Judge: Ian Walls
Digital Submit your best image and submit one image for each Shot Of Year trophy: "Digital Open" , "Digital & Print Black & White/Monochrome" , "Print Open"
Submit your best images - new or previously submitted.
Trophy Topic - Digital - Colour
MCC Shot Of Year for the 2023/2024 club year. The results are presented as 3 places - 1st, 2nd and 3rd. The 1st placed image is awarded the trophy. :
- Only one image can be submitted as long as it hasn't been previously submitted into any previous years Shot Of Year competitions. This is entrusted to you to ensure you keep within these guidelines.
Please submit the one image under SET subject. When submitted ot the judge, the image will not be graded.
The judge will be asked for results and critique. Depending on the volume of images, this might be restricted to just critique. The results will not be included in the end of year totals for MCC certificates.
Open
Set Subject
Hi Marlborough, it's Ian Walls here from the Christchurch Photographic Society. Thank you for your opportunity to have a look at your images in your shot of the year competition. There's a huge range of pictures in there and I enjoyed the fact that there's a wide variety of styles and presentation medium that you've done.
I'm not entirely sure how this competition generally works, as I was given the opportunity to grade each of the images with, you know, honors accepted and all that sort of stuff. But as well as that, I was asked to give first, second, and third, um, place getters and the implication again was that the first place getter is what it's all about.
What I've decided to do is to not award any of the other grades, to just comment on all of the images in an audio form. So I hope that works for you, but at the conclusion of each of the sections of commentary, I have given first, second, and third placings, as asked for. So they're going to come at you in the order that they were presented to me.
At the conclusion, you'll find out who the winners are. I hope you have a great evening with this. I hope that the commentary is of some use to you because I enjoyed looking at them and working through the sets. Thanks again.
DIGITAL - OPEN
This section is the digital colour images, and as before I'm going to go straight through the images completely in the order that they were presented, and then give you a first, second, and third After all, and I think first is the one that everybody's really interested in. But anyway, let's get started
Beautiful Surf. I enjoyed the wide landscape sort of crop that works and is it appropriate for this situation you've presented this with a kind of a soft ethereal negative clarity kind of feel about it, which I think works really well in the wispiness and it works well in the background, but it seems less valid when applied to the waves. I also get the sense that the primary focus point is on the closer gap to us in the waves, than the actual surfer, who is the sort of key point. And it's also a little bit disappointing that the surf is facing away, so they become more abstract. Also the position of the surfer pretty much bangs back in the middle of the frame. There's also a fairly static presentation for what is a clearly moving object.
Before The Rain. Is a nice blue image of some sort of foreboding skies in the distance and some, water lapping on the foreground. Clearly you've used that, broken down bit of tree that's driftwood or whatever as kind of a leading line to lead me in from the side of the frame. It doesn't though, strongly lead me to anywhere in particular, and I suspect that you wanted me to, to lead up towards the dark part of the frame. So you might have to get your feet here a little bit wet and get yourself in a position so that the leading line does actually lead up to what you're trying to show me. Perhaps even get down low and close to that tree to get it to achieve the aim.
Bell Bird. Just gorgeous colours. I love the warmth of this image, and the soft light that's coming through the forest and shining on the Bell Bird both sides. The presentation of this sitting bang smack in the middle is completely appropriate because the bird's not moving or flying, it's just sitting there kind of looking at us. Interesting background of lots of mixes of colour and form within the bush, but that's separated nicely because of the depth of field.
Best friends is a good representation of the little boy and the dog who obviously are best friends. They're getting together really closely. You have chosen the dog as the primary candidate here because the dog is in crisp focus where the boy is not. So if you want them both in focus, you probably need to stop down a little bit to make sure they are both in focus and then if they're friends, perhaps them engaging with each other. Might more strongly represent the fact that they're friends rather than them engaging with us. Just another way of thinking about how you would make this tell the story you want it to tell.
Black Scree Daisy I'm going to make no attempt at all at the Latin, but this is a gorgeous picture of this subtle little flower that you've done a really good job of getting bang on the focus. I suspect that this has been done with care and properly with a camera sitting on a tripod. You've waited till the light is shining on the actual plant and you've allowed the background to flow, out of focus in the background and chosen carefully where this picture is put together. You've got the two flowers sitting on a strong diagonal which gives the picture some energy and I think you've done a great job with this one.
Enlightened. Is a cool picture of a guy biking along the beach with the. With a bit of gear on his bike, so I suspect he's going somewhere, or been somewhere, or a bit of both. Enlightened element I think comes from the fact that there's a little bit of rim light as the sun in the background has created that rim light and the interesting pattern. I think where all the action is in the bike and the shadow. That's enough in itself, and in fact it's relatively small in the picture space. I do think a close up version of this would more strongly represent the story you're trying to tell.
Lucy Rocking The Wet Look is a cool little picture of this little dog who's might clearly rock in the wet lip whether she's been drinking or diving around in the wet grass or in the river. I'm not sure what it is. And I do wonder perhaps if the story might grow a little bit if you, if you just explained visually what has actually caused this wet look. As much as anything else and maybe you could then explain whether this look on her face is a bit forlorn or is a bit, you know, let me go back to whatever it was. Good picture of her face, a little lacking in context.
Morning light at Kinderdijk. You've captured just a nice moment. I'm sure you're out there in the morning light enjoying it and looking at these windmills that you don't see everywhere and you certainly don't see many of them in Marlborough, I suspect. So you've been somewhere, you've seen something, and you've brought back a well put together image to tell us about your travels. Well done.
Mycena Lividorubra. This one you didn't give me an English option of cute little purple fungi. It's going to be a Mycenta liverdorubra. Anyway well put together, well done, carefully constructed, nicely in focus along the little lines of the bushy undergrowth that the little fungi are growing in. We can see under the gills, which I think fungi people like, and we can see some context of where it is. The out of focus bokeh in the background kind of works. Where it gets let down is at the top of the frame where you've cropped into that little bit of greenery and you've created a point of tension that you didn't intend. Because it's on the edge of the frame, the bottom, look at the fungi and then I glow up to the top of the frame where you've chopped off that little piece of greenery. So just that subtle element, move the camera back just a little bit or clip the top of it off or, or whatever, but you just need an edge patrol happening to really step this up to the next level. But it is a gorgeous image.
Orange Nectar Bat. This is an image where the timing is perfect, and you've got this relationship between the bat and this flower plant, whatever it is. And it appears to me to be being shot with a strobe, so you've captured the moment perfectly, and you've lit both elements really well, and they just sit against the complete black background. So the actual, representation of what we're seeing is crisp and clear, and the moment has frozen really well, so I enjoyed this picture a lot.
Pied Shag with Flounder. It never ceases to amaze me how the birds can actually eat this thing. The fish looks huge in its mouth, and, you've captured something interesting about what's going on. The bird has obviously just come back from underwater with the fish, unfortunately in the wrong place at the wrong time. Very static presentation is the only observation I've made here, right smack in the middle of the frame. Which has created a static visual representation of what is probably a fairly dynamic moment.
Purakaunui Falls. They are just gorgeous and you've put this image together really well. The silky water is lovely and silky, everything else is nice and sharp. And you haven't blown the water out, which has worked really well. I think potentially you could have made a bit more of the oranges and interesting colours in the foreground on the, on the water.But you know, it's just another observation of an element that I saw within this picture that perhaps you weren't trying to present. You were just trying to present the silky water and you did a good job of it.
Scarlet Dawn. It's kind of wow moment. It must've been absolutely fantastic to kind of see that there. It's clear that the reds are showing all the way through because we can distinctly see red reflected on the driftwood in the foreground and it's pretty much everywhere. But it's so red that it's overpowering visually and, I do kind of sense that the saturation slider might have been pushed a little bit far, but no doubt it was dramatic and it did feel dramatic.
Shoveller Duck is an amazing moment that you've captured really well. Super crisp and sharp, so you've got a high shutter speed to catch the water flowing up over the bird's beak as it glides through the water, and you've got very still water, so you've got perfect reflections, which is intriguing. I do wonder whether, It would be better with the whole bird or, or not, and it's not an observation, I'd love to see both pictures to compare them because quite clearly the main element of this picture that you've shown us is, is the fact that this moment in the water, which you wouldn't see as well as if you saw the whole bird. So technically really well done and I enjoyed this picture a lot.
Spectators. I'm not sure what they're spectating for. So I get a bit of … I'm getting a really half, not even half story, a little moment of story. There's a couple of people sitting in red Katmandu chairs looking at something in the water. But exactly what that is, I have no idea why they're looking at it. And there's more no ideas than there is. There is story here for me. I would love to get a sense, you could still emphasize the bloke with the camera if we could see what it was he was photographing. The story would make vastly more sense to me.
Summer Pasture is a well put together textured image which creates some interest in the sky with that painterly touch. The texture imposed over the whole thing, does give it a soft colour palette that works with the whole thing really well. In this case, I wonder if you cropped in from the right hand side to closer to the edge of that tree, whether you put that tree on a more powerful point on a thirdish sort of point, whether that might pull my eye to that more strongly. When you use these techniques you're creating an abstract sort of non realistic representation of things. And when you do that, you need to use all of the visual techniques to draw my eye to where you want me to look.
Tākahē is a big explosion of colour and the interest in this bird is in the colour and the blues and the greens and all that sort of stuff. Plus the bright red exclamation mark of that solid looking beak. The background's out of focus in works. The focal point is probably a little bit behind the bird's eye so it's not as crisp around the eye as it would be in the perfect world. And you can see the feathers on its chest are strongly in focus, where the beak and the eyes, which are probably the visually stronger element, are somewhat soft.
The Old Dressing Gown. You've taken your model, with their old dressing gown, into the forest and you have complete control over everything. And yet you've let that opportunity go a little bit. I'm somewhat put off by the tree growing out of her forehead as she kind of stands there in an unusual sort of a pose. I'm not really sure why she's in the forest in her dressing gown. And the other element, which is, technically a little bit overpowering is that there's really strong use of the vignette which vignettes I think are more effective if they're subtly there just to draw the eye to the middle whereas this is quite a strong vignette and it is a bit overpowering so it takes light off the model's face which does have to be the most important element in this picture.
Time for a Cold Beer. It's always time for a cold beer and you've nicely presented a cold beer. Not much more you can say about that. It's a nice cold looking can, it's got that sort of watery line of sitting in it, sitting in some ice and there's some other cans there. So, there's an implication of a really good moment and I can almost taste it. So, well done you.
Zealaranea trinotata - Hmm, big spider. Well put together and really dramatic image of this big spider. We can see that he's sitting on a web and we can see that it's in a sort of a forested environment by just by the colours of the background. You've got a really micro thin, depth of field which is caused by the macro, essentially it's the nature of the beast with macro, isn't it? In the perfect world, the plane of focus would be just a little bit further back to really pop the eye of the spider itself and make that the strongest element, but I just do love that. The little line that comes from its front leg and just the details and grittiness of the actual bits that are strongly in focus. And that's all given context to by the background, which I can see the whole spider. So you've presented this really well.
The trophy winners and place getters were presented at our August club evening (and AGM) on 8th Aug 2024.
Trophy - DIGITAL Shot of Year 2024
3rd - Black Scree Daisy – Chris Beech
2nd - Orange Nectar Bat – Trish Brown
Champion - BellBird - Stu Wilson
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