Thread: LGK Photography Challenge #2

LGK Photography Challenge #2

Alright, everyone! Here’s the theme for LGK Photography Challenge #2. ValleyFan made his choice for the photographer who best illustrated the last Challenge's theme in his photographs, and his choice was PuckMonkey! PuckMonkey therefore gets the opportunity to choose the next Challenge them! And here it is, as chosen by our good friend, PuckMonkey!

PRIMARY COLORS/SHAPES

PuckMonkey sez: "Red, blue, and yellow. Circle, square, and triangle. Bonus points for combining the elements. Double bonus points for finding these elements within normal everyday objects. Triple bonus points for just submitting a kick-ass image."

Legal Disclaimer: No points of any kind will be given out for any images.

Pictures submitted to this thread should all reflect something to do with the theme. Of course, individual interpretation of the Challenge’s theme is what will make the photographs unique but please, explain the artistic intent of the image if it isn’t obvious! YOUR LGK PEERS ARE YOUR CRITICS, so don’t try pullin’ a fast one!! Please remember critiques are not personal attacks, take them with a grain of salt and apply it towards your art!

PLEASE FOLLOW THE RULES OF THE LGK PHOTO CHALLENGE THREADS, which can be found by clicking the link below.

LGK Photo Challenge Rules

This thread will be heavily moderated (by adhering to the rules) to maintain an easy format. Following the rules will help me keep this thread from straying from its original intent, so "Thank You!" in advance!

This Challenge ends at NOON on Friday, February 8, 2008! You have TWO WEEKS to get your best images into your photo post! REMEMBER, you don’t have to put them all up at once, but you have to have at least one image in your image post to openly critique or applaud others!

Start carrying your cameras with you, everyone! I can’t wait to see what we all come up with!

Please PM me with any questions or concerns!

LET'S GET IT ON!!

Click here for Photo Challenge #1 archived to .pdf.


EDIT: EXTENDED BY ONE WEEK!! NEW END DATE IS FRIDAY FEBRUARY 15 AT NOON! ONE MORE WEEK!!

When PM told me the theme he wanted (about 10 minutes before the thread went up), I had an idea of the first thing I wanted to shoot, so I'll start it all off again.

Tribute To X-WingCameWest: Top O' The LGK Heap

This is actually a re-shoot of an image I captured a month or so ago.
See the original version here.
Off-camera flash, tripod, black foam-core background, and a little tweaking of black
levels and contrast in Lightroom.

MMMMmmm...Blue Cupcakes!

Off-camera flash, 12mm extension tube, willpower. Flipped horizontally because
I suddenly realized that all my images have that sort of left-tilt to them,
and that pissed me off.

Wetro

Nikon 70-200 f/2.8, 2x teleconverter, monopod, galoshes.

Circles Of Color

Off-camera flash, 12mm extension tube.
I'm not even sure I like this shot, to be honest.
Others from this series of images are here.

Turnkey Operation


Scuba Steve(s)

Monopod. Not bad for ISO 1000 and a shutterspeed
well below my lens's focal length.

It say: "STUPID AMELICAN!"


PrimarApe


Umbrellary


What Are The Odds??


What Is The Fascination!?! Seriously??


Stars Upon Thars


Tile Mosaic


Flying Triangles

This is a detail of a bit of leaded-glass work at the Natural History Museum in their Birds exhibit.

it is in ireland.

Ok, so initial artistic interpretation is being used (very loosely and probably damned near against rules...) just to get something in. Hopefully Ill get Ghettocam to cooperate on the true 'primary' idea. My kid gave me this one. He calls it "I left my crap in the rain" and I call it "I told him to bring his crap inside". Color is the green, shape is the ROUND ball and the STAR on the shoes. LOL (like I said... loose.)

Studying Overload.
(this pic not a set up... and the homework was completed after the drool was removed from dictionary.)


Delicious Snack.

all this thread is tellin me is that my tax return needs to go to a better camera.

I think you can go either way with green or yellow as primary. In art school they teach you that yellow red and blue are the painter's traditional primary colors. These days images are mostly video (additive colors) or print (subtractive colors). The additive primary colors are red, green, blue and the subtractive colors are cyan, yellow and magenta. So "primary colors" can be interpreted different ways. That said, PuckMonkey laid down the challenge and specified yellow.

FBJ-Nice quick work right out of the gate! I like how you worked LGK in there. I also like the vivid colors. I might like to see what it would look like with a little more detail in the shadows. I don't know why. Maybe because you lose some of the symmetry of the block pile in the black.

Agree that this is definitely going to be a challenge!

Originally Posted by DeaderFan

FBJ-Nice quick work right out of the gate! I like how you worked LGK in there. I also like the vivid colors. I might like to see what it would look like with a little more detail in the shadows. I don't know why. Maybe because you lose some of the symmetry of the block pile in the black.

The black foamcore board isn't exactly black. It's more of a dark dark gray when under lights. Since I was going for a black background (to give the illusion of the blocks floating), I had to dial up the contrast along with the black clipping (only about a 10% increase, each) to finish off the effect. That took a little detail away from the shadows on the back side of the blocks. Two off-camera flash units would have made this photograph, in my opinion. Unfortunately, I only have one SB-800 (so far).

Yeah this one is going to be a challenge. With "glass," I had a ton of ideas right off the bat. With this one, I've already shot my wad. Don't know what I'm going to do with it from here on out, but I'm looking forward to everyone else's stuff.

Originally Posted by FlyKoharski'sJock

The black foamcore board isn't exactly black. It's more of a dark dark gray when under lights. Since I was going for a black background (to give the illusion of the blocks floating), I had to dial up the contrast along with the black clipping (only about a 10% increase, each) to finish off the effect. That took a little detail away from the shadows on the back side of the blocks. Two off-camera flash units would have made this photograph, in my opinion. Unfortunately, I only have one SB-800 (so far).

Yeah this one is going to be a challenge. With "glass," I had a ton of ideas right off the bat. With this one, I've already shot my wad. Don't know what I'm going to do with it from here on out, but I'm looking forward to everyone else's stuff.

Glenn, I've been experimenting with how to isolate objects with light so the background doesn't show up like you are talking about, and I have come up with a neat little trick that works pretty well - I light paint with my iPod. Low ISO (200) keeps it clean and noise free, long shutter (20-30 sec) allows me to wash the light over the subject, and the iPod only throws about 5 inches worth of light, so you can get pretty specific as to what you do and don't want lit. Just stage your scene, turn off the lights, release the shutter, and wave your iPod around the subject to you hearts desire. You have to continuously click the wheel on the iPod to keep the light on and be sure to keep the lit face of the iPod out of the field of view. Sounds weird I know, but the lighting that I've been getting is really nice and surprisingly neutral. I was experimenting with it last night and I'll throw up some images I got later.

Originally Posted by FlyKoharski'sJock

The black foamcore board isn't exactly black. It's more of a dark dark gray when under lights. Since I was going for a black background (to give the illusion of the blocks floating), I had to dial up the contrast along with the black clipping (only about a 10% increase, each) to finish off the effect. That took a little detail away from the shadows on the back side of the blocks. Two off-camera flash units would have made this photograph, in my opinion. Unfortunately, I only have one SB-800 (so far).

I understand. Another thing you could do is hold a large white foam board on the opposite side from the flash to bounce back some of the light, giving you the effect of another flash but not as strong. You can reduce the intesity by moving the white board farther away. I have seen some nice results with portraiture where you set up a studio strobe on one side of the subject and then have a white background/panel on the opposite side to bounce the strobe on to the shadow side of the subject . When the subject is photographed against a dark background it creates a dramatic lighting effect.

Originally Posted by ValleyFan

Big Joe:
Great image! It is hard to critique this shot, but if I had to say something, the only thing I would say is I wonder if a longer lens might suit this image a little better. This is just personal preference, but I think the more orthographic view that a longer lens (and having the camera further from the subject) would give you would really work here. As it is now, it feels a little "wide angle" where you can see the side of stuff at the edge of frame. With a longer lens, it would be more front on, which I think would just bump up the slickness quotient a hair. I do really like the shot.

I used my 75-300mm lens with this retake.

Originally Posted by ValleyFan

Now, if you want even more of a challenge on that image*, it might be interesting to see what a HDR version of it might look like, that way you might get the light without blowing it out and the dark text a little more legible (the result might be flat and uncontrasty, but it might be pretty cool)

I thought my computer was going to die doing this ( It took 15 mins. to render )

Some new ones.

Don't know if this one counts. He does have a reddish color though.

Really looking for these six things since the new challenge was introduced yesterday: red, yellow, blue---and square, circle, triangle. I've got some ideas... but until then:

Saw this tonight when partying post-grub out on the lanai with some guests. Just a glass of Armagnac with a box of little Romeo y Julieta Habanos Clubs and a red-glass candle so we cold see what the **** we were doing. But thought
the glowing red, yellow, and shapes looked cool and fairly appropriate so grabbed the camera hoping to share.




1/5sec, f4.5, ISO-800, 14-42mm kit lens, and a slight crop. No other adjustments.


*edit* Replaced with cropped version, 1/31/08.

***

2/3/08:

Sitting at my office desk when the challenge was named these tacks were the first thing seen, followed by some sorta Brothers Quay-ish daydream of them coming to life. So thought I'd rig up a little something on the kitchen counter one rainy evening and screw around with 'em. They are kinda strange looking little things.... like chess characters with a end that means business. Couldn't quite get what I'd imagined before calling it a night, but here's a few anyway:



Tack attack!



































Bought the velvet, and a cheapo clamp light from teh drug store. Also used my 500W halogen work-light on a stool back to the left. A big icy vodka-tonic and some STS9 helped. Pretty fun.




And two similar looks at a cool Japanese matchbox that landed in my hand the same day the that challenge #2 was named. I liked the cropped version graphically, but you can't tell what it is so I added both.












***


2/5/08


It was a TERRIBLY glaring day and the background was naturally blown out, so thought I'd leave it as is to keep a contrasty look and accentuate the colors. Has that kinda graphicky look that I seem to lean towards. And as mentioned I couldn't manage the long exposure ValleyFan got, so had to take three and do some fiddling.




In case anyone's interested, it was ISO100; f8; 1/100; 40-150mm kit lens.


***


2/8/08


The Brothers Yangban....







are laughing with you.







Korean mask. Going for the yellow in the first one, and added a little red and blue plastic for the second. Just some hand-held goofiness, and no major adjustments.

***

2/11/08


Skyfire






and a few minutes later... with jet ascending against the backdrop.

**temporarily removed for corrections**

Losing a bit of color and vibrancy somewhere between iPhoto, hosting, and post. Not exactly sure how to get it here in the best condition. Suggestions?