Got a tip for us?
Let us know
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.
Photo Challenge: Favorite (August 28 - September 4)
- Thread starter mollyc
- Start date
- Sort by reaction score
Just when you thought you could handle the entries you have, there is that last minute pile on.
When I judge, I do the c&c as the entries get posted. That pile on really screws up the work flow.
When I judge, I do the c&c as the entries get posted. That pile on really screws up the work flow.
Well, when you ask people to submit their favorite, you kinda set yourself up for trouble!
Also what threw me off-balance was when someone changed their submission along the way and I had already written up some notes and thoughts on the previous image....and here was something totally different in there now, which I didn't realize until I was reviewing the entire thread again before getting to work on the last submissions and preparing my final comments.
That has to be particularly hard on you because your comments are so extensive.
Uh....yeah, it was a little frustrating and added more to the amount of time I was already putting into that project!
i'll be back in about a week. 😉
well that's a challenge in and of itself!One word feels about each image, Molly!
Actually on other forums I am known for giving really good in depth CC, but I feel like here we are all over the board with ability and desire that I am much more considerate with my judging. 🙂
Sorry, Molly! Not helping, trying to help. Seems to be something men are good at, in general... 🤔 😱🤣
Well my daughter is still asleep and my boys went out for a bike ride, so here we are with some quick comments.
@Laird Knox | Well points for creativity and humor, but not much else to judge. 😉
@Strider64 | A beautiful dog; I know you worked hard to get close to her. You didn't say why this was a favorite? But great composition with having her eyes between the metal of the fence.
@dwfaust | That looks like a lovely villa! I can see why it would be a favorite for you. On a very slight technical basis I probably would have cloned out those stray leaves on the left to make the image symmetrical but that is super nit-picky and I like the center composition.
@Alexander.Of.Oz | Boop (your one word feels)
@Madonepro | wow that looks like a great place for a bike ride! I appreciate that you used the best camera you had with you. 🙂 Compositionally I would have loved if the horizon didn't compete with the crossbar of the bike. Next time try to get higher or lower so the bike is all in the water area or all (mostly) in the sky area.
@Hughmac | An awesome reflection image. I like that you took care to keep the entire pine tree in the reflection, and the panorama is a good choice here. I do wish a bit was taken off the right a bit to move the castle over; right now it's not centered but not *not* centered. I would love to wander around a place like that; the US is too new to have castles and really old buildings.
@tizeye | What a great night shot; this is something I personally haven't had much experience with and I really love to see a well executed night image. I love the leading line of the bridge drawing your eye to the back of the frame. My only very small CC is that I would like to see that one red reflection desaturated or recolored; it's the only bit of color in an otherwise monochromatic photo.
@deep diver | How great that you picked a favorite from not your usual genre. 🙂 As a predominantly macro/color shooter this is right up my alley. I love your DOF here and the rainbow order of the pencils.
@akash.nu | I am always in awe of how you compose and frame your images, knowing you use your phone camera. All my knowledge of photography seemingly leaves my brain when I try to use my phone. You've hit all the high points here - slow shutter speed, rule of thirds, foreground interest. The background seems a little mushy, but let's be honest, you've pretty much maxed out the ability of your sensor and gear here and still come up with a postcard ready image.
@Clix Pix | A challenging exposure for sure with the white dog and black birds/environment. Our puppy is black so I have the opposite problem of keeping her detailed without blowing out the environment. I like the humor in this image and hope that no animals were harmed in the making of it! 😉
@redshifted | okay so I don't even know what to say about this. Like you were just standing on a bridge and saw it and snapped a photo? I've seen a few jellyfish naturally in the ocean while swimming in the daylight, but to see a jelly like this is usually in an aquarium. I lived a couple of hours from Mystic for eight years and this sort of astounds me. It's phenomenal.
@ericgtr12 | Another fantastic night image. Beautiful composition and exposure and I love all the lights. They seem like they are twinkling right through your image.
@someoldguy | This is beautiful. Fantastic that you were able to find some vistas off the beaten path. It must be awe-inspiring there.
@oblomow | I love the peaceful, serene this has and I love that you had it printed! I just did a 24x30 print for my husband's birthday this week and he hung it up in the front hall. It's amazing to see your own artwork hung. 🙂 So lovely; I am smiling as I look at it.
@Janichsan | I love the minimal and repetitive feel to this, the little pops of color on the boats. It makes me wonder if they are all lined up for a boating class or group excursion. What a fun little vista.
@mtbdudex | what an amazing capture and that you took with with a relatively short lens. And then to find some sculpture (??) work that nearly mirrored your own image. Raccoons are such lovely creatures even if they dig up the garden.
@Apple fanboy | A beautiful creature and a beautiful image. A great composition and I like the simplicity of it. Well done.
Okay, so now for the hard part. I always think I will write my critiques in advance, but then the stragglers always come in and change my opinion! Too many good images this week. Well done everyone.
Third: @mtbdudex
Second: @redshifted
First: @Alexander.Of.Oz (sorry not sorry). We are still very much in the puppy phase here (seven months) and love all boopable noses. Congrats! And sympathies!
@Laird Knox | Well points for creativity and humor, but not much else to judge. 😉
@Strider64 | A beautiful dog; I know you worked hard to get close to her. You didn't say why this was a favorite? But great composition with having her eyes between the metal of the fence.
@dwfaust | That looks like a lovely villa! I can see why it would be a favorite for you. On a very slight technical basis I probably would have cloned out those stray leaves on the left to make the image symmetrical but that is super nit-picky and I like the center composition.
@Alexander.Of.Oz | Boop (your one word feels)
@Madonepro | wow that looks like a great place for a bike ride! I appreciate that you used the best camera you had with you. 🙂 Compositionally I would have loved if the horizon didn't compete with the crossbar of the bike. Next time try to get higher or lower so the bike is all in the water area or all (mostly) in the sky area.
@Hughmac | An awesome reflection image. I like that you took care to keep the entire pine tree in the reflection, and the panorama is a good choice here. I do wish a bit was taken off the right a bit to move the castle over; right now it's not centered but not *not* centered. I would love to wander around a place like that; the US is too new to have castles and really old buildings.
@tizeye | What a great night shot; this is something I personally haven't had much experience with and I really love to see a well executed night image. I love the leading line of the bridge drawing your eye to the back of the frame. My only very small CC is that I would like to see that one red reflection desaturated or recolored; it's the only bit of color in an otherwise monochromatic photo.
@deep diver | How great that you picked a favorite from not your usual genre. 🙂 As a predominantly macro/color shooter this is right up my alley. I love your DOF here and the rainbow order of the pencils.
@akash.nu | I am always in awe of how you compose and frame your images, knowing you use your phone camera. All my knowledge of photography seemingly leaves my brain when I try to use my phone. You've hit all the high points here - slow shutter speed, rule of thirds, foreground interest. The background seems a little mushy, but let's be honest, you've pretty much maxed out the ability of your sensor and gear here and still come up with a postcard ready image.
@Clix Pix | A challenging exposure for sure with the white dog and black birds/environment. Our puppy is black so I have the opposite problem of keeping her detailed without blowing out the environment. I like the humor in this image and hope that no animals were harmed in the making of it! 😉
@redshifted | okay so I don't even know what to say about this. Like you were just standing on a bridge and saw it and snapped a photo? I've seen a few jellyfish naturally in the ocean while swimming in the daylight, but to see a jelly like this is usually in an aquarium. I lived a couple of hours from Mystic for eight years and this sort of astounds me. It's phenomenal.
@ericgtr12 | Another fantastic night image. Beautiful composition and exposure and I love all the lights. They seem like they are twinkling right through your image.
@someoldguy | This is beautiful. Fantastic that you were able to find some vistas off the beaten path. It must be awe-inspiring there.
@oblomow | I love the peaceful, serene this has and I love that you had it printed! I just did a 24x30 print for my husband's birthday this week and he hung it up in the front hall. It's amazing to see your own artwork hung. 🙂 So lovely; I am smiling as I look at it.
@Janichsan | I love the minimal and repetitive feel to this, the little pops of color on the boats. It makes me wonder if they are all lined up for a boating class or group excursion. What a fun little vista.
@mtbdudex | what an amazing capture and that you took with with a relatively short lens. And then to find some sculpture (??) work that nearly mirrored your own image. Raccoons are such lovely creatures even if they dig up the garden.
@Apple fanboy | A beautiful creature and a beautiful image. A great composition and I like the simplicity of it. Well done.
Okay, so now for the hard part. I always think I will write my critiques in advance, but then the stragglers always come in and change my opinion! Too many good images this week. Well done everyone.
Third: @mtbdudex
Second: @redshifted
First: @Alexander.Of.Oz (sorry not sorry). We are still very much in the puppy phase here (seven months) and love all boopable noses. Congrats! And sympathies!
Congratulations, all! This was a fun one to participate in and to view -- great topic, Molly! Now let's see what Alex comes up with for us.....
Thanks for the kind words @mollyc , appreciate your feedback.
Congratulations
to the winners.
Waiting for the next one.
Congratulations
to the winners. Waiting for the next one.
Thanks for judging what must have given you tough choices, and congrats to the winners
Cheers
Hugh
Cheers
Hugh
That's pretty much how it happened - sometimes the photography muse is generous (and you remembered to mount your polarizer on your telephoto
).I've learned it's an occasional seasonal thing with jellyfish and it was a case of right place, right time, right light and looking in the right place
.I believe it's an Atlantic Sea Nettle (that is supposed to have a nasty sting).
Some nervous kayakers paddling by were clearly wondering what I was so intently pointing my camera at.
I did clean up some distracting random floating water debris and I pushed up the contrast in post.
I was really surprised by how well the old Olympus RAW file holds up after all these years
.Thanks for judging and congrats to the entrants!
Good job photography isn’t a passion, otherwise your critique might have hurt.
Thought the theme was favourite, not who can take the best photo with amazing skills.
Thanks I won’t be back
We are all here to learn, hone our skills, have fun, and enjoy the comradeship. This is also a contest. The critique is part of the process and is there to help us all learn. Everyone of us here has gotten corrective feedback. That is part of the process. All feedback is given appropriately and in the spirit of this forum. Molly was doing her job with the skill and experienced eye that we expect from her. Whether you come back or not is certainly up to you. You will be welcomed.
@mollyc well done on getting through all that and on a weekend when your time is already stretched to the max! Boopable Boof, I love it! 😍
Congratulations to all that entered and shared images with us. It's the diversity of interpretation of the motif for the week that I really enjoy seeing.
I'll be back with a new round very shortly, the theme is already formulated!
@Madonepro It's pretty normal for those people adjudicating the weekly challenge to give their take on how an image may have been visually improved through constructive critiquing. It is a suggestion made with the interest of assisting others to improve their skillset and is not ever given in a critical manner with disapproval or attack of any personal nature upon the entrant. @mollyc was appreciative of your entry and enjoyed it, as was expressed in their first two sentences, then they shared a couple of tips to potentially make the image a little more interesting through the use of framing the image with clearer backgrounds. It saddens me that you felt this to be a personal attack of some sort. I live with Complex PTSD and am very prone to misreading things as possible personal attacks, this is actually a very welcoming and enabling sub-forum of the MacRumors forum where I feel completely safe; hopefully, you can too.
I'll be back after a late breakfast.
Congratulations to all that entered and shared images with us. It's the diversity of interpretation of the motif for the week that I really enjoy seeing.
I'll be back with a new round very shortly, the theme is already formulated!
@Madonepro It's pretty normal for those people adjudicating the weekly challenge to give their take on how an image may have been visually improved through constructive critiquing. It is a suggestion made with the interest of assisting others to improve their skillset and is not ever given in a critical manner with disapproval or attack of any personal nature upon the entrant. @mollyc was appreciative of your entry and enjoyed it, as was expressed in their first two sentences, then they shared a couple of tips to potentially make the image a little more interesting through the use of framing the image with clearer backgrounds. It saddens me that you felt this to be a personal attack of some sort. I live with Complex PTSD and am very prone to misreading things as possible personal attacks, this is actually a very welcoming and enabling sub-forum of the MacRumors forum where I feel completely safe; hopefully, you can too.
I'll be back after a late breakfast.
These were fantastic images and I loved seeing what everyone put out there. Congratulations to the podium winners and to @Alexander.Of.Oz for a first place finish! I loved the terrific and thoughtful feedback from @mollyc and I always learn something from these competitions even though I don’t participate as often as I‘d like. I’m hoping to change that.
@Madonepro I’d love to see your eye, images and interpretations back here . I find this to be a welcoming, friendly and supportive place! One goal of the competition is to get feedback and a different perspective. Different perspectives are supremely valuable and can help take us to new levels if that’s our desire. Hang out in the POTD thread more - it’s like hanging out in a coffee shop (Or wherever) and you can get a sense of what everyone does and a sense of the people as individuals. Feedback there is given if you ask for it, less so if you don’t. There are few forums like this one (MacRumors Digital Photography) that are, to me, as welcoming and full of warm generous souls. Molly is a supremely talented artist and the feedback, in my mind, was not meant to whack you over the head but to offer her perspective on ways to take a given image further. You can do with that feedback what you will, including nothing - you’re the image taker here😀. I personally love listening to other perspectives and love the growth it offers me personally. I hope to see you back.
@Madonepro I’d love to see your eye, images and interpretations back here
. I find this to be a welcoming, friendly and supportive place! One goal of the competition is to get feedback and a different perspective. Different perspectives are supremely valuable and can help take us to new levels if that’s our desire. Hang out in the POTD thread more - it’s like hanging out in a coffee shop (Or wherever) and you can get a sense of what everyone does and a sense of the people as individuals. Feedback there is given if you ask for it, less so if you don’t. There are few forums like this one (MacRumors Digital Photography) that are, to me, as welcoming and full of warm generous souls. Molly is a supremely talented artist and the feedback, in my mind, was not meant to whack you over the head but to offer her perspective on ways to take a given image further. You can do with that feedback what you will, including nothing - you’re the image taker here😀. I personally love listening to other perspectives and love the growth it offers me personally. I hope to see you back.
Last edited: