These two images were my entries for the third round of the internal print competition.
Leaving the Bwlch
Judge’s comments
… another cracking image, really enjoying this, there’s lots of clarity and detail exactly where we want it to be, like where we have this darker plane against the light background, that works particularly nice… just seen the heat coming off the jets at the back there, plenty of space for it to go into you know exactly what we are doing
… a good strong image
… just spoke in the break it is as much as anything it is about how much the images effect the viewer emotionally to lift right up to the very top
… it is close but it is just not quite there
I asked a colleague from the Club, who is a newly qualified judge, to give me another opinion to help to understand the comment ‘not quite there’.
His summary was this:
“Technically excellent plane, very nicely captured to show a dramatic angle and good composition tonal but a bit lacking in contrast – tonight that will be an 8.5.
Leaning on the door
Judge’s comments
… yes, I mean it is a nice portrait… portraits are very difficult especially in competitions because as a photographer you are engaging with the model so much more than the viewer, you have got to have a really special expression to engage a complete stranger
… she is almost there, very close, I am enjoying the catch lights in her eye, the strong light coming in from the right works really well and she is just sort of shading herself
… so actually even though she has got quite black lighting on her face the strong light on her hair and then there’s quite strong shadow on the left hand side works really quite nicely
… I think you’ve done a relatively good job there, the engagement is quite nice to me the viewer
… so yes it is quite a pleasant portrait
The scores
There were 32 images in this print round in Division 1.
‘Leaving the Bwlch’ scored 8.5 and ‘Leaning on the door’ scored 8.5.
The original images
‘Leaving the Bwlch’:
The colours on the F-15E just did not look ‘right’ so I decided to convert the image to B&W using Lightroom. After I had printed the first version the highlighted panels on the plane’s wings stood out and distracted the rest of the plane. A quick edit in Photoshop cloned out the bright panel edges and the other bright parts of the fuselage.
Here are the other images from our day on the Bwlch.
‘Leaning on the door’:
After taking images of Tara Kirsty outside on the formal entrance we moved indoors and she stood with the sun streaming in at the side of the open door.
I cropped the image to A4 dimensions in order to remove the almost burnt out brickwork. Her face had a few highlights that toned down and a quick foray into PotraitPro helped me improve the brightness in her eyes.
Here are the images from the photo shoot at the Papplewick pumping station.