Weekly Photography Challenge Thread (see first post rules and then the poll at top before entering)

Flew out to visit my son in Los Angeles this weekend to escape Jonas. He took us to La Jolla, above San Diego, and I was fortunate to see some huge waves. I was seriously contemplating buying a wetsuit and body surfing and then I remembered the last scene from the original Point Break and thought, I'm good

 

SF waterfront with Oakland/SF Bay Bridge (old and new) in the foreground, including Yerba Buena Island. Taken this morning (sunrise) on my way to play golf.

 

I'm in this week.


The Tower Of Power!



DSC5688 by Murphy Lege, on Flickr

 

Hard to compete against the pros.

 

If you saw the other 30 I trashed you'd think different.

I was sitting here editing them saying what the hell was I thinking with that shot or where is my subject.

 

This morning I took 55 shots. I like 6. I thought the one above is the best. Still wondering how you get such crispness on your shots.

 

I wish I had a view like that here to shoot. Looks to me like you're coming right along with your photography.

 

That's the sharpening I do in Photoshop. Along with adding a touch of contrast in Lightroom. I'm also shooting in the sharpest setting on the lenses. On the 2.8 lenses usually around f/5.6 to f/8. Not to mention this lens I took this with is tack sharp anyway.

 

Official Submissions:

LEXICON (Courtney):



Spintly (Greg):





Don5352 (Don):

[/QUOTE]


Medic2230 (Murph):



Up to @92shawman now.

Good luck everyone!

 

This one, too! VVV

 

I'll be brief with a little thoughts on each one:

@LEXICON Very impressive! I really like the symmetry creating the dramatic effect. I wonder if it would really pop with some lights/darks adjustment, too.

@Spintly Hey hey, you were in my neighborhood! Those crashing waves are pretty amazing. I think some extra contrast or darker darks could do a lot to make this very dramatic.

@Don5352 Nice view! The matte gray of it makes it less dramatic, but I'm not sure what it's from. If it was a great distance away it could just be atmosphere distortion or something. I'm sure other people can weigh in more there. Otherwise, sunrise shots for me have always been a bit hit-or-miss, depending on the cloud cover and everything. It might look amazing with a clear sky allowing the sun to highlight one side of the buildings, creating some dramatic shadows.

@medic2230 Awesome shot! I like the dark darks, but I wonder if some lighter whites would make the water tower and the clouds really pop. The clarity is absolutely stunning! Also very interesting to learn about the clarity differences across f-stops.

Man, very, very tough choice here... I choose Murphy's shot! Congratulations! Pm yourself a new challenge

 

Long distance shot. Heavy air off the bay. It was supposed to be a sunny Sunday, but no break, high cloud cover. Waited to see if the sun would shine through and reflect off a building, but no joy. Took the shot anyway.

 

Seems to be the story of my life LOL. Yesterday warmed up a little and the snow cover created a fog everywhere. Didn't help that have hardly seen the sun and it was another dark grey cloudy day. After a while gave up and came back home.

One of the features of Lightroom CC that the other versions don't have is a dehaze feature. Just not positive it would work well under a lot of the conditions I shoot. Heat and humidity in the summer also create a lot of haze especially around the river. And a telephoto lens birding just makes atmospheric conditions worse. But I really am intrigued by the new dehaze feature in LR CC. https://helpx.adobe.com/lightroom/how-to/remove-haze-dehaze.html

 

Amazing..

Can't wait for my freaking class to start. I need a refresher on the basics. Found out late last night they closed the college. But I was suppose to start Intro to Black and White Photography class today. If it's anything like my high school photoscience class I'm hoping to dust off everything.

Great entries this week!

 

DSCF4794.jpg by ChazLylePhoto, on Flickr

This is one of the photos I took this week (after the challenge was issued) so following wordage doesn't really apply, but...

If you want your photos to be more Dramatic, shoot wider, get (way) closer, and pay attention to contrasty light! Then push it a little further in post processing.

 

So, what's the new challenge?

 

Standby. I'm working on it.

 

I did forget that one. Apologies to Courtney for that. I have been in a class all day and have been running calls afterwards and tried to post the entries from my phone when I had a minute earlier today.

 

Good to know, thanks! Got some (hopefully) dramatic photos this weekend that I have to process.

 

New Challenge: Night Photography

One entry per person and due this Sunday at Midnight of your local time.
Photo must be taken from the time the challenge was issued.

Time starts..Now! Go!