Fortnightly Challenge 23rd Dec midnight 5th Jan - OPEN COMPETITION
 

It the holiday season, and after the limited entry in the last competition, I thought I'd make this a easy one & hopefully we'll get lots of entries.

So this fortnight's challenge is an Open Competition - any photo you like so let see what you think is your best photo taken over the next two weeks

Fortnightly Challenge is open to all members of WPF. The challenge will be run on (GMT) time.

Post your photo in this thread any time from 23rd Dec midnight 5th Jan.

Then a 3 day poll will be placed in this thread for voting on the photo you like best in this challenge.

Please give your photo a title.

The winner picks a challenge for the following fortnight and starts a new thread... in case of a draw the majority of members are happy with the 1st entry to start up the new challenge, which saves us having to do another vote.

1. One photo per member
2. To be taken during period stated above
3. The photo must include exif data with date and time
4. Post your entry as one attachment directly in this thread
5. No discussion of entries in the thread
6. Do not post any entries in the gallery until after the voting has finished

To create a poll :
* go to top of thread and in Thread Tools press 'Add a poll to this thread'.
[note: only the starter of this thread can see this option.]
* In the update options box change the number 2 to how many have entered.
* In each box put the title of the entered photos.
* In close poll, put 3 days.
* Submit new poll.

I might have my entry already - took one this morning which i really like! Its for fun and a little quirky

Xmas day lights
 

Yes, it was raining all day in Spain.:)

The remains of my festive season
 

The remains of my festive season

Clifton Suspension Bridge

tiny spider
 

tiny spider

Christmas, A Time For Reflection

A bleak Wastwater
 

So much poor weather recently, but still some good views.

£2 Coin Macro
 

Didn't wanna let the side down. Had nothing else - deadline looming.

Voting now open!

DigiDiva's shot is exceptional among all of these great shots ;)

mo

Thanks Mo. Appreciate your comments

Just a few hours left to get your votes in

congratulations DigiDiva,a great image

Thanks Trena, much appreciated.

Yup - nice one Chris. Congratulations.

Congratulations.a good win

Thanks - looking forward to setting the theme, which I will set tonight. I enjoyed taking this one, just wished I had figured out how to take it without the camera & tripod on show. I will do up/down comments:

Up - Trena's Tiny Spider - A nice, unusual image, just wish the spider had been bigger to see more detail

Down - Graham's Wasdale - Landscape's aren't my thing (but I really should try more, Im useless) so don't feel i can comment very much on this, not knowing what Im looking for. However, I feel it is nicely balanced and well composed.

Up/downs:

My up is the winning shot from DigiDiva. Obviously very popular and a clean well focussed shot. I notice your comment that you would like to eliminate the tripod etc. and that's a problem that interests me. My first thought is to use a long range macro (or zoom lens on distance) and hide the unit in the furnishings somewhere. I did like your own image in there, it gave it more interest. Very nice image overall.

Down: Peter's money shot is an excellent exercise in sharpness, focus and lighting. It lacked impact and interest for my money (no pun intended) but was a lovely image in that it met all the above criteria.

Graham

I liked having me there but camera no. You can get flexi screwdrivers and im thinking a flexible lens would be a great invention. Then the camera could see round bends. Haha

my up is Clive's bridge, a beautiful shot which I was going to vote for till DigiDiva added her image.
my down is DigiDivi which I voted for as I really loved the creative concept with a nice Xmas theme to it...I also loved your image in it,I thought it is what made it.

Yes my reflection was intended to add the personal touch, but as I said I wish I could have did it with the camera/tripod not on show but alas, I had no choice. But then again, it showed not only me but me doing what I love.

I think my "up" is Arthur. An excellent shot full of intense colour and really conjures up a wet day. Nothing wrong with that at all (I think).
My down is Graham's superb landscape combining depth of field with nicely muted tones and an interesting haze. Attention grabber.

and to Graham . Many thanks for the positive critique of the coin. Very encouraging.

Well Done to DigiDiva

My Ups & Downs..

Up - The remains of my festive season by John&me. Glassware is always difficult to photograph so you've done well here with the exposure to bring out the detail in the cutting. I think I might have tried a slightly lower point of view & smaller aperture to get the base in focus

Down - Tiny Spider by Tugboat. I like this shot although I find myself turning my head to the right to view it? Maybe a 90 deg anticlockwise rotation. PS like the framing

Behind the Scenes

Not quite a straight shot (very few of mine are ;) ). This is actually a 3 shot bracket boosting the vibrance & saturation in Lightroom before merging into an HDR. The only thing was, that in creating the HDR the rainbow all but disappeared... so I recreated in using the technique described in this article http://www.photoshopessentials.com/p...fects/rainbow/ playing with the size & opacity until it looked right.

thanks for the info Clive, I have played with the rainbow effect before in PS but I can't use photoshop very well so never really done anything with it, that was used to great effect, thanks for sharing, will have to try harder to use my PS. more things to put on my list of things to do this year!

I think its a great idea to do a behind the scenes post. Mine took time and patience more than any post processing skills. Mine is just the one image and all I did was use live view and magnification to auto focus on my face, ensuring the gap in the reflection of the branches was spot on. A little bit of spot removal, saturation boost and level adjustment was all I did PP. Did try B&W but it didn't work, the image lost its warmth and xmas feel.