Hi Photo lovers!

Every month on our pho­tog­ra­phy forum mem­bers nom­i­nate images that they like. Then at the end of the month I choose an excel­lent image and talk about why it rocks. The photo I choose is not nec­es­sar­ily the best one of the month. I’ve come to real­ize it’s not really log­i­cal to pit images from totally dif­fer­ent gen­res against each other. That’s why there are cat­e­gories in photo con­tests. I just choose a photo that has extremely strong ele­ments that we can learn from.

This month’s choice goes to Lizardqing for cap­tur­ing Sun­set on the Blue Ridge Parkway

I chose this image for sev­eral reasons:

1. Composition/Framing — This sun­set image has many strong com­po­si­tional ele­ments going for it. The lay­ing of the fore­ground trees, midground hills and back­ground clouds/sky and sun works really well for me. My eye really enjoys the lines and curves in the moun­tains and hills. There are also no major dis­trac­tions on the edges in this scene for me. My eye goes straight to the sun, then straight below it to the midground sun patch, and then it explores the rest of the pho­to­graph with delight.

2 . Exposure/lighting — The light is just plain lovely here due to the par­tial cloud cover. That said, shoot­ing into the sun is often chal­leng­ing and often yields under­ex­po­sure. Cor­rect­ing it often leaves lots of shadow noise but this image looks clean and the tones in the fore­ground and midground have lovely shadow detail.

3.  Colour and post pro­cess­ing — The colours are warm and bright in the sky but not too over­done. Sharp­ness works well for me and looks very natural.

For all these rea­sons, this is my choice for image of the month. Since we all have opin­ions, some mem­bers may dis­agree with my choice. That’s cool but THIS thread is not the place for debate over my pick, NOR is it the place to fur­ther cri­tique the image. The pur­pose here is to sug­gest strong ele­ments in the photo that we may learn from.

Con­grats again to Lizardqing for cap­tur­ing this fab­u­lous moment!

Hi Photo lovers!

Every month on our pho­tog­ra­phy forum mem­bers nom­i­nate images that they like. Then at the end of the month I choose an excel­lent image and talk about why it rocks. The photo I choose is not nec­es­sar­ily the best one of the month. I’ve come to real­ize it’s not really log­i­cal to pit images from totally dif­fer­ent gen­res against each other. That’s why there are cat­e­gories in photo con­tests. I just choose a photo that has extremely strong ele­ments that we can learn from.

This month’s choice goes to Hill­bil­ly­girl for cap­tur­ing this image from Rodeo Action

I chose this image for sev­eral reasons:

1 — Deci­sive moment and ges­tur­ing — This cap­tured moment is extremely well timed and the cap­tured ges­tures are superb. Look at the mus­cu­la­ture and the angle and stretched out leg of the horse in mid–maneu­ver — It’s fab. The con­cen­tra­tion on the rider is also fab.

2 — Sharp­ness — The sharp­ness here is bloody gor­geous and any­one who has tracked mov­ing tar­gets knows it’s not easy. A nice fast shut­ter speed cou­pled with pre­cise focus­ing has frozen an intense moment. Even the kicked-up dirt in the air and on the ground is sharp — love it.

3 — Com­po­si­tion — Com­po­si­tion works really well here with the fence of spec­ta­tors in the back­ground, The Coors barrel/obstacle on the left and the intense ges­tures of the cen­tral main focal points.

4 — Post processing/exposure — I like the fairly real­is­tic pro­cess­ing in this image with good well con­trolled tones in the sky and good clar­ity in the faces of the horse and rider.

For all these rea­sons, this is my choice for image of the month. Since we all have opin­ions, some mem­bers may dis­agree with my choice. That’s cool but THIS thread is not the place for debate over my pick, NOR is it the place to fur­ther cri­tique the image. The pur­pose here is to sug­gest strong ele­ments in the photo that we may learn from.

Con­grats again to Hill­bil­ly­girl for cap­tur­ing this fab­u­lous moment!

Rodeo Action by Hill­bil­ly­girl — Click to see larger version

Hi Photo lovers!

Every month on our pho­tog­ra­phy forum mem­bers nom­i­nate images that they like. Then at the end of the month I choose an excel­lent image and talk about why it rocks. The photo I choose is not nec­es­sar­ily the best one of the month. I’ve come to real­ize it’s not really log­i­cal to pit images from totally dif­fer­ent gen­res against each other. That’s why there are cat­e­gories in photo con­tests. I just choose a photo that has extremely strong ele­ments that we can learn from.

Just so it’s clear, the photo I choose is not nec­es­sar­ily the best one of the month. I’ve come to real­ize it’s not really log­i­cal to pit images from totally dif­fer­ent gen­res against each other. That’s why there are cat­e­gories in photo contests.

My goal is to sim­ply choose an excel­lent photo and talk about why I think it rocks. This month was another crazy hard month though as the nom­i­na­tions from dif­fer­ent gen­res were of very high quality.

This month’s choice goes to Hill­bil­ly­girl  is for cap­tur­ing Air Time .

Air Time by Hillbillygirl

I chose this image for a few reasons:

1 –Deci­sive moment and tim­ing — The moment cap­tured is very excit­ing! The wake­boarder is par­al­lel with the water and yet he looks per­fectly calm and con­cen­trated even though he is fly­ing through the air.

2– Com­po­si­tion — I really like the fram­ing here. The frozen wave at the bot­tom, the spray com­ing off the wake­board at top left, the line pulling the wake­boarder at right — it’s all work­ing well. I like that the back­ground has gone medium soft which high­lights the wake­boarder so nice aper­ture choice as well.

3 — Sharp­ness and high shut­ter speed — I really like that the eyes are nice and sharp. It’s a tes­ta­ment to good track­ing skills and the use of an appro­pri­ately high shut­ter speed to nail this scene. The eyes are sharp enough to see and feel the con­cen­tra­tion. The whole body ges­ture is won­der­fully frozen.

For all these rea­sons, this is my choice for image of the month. Since we all have opin­ions, some mem­bers may dis­agree with my choice. That’s cool but THIS thread is not the place for debate over my pick, NOR is it the place to fur­ther cri­tique the image. The pur­pose here is to sug­gest strong ele­ments in the photo that we may learn from.

Con­grats Hill­bil­ly­girl on this excit­ing capture!

Hi Photo lovers!

Every month on our pho­tog­ra­phy forum mem­bers nom­i­nate images that they like. Then at the end of the month I choose an excel­lent image and talk about why it rocks. The photo I choose is not nec­es­sar­ily the best one of the month. I’ve come to real­ize it’s not really log­i­cal to pit images from totally dif­fer­ent gen­res against each other. That’s why there are cat­e­gories in photo con­tests. I just choose a photo that has extremely strong ele­ments that we can learn from.

Just so it’s clear, the photo I choose is not nec­es­sar­ily the best one of the month. I’ve come to real­ize it’s not really log­i­cal to pit images from totally dif­fer­ent gen­res against each other. That’s why there are cat­e­gories in photo contests. 

My goal is to sim­ply choose an excel­lent photo and talk about why I think it rocks. This month was another crazy hard month though as the nom­i­na­tions from dif­fer­ent gen­res were of very high quality.

This month’s choice is Fos­ter­ing by Mike Bons Fos­ter­ing.

Fos­ter­ing by Mike Bons

I chose this image for a few reasons:

1 — Focal point sharp­ness and deci­sive moment — Look at the sharp­ness on the eye of the baby bird, it’s just gor­geous. The tim­ing is equally gor­geous; the hummingbird’s beak is inside the chick’s mouth and we can see a hint of a bug. The hummingbird’s legs are won­der­fully frozen. Mike explains in his post that he used a ‘trig­ger­trap’ to trig­ger the shut­ter from yards away and I just love the use of this new tech­nol­ogy to help us make bet­ter images. I also applaud the ded­i­ca­tion to set­ting this all up and wait­ing patiently.

2– Com­po­si­tion — Fram­ing here is bang on as is the guid­ing of our eyes which go right to the chick. I really like the shape of the hummingbird’s blurred wings. I also like the leaves that are included at the oppo­site side of the frame and the free space around the hummingbird.

3 — Shut­ter speed — Won­der­ful choice of high shut­ter speed to get sharp­ness like that on the chick and the frozen hum­ming­bird legs. The motion-blurred hum­ming­bird wings add to this image big­time and are a tes­ta­ment to how fast that lit­tle bug­ger flaps its wings per second.

For all these rea­sons, this is my choice for image of the month. Since we all have opin­ions, some mem­bers may dis­agree with my choice. That’s cool but THIS thread is not the place for debate over my pick, NOR is it the place to fur­ther cri­tique the image. The pur­pose here is to sug­gest strong ele­ments in the photo that we may learn from.

Con­grats Mike Bons!

Every month on our pho­tog­ra­phy forum mem­bers nom­i­nate images that they like. Then at the end of the month I choose an excel­lent image and talk about why it rocks. The photo I choose is not nec­es­sar­ily the best one of the month. I’ve come to real­ize it’s not really log­i­cal to pit images from totally dif­fer­ent gen­res against each other. That’s why there are cat­e­gories in photo con­tests. I just choose a photo that has extremely strong ele­ments that we can learn from.

Pink by Barefoot

This month’s choice is Pink by Barefoot

I chose this image for sev­eral reasons:

1 — Com­po­si­tion — The is a very inter­est­ing and unusual com­po­si­tion of a gor­geous bird sleep­ing. I really like the curve all around the bird’s body and where the eye falls in the image. The fram­ing is also inter­est­ing here and Bare­foot has clearly ‘made this his own’. The pure black back­ground also cre­ates inter­est­ing neg­a­tive space here.

2 — Light­ing — The lovely light­ing here is soft over­all and reveals lovely detail in most of the bird’s plumage. That said, cer­tain areas of the pho­to­graph are quite dark but not too dark for my eye. I really like the dra­matic aspect of the light in those selec­tive zones.

3 — Post pro­cess­ing — The post pro­cess­ing here is lovely. Mak­ing the back­ground go to pure black doesn’t always work but it works very well here to com­pli­ment the form of the bird. I dare say that some of the darker areas in the bird’s plumage actu­ally match the back­ground and this works for me. The bird is ren­dered in desat­u­rated tones that I find very strik­ing and suit­able to the sub­ject and mood of the image.

For all these rea­sons, this is my choice for image of the month. Since we all have opin­ions, some mem­bers may dis­agree with my choice. That’s cool but THIS thread is not the place for debate over my pick, NOR is it the place to fur­ther cri­tique the image. The pur­pose here is to sug­gest strong ele­ments in the photo that we may learn from.

Con­grats again Barefoot!

Every month on our pho­tog­ra­phy forum mem­bers nom­i­nate images that they like. Then at the end of the month I choose an excel­lent image and talk about why it rocks. The photo I choose is not nec­es­sar­ily the best one of the month. I’ve come to real­ize it’s not really log­i­cal to pit images from totally dif­fer­ent gen­res against each other. That’s why there are cat­e­gories in photo con­tests. I just choose a photo that has extremely strong ele­ments that we can learn from.

Male RTH Hum­ming­bird by Mike Bons

This month’s choice is Male RTH Hum­ming­bird Mike Bons

I chose this image for sev­eral reasons:

Com­po­si­tion — The com­po­si­tion here is very pleas­ing. The bird’s eye lines up on right near one of the lines of the thirds which is visu­ally inter­est­ing. The plant and the bird are cap­tured on a diag­o­nal which is also visu­ally inter­est­ing. Bright­ness is very well han­dled here and I find no dis­trac­tions that bother me.

Colour — What a rich pleas­ing colour palette used here. The colours of the bird and the flower even seem to match. Reds in the flower might be a hint too bright and over­sat­u­rated for me, but I can eas­ily live with it.

Sharp­ness — I love how sharp the bird is here (espe­cially the eye and the beak) ver­sus the out of focus back­ground, it totally pops.

Exposure/lighting — Again both are well han­dled. The com­bi­na­tion of flash and ambi­ent light is what is freez­ing the bird in mid-feeding here. I like how the bird is well lit with­out being ‘over-lit’ by the flash.

For all these rea­sons, this is my choice for image of the month. Since we all have opin­ions, some mem­bers may dis­agree with my choice. That’s cool but THIS thread is not the place for debate over my pick, NOR is it the place to fur­ther cri­tique the image. The pur­pose here is to sug­gest strong ele­ments in the photo that we may learn from.

Con­grats again Mike Bons for cap­tur­ing this lit­tle beauty.

Every month on our pho­tog­ra­phy forum mem­bers nom­i­nate images that they like. Then at the end of the month I choose an excel­lent image and talk about why it rocks. The photo I choose is not nec­es­sar­ily the best one of the month. I’ve come to real­ize it’s not really log­i­cal to pit images from totally dif­fer­ent gen­res against each other. That’s why there are cat­e­gories in photo con­tests. I just choose a photo that has extremely strong ele­ments that we can learn from.

The Peace Bridge — At Last! by JAS_Photo

This month’s choice is (click to see the larger ver­sion of this image)  The Peace Bridge — At Last! by JAS_Photo

I chose this image for sev­eral reasons:

1 — Com­po­si­tion — This is a very strong com­po­si­tion and the bridge itself acts as a fan­tas­tic lead­ing line. It guides our eye beau­ti­fully into the image. In addi­tion, aside from the shape of the bridge itself, there are also other “mini-shapes” in the bridge itself as well as all around the image. These other mini-shapes add a lot of inter­est to the image.

2 — Tones and post pro­cess­ing — The bridge itself is selec­tively coloured in this image and I like that very much in this case. I feel it works and offers a new take on what is likely a heav­ily pho­tographed piece of infra-structure. For me it sug­gests ‘some­thing new’ being intro­duced into a city. The desat­u­ra­tion of the back­ground com­pli­ments the bridge and really makes the bridge pop.

3 — Story and per­spec­tive — This bridge is still a work in progress and we can see a crane in the back­ground that sug­gests this. We see the bridge “mov­ing” toward the back­ground which sug­gests to me some­thing new being intro­duced to some­thing older. The angle or per­spec­tive from which the image was taken was very well cho­sen to sug­gest this story.

For all these rea­sons, this is my choice for image of the month. Since we all have opin­ions, some mem­bers may dis­agree with my choice. That’s cool but THIS thread is not the place for debate over my pick, NOR is it the place to fur­ther cri­tique the image. The pur­pose here is to sug­gest strong ele­ments in the photo that we may learn from.

Con­grats again JAS_Photo for cre­at­ing this won­der­ful image!

Every month on our pho­tog­ra­phy forum mem­bers nom­i­nate images that they like. Then at the end of the month I choose an excel­lent image and talk about why it rocks. The photo I choose is not nec­es­sar­ily the best one of the month. I’ve come to real­ize it’s not really log­i­cal to pit images from totally dif­fer­ent gen­res against each other. That’s why there are cat­e­gories in photo con­tests. I just choose a photo that has extremely strong ele­ments that we can learn from.

Fight Club! by Lizardqing

This month’s choice is (click to see the larger ver­sion of this image) Fight Club! by Lizardqing

I chose this image for sev­eral reasons:

1 — Timing/Decisive moment. You gotta have a quick trig­ger fin­ger to catch a moment like this or you will miss it. We’ve all missed fab oppor­tu­ni­ties like this, or mis­framed oppor­tu­ni­ties like this; good on Lizardquing for this fab capture.

2 — Com­po­si­tion — I really like the com­po­si­tion here. It is espe­cially impres­sive given the speed needed to catch this image. I really like the faun at the right side as well as the posi­tion of the trees.

3 — Exposure/lighting/colour — Expo­sure looks very good here and could eas­ily have been missed given the light­ing. Good choice of shutter-speed to keep things fairly sharp but still reveal motion in the deers’ front legs. Lovely colour palette as well. The light­ing is won­der­ful in this image, good on Lizardqing for being there early enough to capture.

For all these rea­sons, this is my choice for image of the month. Since we all have opin­ions, some mem­bers may dis­agree with my choice. That’s cool but THIS thread is not the place for debate over my pick, NOR is it the place to fur­ther cri­tique the image. The pur­pose here is to sug­gest strong ele­ments in the photo that we may learn from.

Con­grats again Lizardqing for cap­tur­ing this won­der­ful moment!