Gees can you believe this is the 78th Photo Quest? Seems like I started this just a few months ago. I thank all the loyal members for all their great photos and for teaching me more about photography.
For this weeks quest lets look at diagonal lines and how they contribute to a photo. You can use diagonal lines to draw to eye to your subject or the lines can be your subject. The human eye natural views an image by going from left to right. By placing a diagonal line from left to right you are using that natural view to your advantage by now drawing the eye to your subject. Make it easy for the viewed to know what your subject is.
Can you look at your photos and know what the subject is? Do you look for the subject of your photo in your view finder or LCD before you click the shutter? Do you remember the rule of thirds?
Now that I've filled you with questions....here is this week's quest. Take some photos using diagonal lines. Photos can be any that you have taken in the last year. If you can't find a photo with diagonal lines or can't find a subject with diagonal lines around use a photo software to make some lines. No excuses this time.
Here is a great article on diagonal lines http://digital-photography-school.com/using-diagonal-lines-in-photography. Any questions...please ask! Take care and have a wonderful week.
Read more: http://digital-photography-school.com/using-diagonal-lines-in-photography#ixzz0W97s6TSu
Yikes there were some very scary photos this week! Thanks to all the folks that send in photos, it was so much fun to see what you were doing for Halloween. I miss Halloween so much. The department I worked the for last 9 years didn't do much of anything for Halloween. Now that I'm retired well, it was even less. We are too far out in the country to get trick-a-treaters so it was like any other day here. Darn it...I did get to see some cute photos of my grandsons dressed up.
Back to the quest I didn't see a bad photo in the group and we had tons of photos this time. Darcy made my job easy by posting only one photo, thanks so much girl. Her photo of her daughter as Wednesday Adams showed tons of creativity. Darcy's daughter played with the photo in photoshop to make it spookier! Great work there.
Then along came Cap'n wow frozen pumpkin fields and a great jack-o-latern...amazing work on that. My favorite was the jack-o-latern photo. Taking the photo at night gave it a real Halloween glow.
Next was Yan with his great photos of Halloween in Japan. My favorite was the friend dressed as an alien...great capture in a dark bar.
Now it was Amy Sue...boy she made my job very hard with all her great photos! Thanks for the great photos of the kids trick-or-treating downtown. What a great place she lives that the merchants give out candy..keeping it safe for the kids...very nice! It was so hard to pick a favorite...so I picked two. I loved the pumpkin and hunted house photo. The low light gives the photo a very nice Halloween spooky feeling. Then I really like the Halloween old photo of the two kids under the movie poster. Nice work there with making the whole photo feel very old.
Wow then there was Metz....so many, many photos my friend. I felt like I was there with you enjoying seeing how your children had so much fun. Of couse it helps that her kids are so cute! So my favorite of all the photos was Halloween 048 with the red tree behind your daughter! That was an amazing photo, loved the red leaves that matched your daughters outfit. Nice work there!
Let's have some fun with this quest....show me your Halloween...make it scary, funny, magical, silly or spooky. All photos must be taken during this quest and no limits to photo editing for this one.
For this quest push the limit on your camera and your editing software...have a ball and show us how creative you can be. Keep in mind this is a family friendly group so nothing too gory or sexy. Now go out and take some photos!
I learned a lot from this quest and from seeing the photos that were posted for this quest. As Darcy said having the subject out of focus add some mystery to the picture. Usually we try everything we can do to get a detailed crisp photo and in this quest it was just the opposite.
Now to this week's photos and the ones I liked the best.
For Darcy it is easy...her pumpkin photo is wonderful! I loved that she used a Halloween theme and had some scary books in focus and the wonderful jack-o-latern out of focus. Try as I might my eye still goes to the jack-o-latern and not the books that are in focus.
On the photos that Realworld submitted I liked the third one the best. The whole photo is out of focus but the lamp in the widow draws your eye into the photo and you just want to know more about the house, the room, the lamp.
The photos that Yan submitted were amazing! I liked them all and he gave us a nice assortment of pink and white flowers in and out of focus. The last photo of the multi-colored flower is my favorite. I like that we only see 1/2 the flower and that only the center of the flower is in focus...it leaves me wanted to see more of the flower!
Great work all and thanks so much for posting your wonderful photos to this quest. Hope to see you again next week.
I get a wonderful newsletter each week from Darren Rowse of the Digital Photograhy School. Some weeks I don't read them until much later. If you are interested in getting this great newsletter go to his website http://digital-photography-school.com/ and sign up.
In this weeks Tips Newsletter I was reading the article "Photography the Light Not the Land" and got the idea for this week's quest...taking a photo that is out of focus or not "tack sharp." Here is the article with some great examples of out of focus photos http://digital-photography-school.com/out-of-focus-photos ...be sure and read his other article "Taking Unfocused Photos."
Since I'm late in doing this quest, you have a week and two days to get some photos posted. For this quest there are some different catagories and the photos must be taken during the run of this quest.
1. Take one photo in focus and then one out of focus. If you have the ability to put your camera on manual focus this isn't too hard...if you can't change to manual focus, then focus your camera on a nearby subject hold down the shutter button halfway then move your camera over to a scene with the many subject farther way. If your camera allows set your ISO low 100 or 200 and your aperture (F stop) as high as you can in the 2-4 range.
2. If your camera or your lens has a anti-shake function take one photo with it on and one with it off.
3. If you have a tripod, take one photo with the tripod and one handheld.
4. Take a photo of a very near subject that is a distance from the background, use a wide or high aperture, focus only on the subject take a photo. Now change to aperture to 9 or higher...post both photos. If you can't set your aperture, change your auto setting from macro to landscape and see if that changes the focus. This should give you an out of focus background know as bokeh go here http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bokeh for a good description of what bokeh means.
5. Now that you can take an out of focus photo on purpose let's get really creative and compose and take a very dreamy photo. If you can take the same photo in focus and post both photos.
In the quest you should learn a little more about your camera..ugh you might have to get the manual out again...and the ability to take an out of focus photo when you want that effect.
Here is a photo I took that I really struggled to get in focus but the light was very low as it was in Mission San Xavier church. I blurred the foreground by using a high aperture. I think it was 4 and took the photo through some stair railing. I think this photo works as the out of focus blur makes it look ghostly or spiritual.
Here is a great photo by Yancunyong of a sweet potato...the focus is very tight on the sweet potato and you can see a soft slightly out-of-focus lovely lady in the background.
Here is a photo from a Flickr friend and she said I could add it to this quest as an example of out-of-focus photo. Here is a link to her Flickr site to view more of her wonderful photos. http://www.flickr.com/photos/ohbydod/
Again the variety of this week's photos was wonderful. Check out the photos from Spike, Anthrogrrl and Yancunyong. For some reason Cap'n's post didn't register on the Photo Quest and Realworld almost forgot to post his photos.
Spikes photos of the local football team were great...do I hear a new career for Spike? I have to go with the last photo of the team in black and white with the purple shirt and pants in color! Fall is football in the USA and thanks to Spike we get a good view of the local sceen.
Anthrogrrl posted some terrific photos of the fall colors! Her second photo titled uber-brillant is my favorite....The colors are so amazing.
Yan's actions shots gave us an idea of all the sports activities in Japan. His last photo of the boys chasing the ball was my favorite...great composition (leaving room in front of the boys, ROTs), super action and the best colors!
Realworld's photo of the fall sky with all variety of colors was wonderful. I pick his last photo with the purple filter or overlay as my favorite!
Now for Cap'n Stephel's post..I think her photo of the fall leaves and the snow are great. My favorite is the first one where she has taken the black and white photo of the leaves and made an increadible frame for the color version of the photo. I think is a wonderful and creative idea! Now I want to try it...take a look and I know you will want to try it too!
Thanks all for posting so truly great photos again this week!
Here in my world we don't have a real fall or spring our seasons just gently roll from one to another, so I'd like to see yours! Take some photos of your landscape or something that means Spring or Fall to you. If there is something you do or eat that means Fall or Spring that works. Once you have your best photos, take the photo and change something to make it more dramatic.
Ah the something is up to you but here are some examples. Change the contrast and colors by adding a color photo filter or playing the color setting in your editing software. Go for the dramatic effect on your photo, try adding layers of colors. Try the photo in black and white and then paint in some of the original color by erasing the black and white layer to show the color layer. Cut out a part of your photo and put in on a different background. Get those creative skills going and have some fun. Please post the details of your photo...how it was shot etc....and what you did to change it.
Post the original and final best three photos. Thanks and get your camera out and show us your seasons.
Hi all,
This week's Photo Quest had two entries one from Anthrogrrl and Yancunyong...thanks guys! Check out their collages as it is very awesome work.
Anthrogrrl's collage is a fun one with some great photos of her dogs. My favorite is the dog on the bed looking at the camera.
Yan's collage has wonderful color and composition. Click on his photo to see it enlarged and all the details on each photo. The photos shot at 1600 ISO are very detailed. Love the series of his daughter learning the tea ceremony from her grandmother. Nice work Yan!
I wasn't going to enter this photos quest as I didn't think I had enough time to do it...but this morning I decided that I could do it and off I went with my camera. Morning photos were of our herd, horses and dogs all feed or feeding and happy. I took photos of the hay storage and the famous birdbath and hubby enjoying his morning coffee on the back porch. Can you believe he is in shorts! I had on long pants and a light jacket, it was in the 50s this morning.
Then we left for our place in Benson for the weekly work trip. We are cleaning it up again...renters are out..and hope to sell it. We have been going their every week since the 1st of September.
We had breakfasts at Jerry Bob's (photo's didn't turn out) and then went to Walmart to buy a power-washer. The front porch and the house in Benson are dirty. I thought a power-washer would save us a paint job...and I was right! Yea, hubby did the front porch and it looks great...well not great but so much better. We need to get some CLR to take off the rust stains and some other cleaner to take off some paint. To rent the power-washer was $75.00 and to buy it at Walmart was $160. We found out today that we would have had to rent one three times so buying one was cheaper in the long and short run.
Hubby tried the power-washer on the house and it did make it look so much better. The paint is good but it is dirty and dingy. If we don't have to paint this place that would be wonderful...maybe just paint the porch supports add trim to the back and paint the trim. Hubby is going to install new skirting around the bottom of the manufactured house and that will make a big difference. The skirting is old and wasn't installed right...no surprise as not much was done right on this place.
While hubby played with his new toy the power-washer, I watered the trees etc. and sanded and cleaned the kitchen cabinets. Next I have to prime the cabinets and paint them. The dishwasher is black and the stove and frig are white...so I was going to get a new white dishwasher so they would match. I remembered that dishwasher used to come with different colored panels. Hubby checked and sure enough the dishwasher had a white panel...yea again. That will have save some $s.
We took a break and went to Jack-in-the-box for lunch and I took some photos of place and a cute saguaro next to the drive-thru. On the way back I got a cool photo of a tanker truck, I like how the road reflects in the back of their tank.
More work and then homeward bound...I got some photos of I-10 and a cool saguar and some more road shots...and we were home. Tired but happy with our work.
For my collage, I took a photo of a cactus flower and reduced it to a line drawing in photoshop by using the photocopy option. Next I applied a violet photo filter to the flower. Then I resized each of the photo to 400 to 750 px wide and pasted them onto a layer in photoshop. I pulled the layer under the background layer and then erased the background to reveal the photo. I used the move tool and the free transformation to place and rotate the photos as I added them. I wasn't thrilled with the over-all results but with some more time to play with this concept I think I can get better results.
I really enjoyed this quest as it took a day I was dreading (working in Benson) and make it something I had fun with and learn a new skill on doing a collage with my photos. Thanks TanyaRPM for this great idea!
This photo quest is brought to you by TanyaRPM:
How about a "Your Day In Photos" collage? Take photos throughout the day and put them into a collage to showcase a "normal" day in your life? It's a bit time consuming but if people would be up for it it could be fun!
Since this is complicated you will have two weeks to complete and post your photos. Rule - how about no rules...you can use any photos, any photo software and sizes...now go and create and have fun!
TanyaRPM if you have the collage that you just did can you post it to the Quest for an example? Thanks!
