Be Excellent To Each Other

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The winners of the fifth fortnightly photography challenge are:

In first place - photo fourteen with 42 points!




Just missing out on first with only one point short, at 41 points is photo three:




In third place with 28 points came photo seventeen:



Honourable mentions
Again, one point short, 27 points went to photo nine (wilting flower) in fourth place, and fifth place went to photo thirteen (wind farm).

Mine was photo twelve, which I love to bits. And I got four points! Yay!

Mine was photo 03, so second place for me! I'd like to thank the Academy, my parents, god, Harvey Weinstein...

Seriously though, goddamn it to whoever did number 14, because I was in the lead up until sometime on Tuesday and you just pipped me at the post! And by one point! Well played, that person.

14 was me again, and I hate it. Sorry Richard! Yours was by far the better photo as far as I'm concerned; both compositionally and tonally.


I made the mistake of importing that pic into my RAW editor with very tired eyes, pushed the levels until I was happy, uploaded it, then went to bed. When I checked it in the morning, I couldn't stand it. I'd pushed it way too far. Of course, you can't delete pics from Richard's site, but it'll teach me to not be so eager next time, hopefully.

Cheers for your votes anyway, peeps

Oh, and erm... the subject is the Duke of Lancaster retired passenger ferry in Mostyn, North Wales. It was sold off to a Liverpool-based company in the 70s, I believe, then concreted in at Mostyn and made into a restaurant (I think !), then abandoned and has been rotting ever since. I've passed this hundreds of times in the past, but never really thought to go there, or had the means to.

It was creepy.

Also: I really liked the Orange. I think it was Craster's (correct me if I'm wrong). Great job

All three worthy winners.

The orange was indeed mine. I wanted a more rotting orange, but funnily enough I don't keep them around the house!

Hah, can't decide if that makes it better or worse that you beat me! As you've noted, and as Mimi and I noted above, it's not a great picture -- you're right that the tone is off. However...

...you clearly had the best subject of any of the pics. A rotting ferry! All I found in my travels was a junked pier, a gravestone coverd in lichen, and some broken down signs. Amazing.

You can't? Oh, the BETEO pic uploader account probably doesn't have the correct permissions. I could add the rights to do that if people want. I don't think there's anything wrong with people changing their mind during the competition. On the other hand we'd have to take it on trust that no-one would delete anyone else's pics but I don't think that would be a problem.

The deep, deep blue of the background is lovely in that pic. I seriously considered keeping some fruit around the house and leaving it to rot specifically for this contest, you know.

Heh. My pic spent the first part of the time nestled in the middle somewhere, votes-wise. Then it started to climb, against my wishes; then it was 8 points behind yours for a while; then somehow it managed to pip you right at the end, to my annoyance.

Still, people voted for it, and I don't want to come across as ungrateful!



I do love the subject. Such brilliant things are pretty rare, so I was very glad I remembered about it.

Here are a couple of other pics from around the area:

http://i34.photobucket.com/albums/d109/nynfortoo/30147-rockbound.jpg

http://i34.photobucket.com/albums/d109/nynfortoo/30147-ship.jpg



I don't think we really need the option to delete the pics. I'd rather not be responsible for the idea if someone abused it. I'll just take more time to reflect on my photos before uploading them now.

Thank you for your flattery!

(all pic links as URLs so as not to overwhelm the thread.)

I worked hard at this one this week. Funnily enough, whilst taking the shot for Challenge IV, I took this pic of a broken down pier on the waterfront in Newport. I very nearly revisited that and tried to frame a better shot of the same subject, but there was no suitable background elements. Thinking now a long lens and small aperture with a blurred background might have worked but in the end I concluded it was always going to just look like a jumbled mess because, well, it is.

I trekked out to Partrishow Church (which is so rural I can't find it on Google maps, but it's a few miles from the Abergavenny-Hereford road) for some gravestone pics, as I posted earlier in the thread, but I wasn't happy with it. At the end of the day it's just a lump of lichen. The gravestone pic someone posted is better than any of the ones I got that day.

I also had a day wandering around Penarth, on the grounds that nothing destroys things like the sea, where I took this picture of a rusted pipe cover. It's OK but I wasn't 100% happy with it.

That was going to be my entry until one day last week, when I suddenly realised that every day for the last four weeks I have been walking past the entrance to the staff car park at Cathays station, which has these rotting signs on it (despite not being abandoned at all). I can't believe I didn't spot it sooner (it's actually literally next door to my office), with the possibilities of darkening the sky to an oppressive tone, the nasty curved spikes on the top of the fence, and the CCTV things being a sign of urban decay in general. It really was a good subject to fall into my lap like that.

As you can see in that pic (which is a straight on humdrum shot of the signs), I shot it on a very bright, clear day and the background of the signs is just a normal car park and cityscape. To get the clutter out of the shot I had to come down low and shoot upwards (getting some odd looks from passers-by, I must admit). I battered the pic in Lightroom to drop it to B&W, darken the sky, and enhance the contrast quite severely (slightly too far, perhaps; the edges of the fence at the lower left look a bit off). DBSnappa suggested, and made for me, a further modified version with added film grain, which looked great but I concluded felt like cheating so I didn't use it. I'll have to get hold of some better photo edit software in the future.

So, that's the story of my photography fortnight!

Mine was number 1. I thought the dilapidated gravestones matched the theme nicely, along with the degradation (decomposition) of the human bodies lying underneath them.

Excellent work, HomoPlank I love hearing the story behind images almost as much, if not more than looking at the images themselves. Your photo is excellent. Really.

I'd have voted for you if you'd got a shot of the bodies. Actually, I can't remember who I voted for anyway.

The windfarm one was mine. Must confess though, it was taken on honeymoon (South Point, Hawaii) and I uploaded it before I realised that the pics were supposed to have been done in the last fortnight. In my defence, I hadn't actually seen the photo before the compo opened and all I did to it is put it in B/W and a teeny bit of sharpening.

(I did a quick survey in the office on which they preferred, the windfarm or this one as my entry for the compo.)

Must confess, I didn't vote for the eventual winner because my first reaction was "wow" and then having contemplated the 2nd and 3rd place votes, I came back to it and thought it was just too dark. However, was absolutely fascinated to find where the subject matter was.

I did enjoy and vote for the Playing Fields one - it tickled my sense of political humour if that makes any sense.

Also voted for the telephone box. I know the rules don't allow it, but I'd love to have done that, put it in B/W and left the box in red.

The windfarm was ace, Plissken. It got one of my votes.

Well, rather than "know", I "assume" the rules don't allow it.

I don't think manipulation is forbidden. Certainly, I wouldn't object to any selective colouring.

I thought we all agreed that that's not a hard rule though, just an encouragement. As AceAceBaby says, we'd all rather see an older pic than no pic.

Well, I wouldn't have complained if that pic had been done that way -- in fact I think that could be ace. Again I don't think we need a hard rule on what manipulation can and can't be done. Just a gentlemen's agreement for the people on here who have the experience in stuff like Photoshop to not go so mad as to put off the people who don't have it.

Not against the rules as far as I'm concerned. Mucking around with colour is cool.

I voted for the wind farm as I liked the perspective, the ferry as it looked like an awesome monument to decay (as jollyforest remarked, it was the best subject matter) and the satellite dish in the grass, as I liked it for some odd reason.

Well, the stupid rules don't actually say anything about photo-manipulation. Grim... (I think it was) once asked about whether photomanipualtion was allowed and said I personally thought that adjusting colour levels, contrast and saturation, that sort of thing, was fine. Some cameras deal with light better than others, being able to correct this post-shoot wasn't, in my own reckoning, a problem, but I said that I personally thought that grafting a horse's head onto your mate's body took the picture more into a computer made graphic than a photograph as such. I think that people can use their wn judement on matters like this - if people think that you have gone from photography to photo-manipulation I think this would be reflected in teh voting, so it is kind of self governing anyway. After time I am sure it will find it' own level, plisskin, but I'd encourage you to be as creative as you can with your pictures, and it would have been an interesting picture, for sure.

Actually, I have a camera that will do exactly what you suggesting in-camera, as it were, Plisskin. You can point it at somethign and get it to recognise that colour (so, in this example, the specific red of the telephone box) and it will keep that true colour and knock the rest of the colour out of the shot completely.

The 'rules' only concern fairness and an encouragement for things to run smoothly.

Because of the above reason I am going to now please request that people do not click three random links so as to purposefully 'invalidate the voting method'. If people do not want to choose their three favourite pictures then they are not obliged to vote. As it was so very close this time this may well have actually interfered with the final winner, as the two top ranking pictures were only a point apart, and do do something like this seemed pointless (unless the person doing it was trying to prove a point, in which case please remember that this voting method was reached after a democratic poll on the decision).

OK, well thanks everyone for taking part. I think this was the best contest so far. All really good entries! I'm looking forwd to the next one.

Oh, and my picture was the one of the flower. I took it by accident, actually.

I loved that one, too. The colours were so washed out it looked really sad. Brilliant.

I was taking a picture of a bee on the (bright and living) flower next to it - this flower was nestling in the bottom right of the shot when I got back home. I managed to delete the original shot (plus a load of other pictures, whoops) from my laptop after I took this, but I had put this little cropped corner on my desktop, luckily.

That was my favourite, and since I have a spare code for robotron xbla you may have it if you wish.

Really?

Thankyou!

Thanks, Runcle!

Yeah.

no votes for my picture (15) although it was done quickly, and on a Phone camera.

I took (what I thought) was a better photo, but I played with it in photochop, so didn't want to enter it.

It would have been interesting to see the car in black and white and the background in colour, perhaps. Alsi, see above about 'photochop'

I'll know for next time

it's actually the view from my kitchen window . In the competition photo I was trying to get the contrast of the rather nice old dovecott with the rather horrible unfinished (and unlikely to be) modern brick building.

I think you've either 'got' what it takes to take good photo's or not, and I don't. It wont stop me taking part mind


as for the other photo's, I voted 13 (wind turbines) where I liked the play on words with degeneration, 16 (water front building) which was nice to see some colour and an interesting old building and 14 (the ship) which has a lot of interesting details.

I voted 'satellite dish in grass' 3, 'sad flower' 2 and 'scary ferry' 1. Done entirely on the strength of which ones immediately grabbed me.

Very well done to everyone though

Mine was the one with the empty cider bottles. Taken on a camera phone so I'm grateful to whatever deviant gave me a sympathy vote.

Here was me thinking that had to be Dimrill's!

Me too! I thought it was Dimrill's

I voted:

Windmills
CCTV
Gravestones

I think. Hmm. But I especially liked the windmills and the titled angle was a wise move that I wouldn't have thought of, until now. The CCTV fence one was fascinatingly bleak too, and utterly awesome. I'm more of a sucker for landscape shots though, so it got ordered the above way.

And if I were a goth those vivid gravestones would make a really sweet desktop background. If I were a goth.

Anyway, mine was No.17, the telephone box! And I'm really thrilled that enough of you liked it to place me third. I'm actually quite touched.

I was going to shoot it in colour too, but by the time I got a B&W I was satisfied with I was running out of camera-juice. Still, if it had vivid reddiness maybe it wouldn't have looked quite so sad. But thank you so much anyways!

I should have said this, too. I really liked the angle that shot was taken at.

Thanks man!

Was this somewhere around Cardiff then?

Nope, this was burried in a hedgerow treeline on a long and confusing walk near Abergavenny.

I like Abergavenny. Year before last we had our caravan out between Abergavenny and Crickhowell for the whole summer, so we practically lived there. It was very nice. Ever eaten at the Lazy Days cafe?

Ooh, I don't think so. I've only been there a few times, and those were mainly on my way to other things - ie: Green Man, or my mate's place in Talybont. Where is it in the town?

Number 16 was mine, taken on a wander down the Cauldon Canal (prior to a pub lunch). It's an old factory of some sort, but I was on the wrong side of the canal to see what.

In the middle, pretty much. At the entrance to the little pedestrianised bit with Currys and WHSmiths. It does the most awesomely massive breakfasts, and some exceedingly good roast meat rolls too. It's very good.

Hello everyone, first post, etc.

Number 10 was mine (rusty satellite dish in the garden) and I was pleasantly surprised that some kind folks voted for it (even though I don't think anyone has actually admitted to doing so thus far)! I'm also slightly embarrassed that it finished ahead of quite a few entries that are - to my eyes, anyway - loads better. I'm no photographer, I just point my cheapo camera at stuff and press the button.

I voted for nos. 14 (eerie ferry), 9 (wilting flower) and 13 (wind farm) in that order, but also really liked the CCTV sign, phone box, boneyard, Pacman pipe...oh, loads of them. It was all good stuff, really hard to choose which ones to vote for.

Oh, and that really is my back garden. I probably should do some gardening.

Welcome, JimB

Now get off the internet and mow your lawn.

I did. Up there, ^ look

And hello

If the 'B' in JimB doesn't stand for Beam, I'll be most disappointed

Sorry, Sinister, so you did. Cheers! You're a kind man.

I'm drinking cider right now - I'd like to say that it's in tribute to your picture, but I drink it most nights anyway. Maybe if I drank less cider, I'd get around to fixing the garden.

And sorry Dave, I'm not Jim Beam.

Hello! Welcome, etc.

I liked your pic. It's nothing I can put my finger on; the framing of the dish in the foreground grass is nice. DBSnappa liked it too and he's a professional photographer and stuff, so it must have something going for it!

Because I'm a nosy twat, I have to ask, how did you find us, and did you sign up for the photo compo?

I gave that one maximum points.

Oh yeah, I forgot to say earlier, particularly as the guy who lost by one point ( ):

I've just lurked for a long time on WoS and through that found this place; the photo competition seemed like a non-threatening place to start.

Do you really think I actually did this? Man, some people have no sense of humour.

I must've accidentally clicked on one though, because I'm sure I wanted to vote for fifteen. Poor fifteen. all those votes, and none for your funky tower.

/me gives poor Fifteen this years award for 'Best Funky Tower, Crenellation or Flying Buttress in a Photographic Composition'