The snow is mostly gone, here on the prairies, but it will be some weeks before we see greenery and flowers blooming. I can’t wait! It has been a long winter and I sure could use a bit of color. Late spring or early summer images are great for it because all is fresh and green is bright and not dimmed by dust of late summer days.
We are lucky here in Alberta, because some nights are full of light show. We had a couple of gorgeous Aurora showing last fall and I have managed to capture some shots without leaving the city.
I know, I know it is winter and everybody posts winter photography, but I am not ready for it yet. I see it outside my window every day, so I want to see something warm, colorful and pretty. Hope you are in need of this as well.
It has been a while since I’ve posted anything about Elk Island National Park. So, I think, it is time for some lovely sunset from the beginning of summer, when all was green, flowers were blooming and days were warm and long.
So the DP Challenge Olympics II has started. The first week submissions for the challenges are complete, and I'm again addicted to the little update button on the page, showing the scores. First week challenges were Landscape, and Weathered. I have entered the Weathered challenge with this shot:
I thought the smiley face was perfect. Thoughts?
Well it's been quiet on the blog front. On the account that I've been pretty busy at work, with few trips out of the city, and the DPChallenge Olympics II started a couple of days ago. I have a few pictures that I will be posting. They are from our little outings around the city. Just didn't have the time to actually sit down and choose the best ones, then put a little work to them. Lots has happened from the last post. The last weekend was very active. I had an actual photoshoot (my first one!!!), then there were Canada Day fireworks, and then trying to come up with ideas for Olympic challenges. I'm not complaining, just trying to justify the quiet on the blog. So with out further ado I'm going to start with a couple of months old picture of a little prairie dog.
This was taken at Edmonton Zoo. I was a bit surprised how sharp the photo came out, even at 400mm zoom. Especially when digital cameras have a notorious problems with focusing on animal fur. Thoughts?
I've decided to enter another challenge at DPChallenge website. This one was called masks. Unfortunately I didn't read the description of the challenge carefully enough, specially the statement that states "Find or create a mask, and photograph someone wearing it". Blasted. I think that is why the scoring isn't doing well. So here is my entry.
Took this photo in the basement. Stuck a small balloon inside the mask to give it shape, and a green plastic glow-rod, to give the mask it's green glow. Then while the shutter was open I shone a flashlight on the valve for a second. I think it came out not too bad. Then again I am biased :)
Thoughts?
We did it! We got the silver! Second place behind such a strong team as Icelanders, is a pretty good achievement if I can say so. Third place was taken by team Tropical Islands, pushing the Germans into the fourth spot. To tell the truth, I'm glad it's over. It's pretty stressful to come up with new ideas every week, and try to execute them well. Since all these challenges were done with Basic Editing rules, the whole setup had to be done perfectly. No editing in photoshop besides playing with colors, saturation, levels etc. No special filters, no spot editing. So this made it even harder. Great experience though, and made new friends, which as with all internet friends, they are all over the place. The closest one is about 1300km away. That's it for the Olympics.... maybe sometime in July there will be another one.... we will see.
This week is the last week of the DPC Olympics. The challenges were, The Paranormal and Negative Image. Immediately I had an idea for the paranormal challenge and after a few tweaks here and there. I submitted the following photo:
I'm very grateful to my wife for sitting in, and having enough patience to sit through the whole process. There were a few of these, and each took about 15s of sitting absolutely still. Unfortunately it's not doing very well in terms of points. About average I would say. I also had to submit a proof of it, and the steps necessary to achieve this effect. I guess someone did not believe that all you have to do, is turn off all the saturation colors except for the blue. What are your thoughts on the photo?
Team Polska had a very strong week. This was the highest average score during the whole of the Olympics, but to our surprise, the German team beat us to the second place. Who got the first place this week? Who do you think.. hmmm? The Icelanders of course. So we took the 3rd spot. We are still holding on to the 2nd place in overall standings, but the Icelanders are moving away, and the Germans are closing in. Here are our results from Week 7:
Centered Composition
MAK - La Pomme
Bruski - Pride
Artvet - Gerbera
Homemade Landscape
Dudski - The "Eat Your Greens" Mountain Retreat
Budya - Sim City 5000
cptpoland - Icebergs basking in the moon light.
AP - BRRRRRRRrrrrr!!!!!!
Absolutely amazing results from the Polish team for week 6 of DPChallenge Olympics. Got another 10 points under our belt, which puts us in the second place overall, just 4 points behind Icelanders!
Here are our entries for Warm Colors:
Bruski - Cala Lillies
Budya - Fuzzzzzy
AP - Tropicália
Cool Color entries:
MAK - The Weeping Willow
Dudski - A Far Away Place
Artvet - Blue
CptPoland - A Rose in Blue
Thank you everyone for great comments. I have tried to redo the Iceberg shots. Give them more life, but for some reason could not repeat it. Here are the remixes of Iceberg shots:
Don't know if it's the composition or the light. I mean they do look ok, but not for a submission. At least I don't think so.
Going through the original pictures I found one I must have missed initially. Did some quick editing, and here it is:
One regret I have is that I didn't shoot it with a higher aperture. I had it set for 5.6, and really should have had it at 16 or even higher. This would have probably made the two little icebergs sharper. Overall these pictures were challenging in themselves. Lots of flour, about 1.5kg of it. Good thing none of it went to waste.
I took, some plastic containers, packed them tight with flour, and made little forms on a mirror. Then came shaping cracking of the molds to make them appear a little more authentic. Then used a normal desk lamp, but changed the lightbulb to a blue one. The light on the "sky" is a little LED light on a dark blue velvet. I wish I could have added more things to the picture like little stars of sorts, but it is what it is. Hopefully it won't be a major disappointment.
I'm really surprised. This is my entry for the Intimacy challenge.
It's not doing as well as I hoped it would. Actually right now it's doing a lot worse. It's not even at 5 average. There is a couple of consolations.... there is still a week of voting to go, and so far the comments have been pretty positive. We will see how it goes....
So we are half way through and Team Polska is going strong. We took another 2nd place this week. Overall we are still 2nd, only the Icelanders are in our way. I must admit they do have a strong team, and will not be easy to catch. Here are our results:
Environmental Portrait
MAK - Frankie. Painter & Decorator
Dudski - Underground Musician
Artvet - The Scientist
AP - Night Shift Driver
Fences
Bruski - Into The Distance
Budya - Interlinked
CptPoland - Barred from Fun
My shot wasn't very good, and it showed. Didn't have much time for the challenge, so during the trip to Vegas snapped a couple of fences with my little point and shoot camera. That one was the best of them.
Week 5 challenges were Intimacy and Pattern. The votes have started..... and I know there is a whole week to go, but I'm really disappointed and pissed off! So far it's doing worse than the Fence...
Last challenges, Blurry Mess and Pollution, were brutal to our team. We didn't get any points, which meant that we dropped to second place in overall standings. Blurry Mess was especially hard. Here are the results of week number 3:
Blurry Mess
Budya - Purple Pandemonium
Bruski - Ancient Medicine
Dudski - Dreams Ablaze
Artvet - Repressed Desires
MAK - Light-On-Light
Pollution
AP - Metropolis Emissions
CptPoland - The Future?
Personally I was disappointed that my picture did so poorly. Oh well. Complete current standings can be found here.
This week (week 4) is almost coming to an end, and I must say that we have very very good scores so far. I will post the results once the voting is over on Tuesday.
Well well well. Team Polska got the highest score this week! Currently we are tied for the first place with Iceland. This is very very cool. Good thing that only 4 highest marked pictures count towards the final score, or we would not score so high. Here are links to the team photos.
Tilted Challenge:
Ten past five - Mak
Speeding Away - Bruski
Vanishing Point - CptPoland
Silverware Challenge:
Witch's Brew - Budya
Family Portrait - Artvet
fORkGY ? - AP
Lucifer's Fork - Dudski
So submission time for week 3 challenges is upon us. The challenges were Blurry Mess and Pollution. Our team was comparing Blurry Messes all weak. I must say that it is not as easy as you think. Not only does the picture has to be a blurry mess, but also it has to be interesting. I figured there is going to be a lot abstract photos submitted for this challenge. Pollution on the other hand, I thought was a little easier. A very good friend of mine, acquired some authentic Russian military gas masks (when I asked him why, he replied for scaring neighbors!), so I borrowed one of them and shot this photo:
>
My first thoughts were to actually visit a city garbage dump, but that did not turn out to be easy. So I piled some of our garbage on the deck, had Konrad put on the mask and some rubber gloves, and play on the deck. He was really enjoying himself. Even wanted to wear the gas mask to school.
Blurry Mess pictures came out ok, but not the greatest:
I think I will be submitting for the Pollution challenge. Might stand a better chance, since there are twice as many blurry messes submitted as pollution. Comments?
Today is the final day of submission for the Tilted or Silverware challenge. This marks the second week of the DPC Olympics. Third challenge will be announced tonight. I had few stumbling blocks with this one, as I had a complete mental block to silverware ideas. I went with the tilted part. Here are two ideas:
It seems that people like the second one more. Personally I like the first one, because it gives you a feeling like you are jumping off the bridge. A little bit unusual... but hey, I'll go with the majority. It's for the team. Wouldn't mind reading any other opinions though.
I lied. Ultimately the picture that I posted to the Free Study challenge is this one:
I was advised that the Sun Worshippers will not do well in the challenge as the crop made the picture a bit too wide. Apparently people are merciless when voting in the Free Study Challenges. I must say that my revised submission picture is doing ok. Right now it's sitting at a 5.46 average vote out of 10, after 75 votes. I was hoping for a bit higher score, but then again I'm not really objective. What would you have given it?
The first challenge for the DPC Olympics is almost complete. It will be done tonight at midnight. There were two themes: Color on Color and Black and White in Color. Good thing is that they were repeated challenges, so one could go back to previous one for ideas and inspiration:
Color on Color
I thought it would be easier to do a B&W in Color so finally after spending a lot of time (I mean a lot of time) I've submitted this photo:
I've seen our team's photos, and I think we stand a good chance. Voting will begin on Feb 27th, as well as another challenge will be announced. There was also another challenge posted themed Free Study. So just for the hell of it I've submitted a photo I took yesterday on the way to work.
We'll see how they do. Just a reminder you can view the Olympic results at the official DPC Olympic page.
Tomorrow, February 20th is going to be an exciting day. First of there is a total lunar eclipse happening in the evening. It looks like the skies are going to be clear, and I'll be in my backyard snapping away. The event will start around 6:30pm mountain standard time, and it will continue until about 11pm, with the total eclipse happening around 8pm. You can find more info about this event here. Also tomorrow is the start of DPC Olympics. DP Challenge is a known website for photographic challenges. The website also has a wealth of information on photography, and a lot of great tutorials. Here is a little info on the event:
- Teams will be based on what COUNTRY you are born in. For example, if you were born in United States you will be automatically placed on the USA team. (no exceptions) :P
- Each team must have at least 5 people and at most 7. The members will be selected on a first come first serve basis. The first 7 people who post on this forum saying they would like to participate fills the spot. If you are unable to retrieve at least 5 people for your team/country, then you will not be able to participate :(
- Since both members and non-members may join this tournament, the challenges will be Exclusive Open Challenges
- During the challenge you must have at least 4-5 people in your team participate, or it is an automatic forfeit. The winning team will be based on the average score comprised of the participants in the challenge.
- For the format of the tournament: If there are 4-7 countries only participating then it will be a round-robin tournament. If 8 or more then most likely it will be an ELIMINATION one.
-An alternate may only be a replacement. If one of the members of your team quit the tourney for some reason because they feel they can't participate in many of the challenges, then the alternate comes in. Essentially, the alternate cannot be used unless someone from their team OFFICIALLY resigns their position.
- The Deadline for entrants will be Febuary, Friday the 15th.
- First Challenge will be February 20th.
- Draws will be selected Randomly (No seeded teams)
- Top 3 finishers will receive custom made avatars (they won't be fancy :P) But still fun.
There are currently 11 teams. It's going to be pretty stiff competition, but I think our Polish team has some very strong talent. I'm not counting myself in that, but as I am part of the team I will try my best not to disappoint. You can track our progress at the official DPC Olympic page. The competition will run for 8 weeks with a different challenge each week. Here are the dates: February 20th, February 27th, March 5th, March 12th, March 19th, March 26th, April 2nd, and April 9th.
Here is our team:
Captain - MAK
and me.
Go Team!
