Weekly Contest 9/29-10/6 "Trees during Sunset"

[Miltz]

One of my favorite things to shoot is trees during sunset, and I'm curious to see what the talented people here come up with. The Tree/Trees have to be the main subject. Something like a landscape of a mountain with trees on it during sunset will not be eligible.

Rules:
Be creative and have fun.
You may only submit one photo per contest.
Please do not add comments to your submission.
Please do not comment on photos until after the judging has taken place.
The contest runs for exactly one week, starting NOW! (see time/date stamp at the start of this thread.)
At the end of the week, The Judge (last week's Winner) will choose a 1st, 2nd, and 3rd place photo, providing as much feedback as possible.
The 1st place Winner will start a new thread with the topic/theme of their choice, and act as the Judge for that contest. (Winner has 48 hours to create new theme, after that it defers to 2nd place).

CONTEST ENDED EARLY DUE TO TRAVEL, SEE BELOW

 

[tomnavratil]

 

[Indydenny]

Favorite Tree at Sunset by Our Family Pics, on Flickr

 

[thebro20]

Untitled by Eli Albert, on Flickr

 

[rx7dude]

Palm Sunset on Flickr

 

[HantaYo]

 

[stillcrazyman]

My submission

 

[kenoh]

Glasgow Skies of Fire by Ken OHagan, on Flickr

 

[MacRy]

 

[anotherscotsman]

Tree-lined road at dusk.


Heading home by another scotsman, on Flickr

 

[Miltz]

Thank you to everyone for your submissions. I am ending this contest 2 days early because I just found out the place that I'm traveling to this week will have no cell or wifi service so I wouldn't be able to respond until next weekend. I felt this was the best solution. I apologize to anyone who saw this contest and didn't get a chance to submit.

1st Place :thebro20 - I really loved this image. The strong silhouette of the tree with the fantastic layered background is the perfect balance. The rolling hills have just the right amount of contrast without competing with the tree for attention. The unique placement of the tree and overall composition along with the natural looking sunset also elevated the image.

2nd Place: stillcrazyman - Excellent clouds during sunset with wide dynamic range. I love the tree and bird in this image. Unfortunately the HDR effect of the tree and bird takes away from the image. Had the tree been more in natural shadow this may have won first place.

3rd Place: Indydenny - I like what you are trying to do here. Unfortunately the composition and lighting don't do it for me. The subject matters looks amazing and I think you should try to re-shoot image because the potential is great. Looks like a place I'd want to visit.

tomnavratil: nice effort on this one. The composition, and color cast of the image don't do it for me.
rx7dude: This looks like a excellent location for a tree and sunset image. This image has very poor composition and color rendition.
HantaYo: Unfortunately this image doesn't match the theme. There is no evidence of a sunset in this image.
kenoh: Wow, what a sky. Excellent capture. The main subject in this image is the sky and the sign, not the trees.
MacRy: The main subject here is the foliage coming from the tree, and it's hard to tell if this in fact was sunset image.
anotherscotsman: This is very good image, but it doesn't match the theme. The Main subject here is the road and lights.

 

[kenoh]

Thanks Miltz for feedback. You are right, the sunset was the focus in my image but there were trees in it...

Thank you for your positive comments on my image. This was handheld while out of breath from running along street to get a good vantage point. This image was the one I was taking before I turned around and saw the awesome super moon behind the blocks of flats that then had me sprinting home to get the tripod! it was an active evening!

 

[Apple fanboy]

Well done everyone. I don't get out for sunsets due to family commitments, but have been checking each day this week!
Stillcrazyman would have been my choice. That sky along with the bird makes that shot a winner IMO.
On to the next.

 

[MacRy]

Yeah I'm with you on that AFB. I think that Stillcrazyman's was a doozy.

Congrats to the winners.

 

[kenoh]

Same here Stillcrazymans was le balon de chien... ;-)

The winning landscape of a mountain with trees on it during sunset image is very nice. Beautiful layering and colours.

 

[kenoh]

Laird Knox, are you raging right now? Denied your usual fashionably late entry due to early closure?

 

[thebro20]

wow thank you Miltz, I feel very honored to have won! Congrats to the other winners, there were some amazing pictures this week. I'll be sure to put up the new contest tomorrow.

Now I just have to think of a good theme

 

[anotherscotsman]

Thank you to everyone for your submissions. I am ending this contest 2 days early because I just found out the place that I'm traveling to this week will have no cell or wifi service so I wouldn't be able to respond until next weekend. I felt this was the best solution. I apologize to anyone who saw this contest and didn't get a chance to submit.

1st Place :thebro20 - I really loved this image. The strong silhouette of the tree with the fantastic layered background is the perfect balance. The rolling hills have just the right amount of contrast without competing with the tree for attention. The unique placement of the tree and overall composition along with the natural looking sunset also elevated the image.

2nd Place: stillcrazyman - Excellent clouds during sunset with wide dynamic range. I love the tree and bird in this image. Unfortunately the HDR effect of the tree and bird takes away from the image. Had the tree been more in natural shadow this may have won first place.

3rd Place: Indydenny - I like what you are trying to do here. Unfortunately the composition and lighting don't do it for me. The subject matters looks amazing and I think you should try to re-shoot image because the potential is great. Looks like a place I'd want to visit.

tomnavratil: nice effort on this one. The composition, and color cast of the image don't do it for me.
rx7dude: This looks like a excellent location for a tree and sunset image. This image has very poor composition and color rendition.
HantaYo: Unfortunately this image doesn't match the theme. There is no evidence of a sunset in this image.
kenoh: Wow, what a sky. Excellent capture. The main subject in this image is the sky and the sign, not the trees.
MacRy: The main subject here is the foliage coming from the tree, and it's hard to tell if this in fact was sunset image.
anotherscotsman: This is very good image, but it doesn't match the theme. The Main subject here is the road and lights.

Thanks Miltz - hoped you wouldn't have noticed...great photos from everyone and very worthy winners.

 

[thebro20]

Same here Stillcrazymans was le balon de chien... ;-)

The winning landscape of a mountain with trees on it during sunset image is very nice. Beautiful layering and colours.

The blue ridge mountains always produce beautiful sunsets!

 

[AngerDanger]

I really enjoyed the specificity, which is uncommon for these contests, of this week's theme. Also, it was nice to have a twist on the cliché subject of sunsets; there are many sunset shots but a bit fewer like these.

 

[tomnavratil]

Thank you to everyone for your submissions. I am ending this contest 2 days early because I just found out the place that I'm traveling to this week will have no cell or wifi service so I wouldn't be able to respond until next weekend. I felt this was the best solution. I apologize to anyone who saw this contest and didn't get a chance to submit.

tomnavratil: nice effort on this one. The composition, and color cast of the image don't do it for me.

Thank you for your feedback @Miltz, appreciate it! I was trying to go for a centred version in this one but the post-processing is actually done much later from a RAW file and subjectively I was going for these tones. Do you mind sharing a bit more detail on the colour cast at all if you have a minute?

Otherwise congratulations to the winners, well done! For me @stillcrazyman's image has been top this week, really lovely image!

 

[stillcrazyman]

I'm good with second place And thanks for all the support.

I used a bit of HDR tone mapping to bring out the intensity of the clouds. The original is less dynamic.
Nice entries from everyone !! Look forward to the next one.

 

[Hughmac]

New contest here - https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/weekly-photo-contest-10-5-10-11.1925610/

Cheers

Hugh

 

[Laird Knox]

Laird Knox, are you raging right now? Denied your usual fashionably late entry due to early closure?

I did want to enter this one but things have been rather crazy of late. It took a bit to get caught up on my schoolwork after Burning Man, then the Life is Beautiful festival was last weekend and Bike Fest this weekend. Both of those events had their main gates right outside the gallery so I was scrambling to polish everything up. Unfortunately both events were a bust but the gallery looks great!

This semester I'm taking a portrait class and it is the one I have been dreading. Portraits aren't my forte. The workload for the class is a bit more than I can handle at the moment but I'll muddle through somehow.

I enjoyed seeing all the entries. Fantastic job everybody!

Incidentally, here is the shot I wanted to submit but it really isn't a sunset.

 

[MacRy]

It's a cracker though Laird!