Wednesday, May 13, 2009

Do U C What I C?

This was my Assignment entry for Honors Night at the Bay Area Photo Club last night. The assignment was "Motion Blur." I took the photo over the weekend at the Kemah Boardwalk. I used a tripod and took the photo with a long (5 second) exposure. Well actually I took 30 or 40 photo's and this is the one I liked best. :-) I really like the photo and it received good comments from the judges but was scored poorly earning a "No Award". As it turns out there were no Gold Awards given for any photo entered in the Assignment category (Motion Blur) last night. Well...anyway how would you have scored it? A "No Award" like our panel of judges, a "Gold Award", "Silver", "Bronze Award"? I know you don't know the actual judging criteria but this is just for fun anyway! :-)

Cheers!

Title: "Kemah Boardwalk Fountain"


Camera / Lens: Canon 40D / 17-55mm f/2.8 zoom
Shot data: 5s f/9.0 at 55.0mm iso250

7 comments:

Larry J. Patrick said...

I am not surprised that there were no gold for motion blur since a lot of judges really like to see things "sharp."

I like your photo, but, I think it would be an even stronger image if you cropped it almost right down the middle. You would then have the juxtaposition of "blurred" and "non blurred" contrasting each other. You could have made this contrast even more evident by hitting the boy with a little flash with the flash set to rear sync.

I do really like the warm tones in the image and overall "feel" of the image. Good job. You have a gold from me for this one.

Barry Armer said...

Thanks for the Gold Patrick!

I can see your point on the crop. What the heck is rear sync on the flash? Time for another flash tutorial at the camera club! :-)

Cheers!
Barry

Ted said...

POWIE! You have nailed the metaphor of "Alone In A Crowd" without coming near a clché. And by incorporating a pano comp to tractor beam my imagination directly to the child... Well.. you have me half way up the story arc before I realize its happened.

To use the motion blur as a reinforcement of the childhood alienation is brilliant. Damn... I'd never have thought of it... I would score this puppy reeeeely low if I were the judge because I'd have been so embarrassed that a stunning brilliant insight like this would not have occurred to me. After all, I am the judge, right? So I should know more than the people I'm judging,right?

So... when one of the judgeeeees shows me up.. Well... way.

In the future Barry, pan a picture of a speeding sports car. Or a dancer twirling. Judges think of those things. Have lots of experience with them. Know how to judge em.....Don't go dropping art on them. Jeeeeze.... They don't want art, they want CRAFT man!!!!

Even though I know how to win contests, I don't enter them anymore. Why? Contest winners usually can show judges what they like. I tend to do images of what I like. It's a craft/art thing...Y'know?

Larry said...

This was one of my favorite images of the night - if not my fav...

Barry Armer said...

Thanks for the comments Ted and Larry!

Ted - I appreciate the high praise! I do believe you like it as much as I do! :-)

I love the last paragraph of your comment which, to me, shows you are a fully evolved photographer...or rather make that...artist!

Cheers!
Barry

Bill said...

Yeah, Barry, the judges were tough that night. This one deserved something more. By the way, for us Canon shooters "rear sync" I believe is more tastefully called "2nd curtain sync" in your custom functions.

Bill

Barry Armer said...

Thanks for the vote of confidence Bill! Thanks also for giving me the correct "Canon" term for rear sync! Now I can refer to it by the correct name when I misuse it conversations. :-)

Cheers!
Barry