This week’s assignment comes from inspiration of the word found. Now, it’s your turn. We need you to vote on your favorite. Take a look at the pictures and vote for the one you like the most. Make sure you look at all of them before you decide.
Thanks everyone for all the votes! 70 votes were more than we figured we’d get. So, thanks!
Feel free to guess who took each photo. Go ahead and comment on this post as to your guesses. But, if you do know (speaking to the photographers and their helpers/spouses/etc), DON’T TELL! Otherwise, next week I’ll make you all sign a non-disclosure agreement. 
Found My Keys
Stained Glass at a Bank
Dead Guy
I Found It
Memories of the Past
Soul Searching
Found: Which is your favorite?
- Memories of the Past (34%, 22 Votes)
- Soul Searching (28%, 18 Votes)
- Dead Guy (20%, 13 Votes)
- Found My Keys (6%, 4 Votes)
- I Found It! (6%, 4 Votes)
- Stained Glass at a Bank (5%, 3 Votes)
Total Voters: 64
Loading ...Thanks for voting! Voting will close this Thursday at 3:00pm CST.
Next assignment: Minimalism (Create an image where your subject is the strong point of the image, but only occupying a very small portion of the image space.)
Since Devon M was the winner of the last round, he has been handicapped. His handicap is: no post production (other than color correct).
There’s a debate amongst us players if handicapping should be applied to the winner. On one hand, a handicap limits the creativity, on the other, a handicap might force us to find ways to be creative. Either way, a handicap is good so that no one can take a huge lead and thus rob from the others any spirit of competition. The debate is to how soon a handicap should be enforced. Right now the rules are that the winner will receive one handicap for the week. If any player gets ahead by so many points, multiple handicaps will be assessed.
We’re curious as to your opinion. Does it make it more fun to have a handicap after each win, or only apply handicaps if a player is several wins ahead of the others?
Your opinion on handicapping?
- A handicap after each win + handicaps on major lead (67%, 10 Votes)
- Handicaps only on major lead (33%, 5 Votes)
Total Voters: 15
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29 Comments
Bri, is this how you are solely defining Minimalism? -Create an image where your subject is the strong point of the image, but only occupying a very small portion of the image space.
The only issue I have that, is saying that the subject only occupies a small portion of the image. I may do it a little differently than that exact definition. Or would you rather have everyone just stick to that definition above?
Yes, stick to the definition. We can always do a different take on Minimalism for a future assignment.
Many great pictures!!! You all seemed to improve over just a week!
You need to scrub EXIF data. I know with a surety who took which images… BWA HA HA HA HA…
Well… not quite - since I don’t know who is shooting with which cameras - but here’s the breadown:
I found it: Nikon D90
Dead guy: Nikon D90, (interestingly enough, with bogus GPS data embedded placing it at the 0 degrees latitude and 0 degrees longitude - just off the coast of africa…)
Found my keys: ANOTHER Nikon D90 - but this one was retouched in Photoshop CS4 on the mac
Soul Searching: Canon EOS Rebel XTI - edited in Photoshop CS3 for windows
Stained Glass: Nikon D70 - and photoshop CS3 for mac
So… What’s up with the D90 fetish? Was there a buy-3-get-1 free sale?
Handicapping
I can live with whatever (especially since I have not won any…
How long does the handicap last — one assignment or all future?
Ryan —
You are too tricky.
Since you have cracked your Canon I think they ought you be a guess shooter in this for a week to see how much is the camera and how much is the operator.
That would be a little pressure…
Good pictures this week everybody.
Ryan-
I agree that the bogus GPS data is a bit suspicious…
@Kent: Handicap lasts a week.
@Ryan: you’re probably the only guy that would think to read the EXIF data. Thanks for the heads up. I’ll remove the data for next week’s photos.
I am so impressed by these photos.
Found - Brian
Soul Searching - Mats
Stained Glass at a Bank - Mike
Dead Guy - Kent
Found my Keys - Brett
Memories of the Past - Devon
I think I might have hit 50-60% right.
@Kevin H.: I wish I drove a Saab!
Where the heck was that skull from?
BTW: I get so tempted to vote like 50 times (the temptations of campus).
I haven’t yet, and I am really proud of myself!
@Ryan:
I think you may be the only one to know it is there…
and how to find it.
So is it too much post production if I want to take a HDR photo, or does that just fall under color correction? It is essentially just cc
I am having a very hard time voting for just one. They are all so good. The one of Bobby is just so cute. I love all of your creativity, but deep down I am really pulling for my baby brother Mike. I have no idea which one he did, I am anxious to see who’s is who. Anutie Sue
@Devon: Combining multiple exposures to form a HDR image probably with some tone mapping with post processing software out steps the bounds of only color correction in my opinion!
Come on Devon we need all the help we can get.
@Brett: agreed. Besides, HDR might be a few assignment on it’s own.
@Brian and Brett: I agree too about the HDR. I just had been looking at some pictures on the internet and HDR photos are fascinating to me. Now that I think about it minimalism is probably not the best choice to take a HDR photo for. But if everyone has access to software capable of HDR I think that could be a really fun assignment in the future.
what the heck is HDR? Next winner gets my brain as a handicap:-)
@pops: HDR stands for high dynamic range. Its done by taking multiple pictures of the same scene with different exposure settings. Then photoshop will take them and make a more “dynamic” image. Ive never done it but I think thats the general idea.
check this out: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High_dynamic_range_imaging
Those dynamic photos are awesome looking..
@Kevin H.: yeah, they do! I think we’ll have to wait a little while before we do them, though. The old man has to get a little photoshop experience under his belt. Unless, anyone knows of a youtube.com video that teaches how to do it? I guess I could check. Brett you’ve done one or two before. How hard are they? Does it take forever or is it pretty quick?
@Brian: They are fairly simple. The important thing is to take the pictures using a tripod of course so there is no ghosting/blurring when the exposures are combined. Also you’ll need to keep your aperture the same through all exposures. Also use either a remote trigger or a timer as to not cause any additional shaking. It can be done in photoshop pretty easy. I use a program called Photomatix, it has all sorts of tone mapping included in the program which makes it easier to tweak. The thing with HDR is that you have to be careful with your tone mapping our you can get some photos that look almost unrealistic like that second one on the Wikipedia page, unless you are going for that look which is also cool. Also my image this week is a simple HDR from only 3 exposures with minimal tone mapping.
sounds fun- can it be done in elements?
@pops: No HDR support in Elements.
I wish I knew what you guys were talking about. I think there should be a post on helping all of us readers/ voters learn some of the terms of photography- and some tutorials for the average photographer (what is apeture, how you use it, why). Mainly, just because I’m interested in learning, myself. But then you could have a very educated audience.
@Jen: that’s a good idea. I’ll see if there’s any way for me to add something like that to this site. Only thing I’m not sure about is if we can teach the terms. I mean, since each camera is different it might be hard to explain (assuming we even know what we’re talking about - which we don’t sometimes/most-the-time). Besides, even though non-SLR (i.e. point-and-shoot) cameras usually have some manual control, they are generally difficult to adjust. For example, your camera (Jen), might have a manual aperture setting, but it might be buried deep in your menu system. And, if it’s hard to get to, you probably won’t use it. That’s one of the reasons a bigger camera has a draw - since it has way more buttons. Anyway, I’ll see what I can do.
@Brett: Well, no plug-in, or simple support, right? Because could you just layer the images and erase/blend the under/over exposed parts? I suppose that might take forever, though? Or, is there more to HDR then that?
For those of you that have a Canon point and shoot camera chances are you can make it much more functional with the “CHDK” hack of awesomeness!!! Makes me wish I still had my canon point and shoot instead of the Sony I have now. Read up on the hack here: http://lifehacker.com/387380/turn-your-point+and+shoot-into-a-super+camera
It lets you shoot in RAW, Do HDR images and other cool stuff. You can get it here: http://chdk.wikia.com/wiki/CHDK.
Also Bri, I think layering the different exposures and then manipulating it how you’d like would be a crazy hard. Not impossible
It sounds like the rest of you use Macs so here are a couple freeware HDR programs/tools. I don’t know how powerful or good they are, but you could certainly give them a try and read up on them.
http://fdrtools.com/fdrtools_basic_e.php
http://qtpfsgui.sourceforge.net/