new year resolutions

So a new photographic year begins. What to do...

In truth the weather has been uniformly dreadful recently so it there has been little point going out, however the need to get back on my photographic horse was driven home to me yesterday in the 1st competition of the new year.

This was the panel of 4, which generally I enjoy since it provides some release from the constraints of things like wildlife competitions.


So how did I do.

Easy answer.....mixed.

While my prints were just a smidgen off 3rd place, unfortunately I had to be content with just a highly commended.The judge wanted to give very highly commended. However such a label does not exist and therefore the results will always show I was just an also ran.

The DPI however was even more disappointing. I was one of only 3 images not to be held back. This was a surprise because I thought the images and panel was strong.

In hindsight I still believe this, but I now feel I fell into the trap of not being ambitious enough. The winning entry was very different and in the past it is the kind of image I would of aspired to do. This time I just put 4 images together.

The failed entry....

That is the crux of my new year resolution. Recently I have become too orthodox. I have substituted quantity, rather than planning what my photos should show . I need to pare back and start adding some new long term goals.

I always said I would rather be considered different than good, but orthodox so it is time to rediscover that mantra.

In other news I have found that 2 photos got accepted for NEMPF, so this is a really good result and a step up in class. However it looks like I will have to now go by the name Derek, since that was how one of the images were labeled.

Maybe I should use that name from know on, since it is apparent Derek knows  more about photography than I do :)

Four of the best

This week is the annual club panel of 4 competition. After the last club competition where I felt a little aggrieved by the judging(a little? really? - Ed.) I feel a lot better about this competition.

Of the call the club competitions, the panel of 4 is probably my second favorite after the theme competition.

The idea is to present 4 photos in a panel. There are two entries, one in print and one in DPI.

The fact it is 4 photos (and not three) is far more significant than it first seems. You need to find four photos with some association but of consistent high quality.

For some reason the rules of the universe state that the fourth one will always be the challenge. I have lost count of the  number of times that I found 3 great photos, but could not find a fourth of a similar standard, so had to put them on one side.

The reason why I like this competition so much is the DPI photo in particular provides plenty flexibility for experimentation.  While the majority of entries will consist of 4 standard rectangles, there is nothing in the rules to stop you putting 4 photos together of any size and shape.

Personally I love to play around with different patterns. I have some great ideas for panels of horizontal or vertical slices, or even overlaying images on top of each other.

Unfortunately the competition only has 1 DPI. This means that I cannot experiment as much as I would like, bit it is a format I would love to do more in. The print entry however is more limiting.

My original idea was a set of images called fruit puns. Unfortunately this did not work out as well as I hoped due to time issues and the fact I could only think of 3 really good puns (as the universe decrees). I liked the result, but in the end I did not think it was strong enough (but it was fun to do, and I would of loved to see the judges reaction).

4 fruit puns

So instead I did some work on flowers.

I have been interested recently in taking low key flower pictures using a flash. I have little experience with flashes, so I wanted to experiment and find out how to use it better. So I bought myself a cheap soft box and a adapter. These were mounted on a old tripod and I used a radio trigger to sync the flash and allow it to illuminate the side of flowers in a darkened room with a black background.

1st results

I had an idea of using number of different flowers, cropped closely against the flower head. I would of loved to have used wild flowers such as dandelions, but being winter I was forced to buy cheap bunches of flowers from the local supermarket (much to my wife's annoyance when she found the flowers were not for her).

In the end however instead of different flowers, I felt the rose images were stronger. I also realized that I could play around with the images shapes to put together a panel with a different, and to my mind more interesting layout.

This is the final result and I am quite pleased with it. so much so I really don't care how it does in competition

The print entry were harder  to decide on.

I came up with 4 different sets. None of them were taken specifically for this competition, so it was a process of seeing what I had already and connecting them together. They all had their merits, but in the end I came down with 4 IR images of a tree. This is probably going to be the last time i enter IR images, so hopefully they will be far more successful than last IR images I entered.

Postscript

My prints got 18/20 which was a welcome surprise while my DPI also got 18, which was a bit of a disappointment. To be honest with the DPI I was surprised to see once they were on the big screen some of the dark backdrop came through, which was surprising since I thought I had darkened the blacks enough.

The judge also made a big thing about progression. i,e a story carrying through the set of photos. To be honest I had not really considered this in my entries but it is something to work on next year.

Also congratulations to Lorraine Dowell for winning her 1st competition last night.

Four of the best

The recent competition at my local photographic society was a new format for me. It was called the panel of 4 and required you to present a DPI and/or print consisting of 4 photos in some way connected.

This is actually a lot harder than it sounds. Firstly there needs to be some link between the photos. Secondly each photo has to stand on it's own merits. At the same time each of the 4 photos had to be consistent in terms of both quality and presentation. For example 4 photos, one of which is outstanding, and 3 which are of lesser quality would not work. The great one photo would look out of place from the other 3 and distract from the overall montage.

I must admit I had been thinking about this competition for a while. My original plan for to present a DPI with a panel in 4 strips consisting of various forest trees cropped at tree trunk level. The rebel in me did not like the square  format and I sorely wanted to try something different. However in the end I could not find the type of forest so I had to resort to plan  B.

My 2nd idea was my set of leaf prints taken on my light table. Originally this was going to be my DPI entry, but once I got the prints they seemed to work better that way. The biggest challenge was choosing four. I had intended to show some sort of progression, from fall to decay. But when I tried this, it just looked dis-jointed so I stuck with just 4 light table images.

The print's were originally going to be called Wind, Steam and Power and consist of pictures of wind farms and Ratcliffe power station. The problem was when I put them together the wind farm pictures were just too good and I couldn't find a link between them. So instead it became just pictures of the Ratcliffe power station.

The problem was then to find 4 photos to put in a panel. I found 3 easily,  but the 4th was more difficult. Eventually I used one of Ratcliffe at sunset, and in hindsight I realise this was probaly a mistake, since it was quickly spotted by the judge as the weak link and probably stopped it getting higher marks.

My DPI. The image at the top left was the weakest of the 4. 

The leaves did better, but the judge again took a dislike of one of the panels. Ironocally it was the one I thought it was the strongest of the four.

My leaf prints. Ironically it was the one in the bottom left the judge did not like. I thought it was the strongest

Both panels got 17 marks and again did not make final selection. Once again so close but so far. It has to be said that in terms of the competition, the prints quality was very high, but with a better selection for the DPI's I think I could of done better.

It was interesting to see which ones did do well however. Picking out details say of architecture or single shots of a type of car seemed to work quite well in this format, and sometimes the overall result is greater than the sum or the original photos.

So my takeaway from this sort of competition is as follows:-

• It is not the overall quality of the individual prints that matter, but the montage as a whole 
• You need 4 consistent prints, not 3 plus one thrown in for luck
• Photos of small details work well. The winning DPI was of Moroccan windows. Not great photos individually, but stacked in a panel the sum was greater than the individual
• With prints, they need to be the same size and mounted the same way. I made the mistake of mounting 2 in black and 2 in white frames. I should of stuck to one colour. Similarly some put prints in of different sizes. This can work well in DPI, but prints just look disjointed.
• In this sort of competition format, it is best to go out looking for 4 such photos rather than throwing together 4 individual ones you had just taken.
• The montage must hang together as one photo as well as 4 individual ones.

Still it is an interesting experience, and one worth playing with and pursuing in future years.