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Photo Assignment #04: Night Entry Here

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sparkyphotog

sparkyphotog

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Please read and adhere to the following.

Post your single entry for Photo Assignment #04 - Night, in this thread. The picture has to have been taken between April 22nd and May 4th midnight. Also, please refrain from comment on pictures (yours and others) until after the winner has been selected. Any comments posted prior to the announcement of a winner will be deleted. Pictures should stand on their own for your interpretation of "Night". If you wish a critique/comment, than please state so above or below your entry.

This assignment will close midnight, May 4th, 2009 so have your entry in by then.
 
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Fasterflames.jpg
 
If your screen size can handle it, the larger version is more what I wanted:
georgia2_6617.jpg
 
One minute until midnight, and I see a few of you just squeaked in under the wire. :lol2: I'm about to head off to bed, but I should have judging/critiques posted sometime tomorrow, probably late evening. Thanks for the entries!
 
And the winner is....

StarWatcher!

There are some great entries here, but this one really caught my eye as being unique. I really like the subtlety of the dimly lit tree framing the moon. I think you captured the essence of night very well with this one.

Following anaconda's lead, I'll offer my humble critique, such as it is, of the other entries as well.

ed29, you captured the color and power of the flames quite nicely, but there is no context, just flames on a black background. Perhaps a wide angle shot and longer exposure would have rendered it more as a night scene.

Tracker, nothing says a great night better than a cold beer next to a campfire! The exposure is good and the subtle play of light off the beer bottle great. What bothers me here is the slight tilt in the frame, and the fact that the bottle is almost out of the edge of the frame. Some slight adjustments in composition would have made this one perfect.

BexarWolf, I really like long exposures of running water at night. The cotton candy effect is really cool. In this one the really hot lights were just a bit too jarring for me.

M38A1, technically, this is one of the best executed night pictures of the bunch. You nailed the exposure perfectly! Compositionally, you positioned the building too high in the frame. The top of the building is almost touching the edge of the frame, and there is too much empty black with nothing in it in at the bottom. A slight adjustment in composition, and maybe a touch of flash (but not too much) to add a little detail to the foreground, and you have a winner.

Gilk51, that's a nice shot and I see what you were going for. I like the composition and the expressiveness of the dog. It's just a little too dark and I have to look at it a minute to see that it's black lab. Good idea, and I'd like to see you play around with that some more.

All in all, some great pictures. Night photos can be a real challenge and I applaud you all for getting out there and giving it a go. StarWatcher, you are up! Can't wait to see what you pick for the next assignment!

:clap::clap::clap:
 
I don't quite understand how more plain black sky around the flame would better convey that it was shot at night. Please help me understand how that would have helped.

Slower shots completely muted the flames into a blur. Again, please help me understand how that is better, I want to learn as I go here.

One thing I take away from seeing the work is that I almost always shoot action shots, moving subjects. I carried that right into this project and now see that static subjects would have been much easier to shoot. I see that I need to be aware of habits in order to adjust them!
 
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M38A1 said:
Starwatcher - Congratulations! Great shot!
Click to expand...

Yep, I liked several of these.

On mine, I got the effect I wanted in full screen on the 'puter here at the house but it just flat lost something framed in the forum - the white border seemed to wash out the picture - yes, I realize it was mostly black anyway. :shrug:

I was looking for a "dual" subject - the highlights on the dog's fur initially give a different impression before you realize it is a dog's head.

Maybe not the best for this subject but it was quite difficult in low light to get a quick shot before the dang dog moved! I threw away a bunch of images... She finally had enough of it and jumped off the top of the couch... :lol2:

Anyway, interesting contest... :thumb:
 
Congrats, StarWatcher. I'd be interested in hearing more about how you setup and shot it. Specifically, the light source illuninating the tree.

Sparky, thanks for the critique. I actually got too aggressive in cropping it and totally missed the twist.
 
Whoohoo! Battling the mosquitoes was worth it!

Thanks for the exercize it taught me that lying can be good; lying to the camera that is. It's a 2 second exposure of the top of a tree in my back yard. I put the camera on a tripod about 25' away and aimed it up to capture the moon peeking through the tree. I used an off camera handheld, manually activated, flash strobe to fill in the tree trunk and leaves. The lie was that I told the camera that the scene was illuminated by tungsten light using the white balance control. The camera foolishly believed me and adjusted the exposure way to the blue end of the spectrum with the result you see. The image I posted was cropped and I added the black border. Here is a link to the raw image. I am still a bit surprised that the green leaves didn't take on a more bluish cast.

I'll put together a new assignment tonight!

--Mike
 
Starwatcher, as soon as I saw your shot I knew it was a lost cause but had to give it a try. :giveup:

Sparky, thanks for this assignment. It gave me a legitimate reason to drag out the tripod and find out how to do long exposures on this P/S digital cam. I knew the lights were blown out in the one I submitted. :( We had planned on one more outing but the wife was called out of state for a family emergency and it just didn't happen.
 
ed29 said:
I don't quite understand how more plain black sky around the flame would better convey that it was shot at night. Please help me understand how that would have helped.

Slower shots completely muted the flames into a blur. Again, please help me understand how that is better, I want to learn as I go here.

One thing I take away from seeing the work is that I almost always shoot action shots, moving subjects. I carried that right into this project and now see that static subjects would have been much easier to shoot. I see that I need to be aware of habits in order to adjust them!
Click to expand...


Ed....your shot would have been helped by adding an off camera light source (LED flashlights work great) to slightly illuminate where the flame was coming from (keeping the shutter speed and the other settings the same)....as it is there is no context for the flame...it's just there. Hope that helps.
 
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