Duotone
153. Communications
154. Portray the crowd
155. Sunglasses!
156. Low-key
157. People in the Environment
158. Glamour
159. Summer
160. ND 1.8 – ND 3.0
161. Garden Safari
162. Rain
163. Dawn and Dusk
164. Painted shop front window
165. Depth of Field
166. It’s What’s on the Inside That Counts.
167. Adults at Work or Play
168. Public art
169. Stimulating the senses
170. Iconic Objects
171. A Crop can make the Difference
172. Halloween
173. Lines
174. Song Titles
175. A Treasure
176. Object Trouve
177. The Culinary (Competition)
178. The Beatles Songbook
179. ‘Adversity’
180. Low Key
181. Industrial
182. Love
183. Public Sculpture
184. Curves
185. Children at work or play.
186. Black and White Landscapes
187. Long Exposure
188. Isolation
189. Bridges
190. Surreal Competition
191. This is Me
192. Water Every Where!
193. Numbers
194. Nature breaks it’s path
195. JAPAN!!!
196. Breaking “The Rules”
197. Fungi
198. Flowers In A Natural Setting
199. No Sky
200. Age
201. Man-made
202. Sell, sell, sell!!!
203. Holiday
204. Animal Emotion
205. Three
206. Graphic Abstract
207. France
208. Freedom
209. Urban landscapes
210. Wheels
211. Film Noir Mood
212. Heat and Glare
213. Russia
214. Connections
215. A Door
216. An Album Cover
217. Perfect Timing
218. Best Macro Shots – Summer 2011
219. Street Markets
220. Best Panning Shot
221. Stripes
222. Tell Your Travel Story
223. Depicting Age
224. Breakfast
225. A Room
226. A Splash of Colour
227. All Things Two
228. Human Sporting Emotion
229. Horses
230. Twelve Days of Christmas
231. Low Light
232. Alone in the City
233. Joy
234. Bikes & Bikers
235. Literature
236. Boat and Lake
237. Night Nature
238. Rhyming Slang
239. Frost - - - -
240. and all this is FOOTBALL!
241. Close up/Macro
242. A man with a camera
243. The Passing of Time
244. It is Where I Am From
245. Childhood Memories
246. The Impact of Architecture
247. Heavy Metal
248. Pastel Shades
249. A Character
250. Reportage
251. Focus on Rejuvenation
252. Door To …
253. Nifty Fifty
254. Monochrome
255. “T”
256. Fire and Ice
257. Rain!
258. Rubbish in the environment
259. Round
260. Vertebrate Wildlife
261. Wide Angle
262. Going Loco
263. Olympic Fire
264. One for the wall
265. Break Time
266. Clouds
267. Holiday Time
268. Shooters
269. Blades
270. Still Life
271. Shadow Play
272. Electric



Fortnightly Competitions

1. Vistas
2. Product Shot
3. Lunch Break
4. Something Wooden
5. Christmas
6. A Night Shot
7. Scales
8. Frozen water
9. Doors
10. Everyday Object, from a Weird, Unusual, Puzzling Perspective
11. Something Wide
12. Your Best Shot Ever
13. Reflections
14. Night
15. Fruit
16. Art in the Community
17. Hands
18. Movement
19. "The Sun"
20. Relaxation or Relaxed
21. Shadows
22. My Roots, My Place
23. The Ground
24. Menace & Foreboding
25. A bad day at the office !
26. Half and half
27. ‘The White Shirt’
28. Bonfire Night
29. Cars
30. Curves
31. Juxtaposition
32. Your Weather
33. Stairs
34. Long Exposure
35. “Design Icon”
36. People
37. Hobbies
38. Genus Loci
39. Order and Disorder
40. Industrial Landscape
41. Childhood Memories
42. Local Flora
43. Faces
44. Food!!
46. Health
47. B&W Portraits
48. Wire, string, rope
49. Science Fiction
50. One Colour
51. Industry
52. Classical Music
53. Sunset
54. Energy
55. Time Piece
56. Abstract impressionism
57. Mono/Chrome
58. Space
59. Snow & Cold
60. Spatial
61. Silhouette
62. Eggs
63. Subject Noir (Black)
64. Plastic
65. Through a Door
66. Spring is Sprung
67. The Sacred
68. An Image That Looks Good From a Distance
69. Blur
70. Leading Lines
71. Wildlife
72. Barriers
73. Square Pictures
74. Interior
75. Steps
76. Water
77. Chiaroscuro
78. A Smell
79. Five Minutes’ Walk
80. Book / Books
81. Crop & PoP
82. Preparations
83. Relaxation
84. Bits & Pieces
85. Skies
86. Golden Hour
87. Bokeh
88. Vignette in mono
89. Natures Gifts
90. Simplicity
91. Buildings
92. Weather
93. Two
94. Tree
95. Texture
96. Heritage


Monthly Competitions
Previous Forum Competitions:
1. Fine Art Mono Landscapes
2. Generations
3. Opposites
4. RGB
5. Communications
6. Three Courses

Current:
1. Night Shots
2. Humour
3. Men at Work



Updated until 24-09-12

Here is the pace for any discussion on weekly competition #272 "Electric".

Hopefully I am setting a subject that has a wide interpretation:

From something that is produced by, producing, transmitting or powered by electricity. Then, of course, it could be something tense, exciting or emotionally charged.

As is traditional I will stop looking in here once the first entry has been posted.

Good luck,

Glyn

One of the features of the gallery that I like and use a lot is that your gallery pictures also appear in a portfolio attached to your profile.

Often when I see a picture in the gallery that I like I will click on the submitter's user-name to get to their portfolio and have a look at what other work they have done.

My portfolio probably just shows how bad my pictures were when I started out and hopefully, with a lot of help from this forum, that I might have got a little better .

I do tend to copy my competition entries into the gallery, once the competition has been judged, to get them into my portfolio. I do worry a little though that this is duplicating and wasting storage space for the site.

Glyn

Very sad news indeed. Tony once spent some time on-line explaining to me how to get a good picture of a squirrel but I was never able to match the quality of his pictures.

He will be very much missed in this forum and my condolences go to his friends and family.

Glyn

Hi Roger,

Many thanks for the inspiration. I would not have thought of trying this without the article and looking at the pictures in your gallery.

I did follow many of the hints in the article. The plastic bag approach worked really well although initially I put too much water in and got a stream instead of drips

I used four bits of A3 white paper taped together as a long, wrap-around, background but perhaps it was not quite tall enough. The subdued lighting and low power flash were also great hints.

I used a glass dish in a stainless steel tray and I guess this is why I got a lot of mid-grey background. I'm not too sure where the colour came from but I guess it was reflections of the junk in my garage.

I am definitely hooked and will certainly give it another go.

Thanks again,

Glyn

Inspired by the short article explaining how Roger Hammond achieved his great water droplet pictures I thought I would give it a go.

A lot of luck seems to be involved and it is certainly a quick way of making a big increase on the camera shutter count but was great fun, particularly as I should have been doing something else.

I found it difficult to get the low-down camera position that Roger adopts without seeing the edge of the water container. I also liked to see a bit more of the surface disturbance so I eventually set the camera a bit higher although in some I still caught the edge of the container.

While initially I converted the images to B&W I felt that this made some of the images feel a bit flat so for these I have left the colour in.

I took 167 images which I whittled down to 40 and here are four of my favourites:

[IMG]http://i172.photobucket.com/albums/w20/GlynM/Water%20Droplets/IMGP4479-p2-800.jpg[/IMG]

[IMG]http://i172.photobucket.com/albums/w20/GlynM/Water%20Droplets/IMGP4511-p1-800.jpg[/IMG]

[IMG]http://i172.photobucket.com/albums/w20/GlynM/Water%20Droplets/IMGP4601-P2-800.jpg[/IMG]

[IMG]http://i172.photobucket.com/albums/w20/GlynM/Water%20Droplets/IMGP4588-p2-800.jpg[/IMG]

There is obviously still lots of room for improvement and many more things to learn but starting off has been fun. One thing I did learn very quickly is not to use a glass dish with "Pyrex" stamped on the bottom .


Shot with the Pentax-K-5 and the Samsung equivalent of the DFA100 Macro.
Manual Focus with a Samsung SEF-36PZF flash.
Shot in near darkness in my garage .

Glyn