Forum Competiton# 81 - Still Life

[mike-e]

I thought I would start 2012 with a bit of a revival of a forum competition last done in 2008
Still Life.
As is wet/windy and bloomin' cold I though an indoor challenge would be erstwhile.
A beautifully lit atmospheric image of whatever takes your fancy is what I will be looking for.
The more 3 dimensional your image is the better
So 1 indoor beautifully lit 3 dimensional still life image please.

The closing date will be two weeks today 20th jan at midnight

Good look to everyone

Mike-e

[stelee]

Cheers!

[John]

The Music of Flowers

[KEASLA]

Rose by KEASLA, on Flickr

[Janice Freeman]

Very still Life!!

[PhilipHowe]

Still life 2012-01-15-006.jpg (183.53 KiB) Viewed 9540 times

A day out at the zoo.

[mike-e]

Thanks to everyone for having a go I will have a good look arfter work to day and announce the winner at teatime
good luck
Mike

[mike-e]

Thanks for taking part, it has been a pleasure in looking at such a diverse set of images, and quite a bit of a hard descion in choosing the winner
With it being winter time the challenge to find something indoors may seem appealing, until you start looking for something to photograph! thanks to all for stepping up to the challenge
So here we go.........
Ste Lee
Cheers
A super image to start us of with. I know shooting glassware has its own difficulties. Showing the interior cleanly, giving definition to almost invisible edges too on the glass can be notoriously difficult. This is a first class commercial still life shot
The texture on the lemon, and the subtle fill in lighting on the label leaves you guessing of the overall direction of the lighting, add to it the crisp dark edges that define the glass makes it a high calibre image. Only one small niggle it is, for me, a little tight in the frame.

John
The music of Flowers
A delicate soft image with a striking colour set. The warm browns of the wood blend lovely with the orange and yellow of the flora, the strong greens contrast boldly giving the image a suprising vibrant look
The central placingnof the musical instrument brings a restful element back to the image.
These juxtapositions match the musicality of the title, its the only the overall softness that I feel detracts you from finding something to latch on to visually.

KEASLA

Another strong colour contrast image
The texture on the rose makes it appear almost 3 dimensional, a bold strong colour, great detail considering it is mainly top frontally lit .
The fall off on the leaves is maybe a little to severe, but I think a change to the crop may lessen the effect.
It is an interesting graphic element than many a circular item placed centrally in the final image and then cropped to be square format creates a pleasant design - try it and see how it seems.
Really like the colours, and the suggested crop may help
a good effort


Janice


Very Still Life...

I should jolly well think so...... I wouldn't be anywhere near them if they even twitched.

I really love the colour range to this, and the way we have 'stoppers on the left of the picture of the 'lobster at the top left, and the dado type rail on the bottom left.
The tilt of the camera gives the cluster of crabs good balance
The warmth of light - whether its through choice of white balance, or even if it happened naturally add to the mediteranean feel of the picture.
Only the written card detracts your eye away from the shellfish, their colour and lighting make them look very appealing


Phillip Howe

A day out at the zoo

Interesting title for a still life shot phil!!!

Good clean whites, strong saturated colours suit the plastic figures very well.
the postioning of all the components tell quite a nice simple story and a strong graphic design

I'm guessing the lighting is from high above and a little behind the subjects and it gives a great 3 dimensionality to the image which I like a lot.
I did try the image without the frame and found it needed a n edge to define it. I may have consideded a less bold frame, but I think I may be being picky.
I really like the 3D effect


So once again thank you all for entering, I never realised how invloved putting into words and casting an opinion on others peoples work is so definitive. I hope you all find my comments useful.

As customary there can only be one winner .
Everyone was in the lead at some point, but in the end :- A day out at the zoo from Phil Howe wins the 81st forum competition
A nice take on still life, with a very 3 dimensional effect, strong graphic design, and really bold use of colour .
Phil over to you for the next one

[John]

Many thanks Mike for the fine judging, and many congratulations to Phil.

He knows what he needs to do next, so let's see what he comes up with to challenge us!

[Janice Freeman]

Congratulations Phil. Panicked when I saw this challenge come up but always enjoy having a go. Thanks for the comments Mike. Very constructive.

Janice

[PhilipHowe]

Firstly, Mike thank you very much for giving me a reason to finally get around to a few things.

The first one is to set my camera up so I could shoot tethered. This really helps to get the focus the way you want and with the camera on a tripod, it is easy to see the difference between a shot at f2.8 and at f16 for instance.

The second was to make an area where I could shoot still life as it'a not something I've done before. I laid my backdrop over the dining room table, set my softbox up with my speedlite on the right, high, but nearly touching the table. I then laid my reflector on the left to basically form a triangle.

Shooting straight into lightroom really helps as well, because you can complete an image before you replacethe still life and move onto the next.

After that, I had a scoot around the house, picked up anything and everything and shot it all in about an hour. I have a few photos, which I will post in images.

So, with all that, Mike, thank you very much for choosing my image and thanks to everyone for sharing theirs.

Janice, I agree with Mike on the crabs, I'd eat them, but go nowhere near them.

I'll post a new comp now!

[mike-e]

Cheers for the insight Phill, very informative, I like the idea of shooting tethered, and in using lightroom,

Ive not used it since lightroom 2.3, but I do think its advancements and its direct links to the new On One software with stackable layers a workflow of serious note. Will check them both out at the Focus exhibition soon
Glad the competition gave you the oppurtunity to ry a few things - the result was excellent.
Mike-e