Archive for the ‘D80Challenge’ Category

Nikon D80 Challenge #88 – Selective Focus

This photo was taken for the D80 Challenge #88 – Selective Focus. The objective of this photo challenge was to:

One photography trick that will help your subject stand out is selective focus. With this technique, we can choose one part of the image to be sharp and in focus, while the rest of the image is kept out of focus.

Using a larger aperture, say 2.8 or 5.0, can leave the background out of focus while keeping the main subject sharp and force the eye to it. Of course the distance between the subject and the background will impact what aperture you use.

For this contest show me selective focus by blurring out the background to draw more attention to the main subject.

While Macro lenses may give some people an unfair advantage in this challenge, I encourage everyone to give it a try even if they don’t own a macro lens….like me.

Any new photo where Selective Focus is achieved is welcome. The subject and the post processing is entirely up to the individual.

It was a last minute idea for me to take this shot. I’d been busy that week and didn’t want to miss another challenge, so I took a picture of the item I use the most. I used my 20mm Kenko Extension Tube and 18-55mm lens.

Nikon D80 Challenge #87: Minimalism

This photo was taken for D80 Challenge 87 – Minimalism. In this challenge, we were asked to do the following:

This challenge focuses more on composition rather than technique.

Minimalism describes movements in various forms of art and design, especially visual art where the work is stripped down to its most fundamental features.

Too often a photo can be inundated with too many objects and the crowded frame detracts from the intended subject. Your task, for this contest, is to enter an image that is distilled to the essence of what you want to say. No elements should be included that do not directly support your subject or theme.

This was another one of those photos where I had no idea what I was going to do. One afternoon while driving, I decided to take a back route and saw this tractor parked under a tree.

It caught my attention because there weren’t many trees left and I wanted to get a picture before “progress” came. I don’t know what’s going to take the place of the trees, but I’m sure whatever it is will be another sign of growth in our community. More homes, more stores, more restaurants means more stuff for us to buy. We are a country of consumers and spenders because he who has the most toys at the end wins…or do they?

Nikon D80 Challenge #85 – In My Kitchen

I missed challenge #84, so I thought I’d leave a link for you to check out the submitted photos. D80 Challenge #85 was “In My Kitchen”, where we were asked to take a good look in our kitchen and see something that could be a nice subject for a photo. We had to create something using only items found in our kitchen.

My son had just recently drawn a picture of a monster in school. He wanted us to put it on the refrigerator, so I used it as the subject of my challenge entry. The only real editing was a crop and a little extra contrast.

Nikon D80 Challenge #83 – Happiness

Yes, I am behind in posting my challenge photos, but I plan on getting the rest up this weekend. I sort of lucked up on getting this shot for challenge #83 – Happiness. I was outside taking some pictures and this photo stood out at me. I’m going to upload the original later because I had to do some editing to make it just right. There was a phone pole in the background that I got rid of using the cloning tool and I changed the color to sepia to get the old photo look that I was trying to achieve.

Nikon D80 Challenge #80 – Hands

Here’s the photo I submitted, for the Nikon D80 Challenge #80 – Hands. It didn’t win, but I thought the picture came out pretty good. My wife was the hand model (thanks boo), so I wrapped a black towel and sheet around her as the background. I took a couple of pictures from different angles and chose the angle I liked the best. During post-processing, I added some contrast and used the picker under levels to get the dark background. Then I added a circular vignette around the hands to get the fading effect. Pretty straight forward, huh?

Afterwards, I started eating the props. I like Skittles. Feel free to leave comments or questions.

Original Photo

Final Photo

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