Help Choose a Winning Picture

“ Potential Contest Pictures

The Florida Trail Association is having their annual meeting in March and they always have a photo contest. Now I don't fancy myself good at photography - I've got a point a shoot digicam - but I did take pictures of some beautiful spots and thought I might send them in.

That's where you come in... I can only send in 3 shots and I've got 15 that I think might have merit (some include some fellow TT'rs). Let me know which ones are worth sending and which I should delete off of my hard drive.

Thanks!”

“Nice pics! I vote for 2, 6, 15”

“I vote for 2, 3, and 8.”

“2, 3 & 12.

Good luck!”

“3,4,6

good luck! :)”

“3, 16, 15
Very nice shots. Good luck with the contest.”

“3, 5, 6”

“9, 11, 15

Great way to get us to look at your pictures. When will you move up to offering prizes?






LOL.”

“I meant 6, not 16. Especially since there's only 15 pics. Woops,”

“Thanks for the feedback - it sounds like 3 and 6 are in the running with some heavy consideration for a few others.

NS - I'll have to remember this tactic if I'm ever selling something! Actually, I've started paying for Webshots so they have taken the ads away from my site so that is nice.

Pennsy - I figured.”

“I like 2, 3

if you can tweek the sky light to be a bit darker, I think 9 would be a winner. The combination of the trees and the serpentine path is great. But the light sky to overwhelming. Or maybe you could crop it?”

“1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14 and 15. Those ones are my favorites.”

“4 5 6.


My vote.

8)”

“Stumprider - Yes - I will probably see what I can do with the final few to make them more crisp - thanks for the recommendations.

Artex for President - that man can make up his mind!”

“3,5,15, and my favorite, 11!”

“I'm a real photo critic, so watch out!! lol... I see quite a few where Buck's gradient filter would have majorly helped even out bright sky tones with dark forest! I think I kinda liked 8, but that was a problem there.

I picked four, with real favs as 3 and 15... otherwise 2 and 12. Remember, I'm nitpicking on stuff here, too, while others might not be doing that.

Also... have you ever thought to have people walking TOWARD you in the photos?? Doh!! If I were a judge, I'd talk the shot of someone walking face forward into the photo any time over the walking away shot. It would definitely be a planned shot, and plan some great background while you're at it.

(ohhhhhhh, I'm so naaaaaaasty! Hey, I've entered photo contests, done well at times, done bad at times and tried to figure out why... and think I've got some feel for what they might be looking for... Then again, I've never seen their winning shots, have I??)”

“Oh yeah, I liked the live oak and palmettos shot (whatever number that was)... but it could have been Cumberland Island! It was generic!”

“Which is not to say, don't enter it. lol... (I just keep yapping on and on here.... Don't EVER ask me to judge photos!!! lol)

You do need to punch up the colors a wee bit and sharpen some. (Do you have Photoshop?) And make sure the horizons are level by manually rotated the photo until they are.”

“By the way - that's treebait's hand holding the grasshopper. She could be a hand model for QVC's Bug Kingdom sale.

lizs - those are some good thoughts. I do like people in my pictures but I thought the judges would shy away from shots with faces of people that they didn't know. I do tend to like candid shots which often means that they must be from behind the subjects.

I do need help with my camera - for some reason my shots always seem a little washed out - I have to get them into Photoshop to make them sharper. Maybe I should get a photoraphy for dummies book.”

“Send in #3 MP”

“# 3 Coop.”

“Coop, good times to shoot are early and late in the day for the best light... or on cloudy days. You get good even light. But sometimes even then, the sky can be so bright it will make the photo real bright and real dark.

Does your camera have a backlight feature? If so, turn it on for shots where there's large areas of bright light in the background. It will trigger the flash to go off, in kind of a "fill flash" function. It's often used for portrait type work. Heck, I use flash most of the time, for that purpose.

That said, it can be nice to use the sun for highlights. I've got a shot of some kids sitting on a branch over some water where they're side-lighted by the late day sun. It's a great look for a shot.

Work with what your equipment will give you. And it's always better to have the shot as close to what you want in the camera and not count on Photoshop to try to "fix it" later. You just have to watch out and not have huge expanses of sky in shots. Learn your camera's focusing points, or set them. Sometimes I have to aim at the edge of a large bright area to get the camera to auto-adjust for it.
Or check Buck's shots. He uses a gradient filter. You manually put it on the camera and it darkens part of the shot, so it helps even out the very bright spots. (Hey, does anyone know of an auto gradient feature for digitals?? Now THAT WOULD ROCK!!! lol... I'd want that camera!!!)

More tricks: In Photoshop, adjusting brightness and contrast can help sharpen up a photo. Play with it and you'll see what I mean. But... if you have huge bright sky areas, you don't want to go that route.

Also, I don't know what size range they'll be accepting for the contest, but often the smaller size will look better unless the photo is totally, technically flawless. The smaller size will just tighten up the pixels.

And for faces... most places will have you get a model release from the person whose photo you're taking, which they sign. It says they gave you permission to take it and use their likeness (in whatever form... there are all kinds of releases). See if the FTA accepts that... or if they'd have a problem doing that.

As a reporter/photographer, I typically get a "verbal" release from people in every shot I take. Sometimes they'll ask for a copy of the published shot. If I shoot freelance stuff I hope to sell, I'd have a written form, copied off the net or a book on the photography business.

Any more questions?? lol... It's taken many years to get to this point and I'm no expert yet. Hang out at places like photo.net and a person will learn a lot. Or in a newsroom, where fellow reporters like nothing better than to give scathing critiques of each other's photos..... LOL!”

“12

7

4


I like the first of the above two because they have hikers in the shot

I like four because its moody and not the typical cliche shot of Fl.”

“Yes - more scathing critiques!

Thanks for the tips - I know there are a few things I can probably do just in the way I take my shots that can make the final product better. Right now - I hold the button until the auto focus box appears and then I press further to take a picture - and then I hope for the best. Thank goodness for digital so I can take 6 pictures of the same tree until I get it relatively right.

I do find that photography and hiking work well together so I suspect this will be something fun for me to continue to learn and blow money on for the rest of my life.

Buck takes great shots - If he was taking these florida photos I bet they would be amazing.”

“Coop...I like 3, 6, and 12 the best...but that's just me.”

“Photo #3 is a winner. I also liked 6, and 15.

Thanks for posting your photos. The overexposed segments (washout of the skyline) are what I struggle with as well. I've been attempting to correct for it through technique and by white-balance contrast and matrix metering settings on the D100.

Except for a CP filter, I've resisted going to Hardstop ND gradient filters to help correct for the light balance problem. However, from spending time with Galen Rowell's writings, I'm rethinking that. Also, Cokin's beginning to be a hassle. For my digital SLR, might go for a 72x20mm GND 3-stop filter next. Galen spoke highly of Singh-Ray.”

“I like #'s 3,5,&6.

I tend to think the shots without people will do better as a landscape. Shots with people in them can tend to cause the people in the shot to become the subject, instead of the beautiful landscape. Unless there is something striking about the person, or what the person is doing.

Basically, is this a picture of the landscape, which, incidently has a person in it? Does the person detract from the pretty spot?

Or is it a picture of the person in front of a pretty spot? And does this pretty spot add to the person?

Or is it a striking photo of some one in a pretty spot? Does the person detract from the pretty spot?

You must choose, but choose wisely.

Or is it a striking photo of a very pretty spot?”

“I like 5, 6, and 9. Good luck to ya, Coop.”

“They're pictures for a trail association. To answer monkeyboy's question, I don't think you'll go wrong with people using the trail in the photos. The Trail Association wants people to use the trail, thus people having fun in a great landscape is perfect. Coop, does the FTA get to keep the contest photos (or the winning photos) for use in their publications/website?”

“The three I like best are 12, 3, and 6.”

“Monkeyboy - those are the same questions I had which was why I thought I would get the TT opinion to understand what these trail people like in a photo. For instance - I get a kick out of the grasshopper shot, but so far there hasn't been much interest here which makes sense - since you can't really tell that it was taken on the Florida Trail.

lizs - yes, they do. I think they use the entered pictures for their publications throughout the year.

All this talk of technique got me wondering - I took out the manual that came with my camera and read about the options that are available when I use manual instead of auto-focus. There is a White Balance setting and a "Vivid" setting for color and I have also not been using the highest resolution. I think I'll do some tinkering around the neighborhood to see what I can do with some of these features.”

“I like 3 and 6 cause they are pretty pictures.

15 is a good one cause that's Florida hiking. Your going to wade sometimes.”

“3, 6, and 12 are my faves, with 6 being my choice for your best. But I'm a sucker for lush green.”

“5,6, and 9 are winners.
But I think you need to go back and take some more pictures and take me with you.”

“2,3 & 6”

“3,6,15 with 6 being my first choice

2 would have been my #4 pick

12 the people in the picture are too much hidden in the shade

4 the washed out sky doesn't do much for me

5 and 9 are good except for the overexposed sky”

“I'm with you WinterSolstice, same pics for me.”

“Hey Coop anything in the rules about adding a little photo shop spice to your photos?

Take #3 for example...



One possibility...


Many possiblities with Photoshop ;)”

“Holy cow - look at that!

I don't have Photoshop (yet) I have some crappy paint programs and simple editing programs. Between getting Photoshop and finding all these cool new manual focus features on my digicam I hope to have some cooler photos in the future. I've learned a lot from just this post. In the mean time it looks like I need to play with a few of the favorites here to dress them up a bit in Photoshop.”

“6, 3, 9. in that order.”

“Good point Lizs, A trail association..... I was thinking this was a scenery inspired contest, not a trail association sponsored contest. Gotta remember where the contest is.....”

“Hey Coop ...I don't have the full blown Photoshop Version ($600)yet either, I use Photoshop Elements 2.0....you can get it at Costco or similar type of store for around $65 or so....It has a lot of the basic Photoshop features...a lot more than I know how to use at this point ;)”