Community Photo Challenge - Transportation

The subject of this month's challenge is...

Marie states, on the Challenge Blog: Our photo challenge this month is TRANSPORTATION. You can use cars, trucks, trains, planes, even motorcycles! Some kind of transportation with or without people. You can be creative, you can use Photoshop or a paint programs. It starts today & ends Feb. 15. Post it on your blog, come back here I leave your link. Remember to visit everyone's entry to see what they contributed.

My entry is titled: Your Ride Awaits

...not that I'd actually ride in either of these trucks. Found them at a flea market/auction along a country road. I've passed this location hundreds of times in my life, but never actually got out with a camera. Not sure why I waited, but it's definitely worth stopping. I got a lot of great photos that day...but this is one of my favorites.

The style of this image is HDR or High Dynamic Range. It's created by taking three exposures of the same scene (on a tripod) and then combining them as a single HDR image (using either Photoshop or Photomatix) and then applying some tone mapping (again using either the Photomatix plugin in Photoshop or the standalone Photomatix Pro program). I love creating these and hope you all like this, too.

To further clarify, Photomatix is a program created by and available at http://www.hdrsoft.com/. It's not very expensive (under $100 with a discount code...email me for that code) and totally worth the price.

Photo Challenge: LEADING LINES

This month's challenge is "Leading Lines." The challenge reads: There are many lines to look for when shooting your images...Vertical, horizontal diagonal, curves & "S" curves...even converging lines. You have a month to post your image on your blog, and leave your link/url in the comment section of the challenge blog. Well, here are three photos that use leading lines to lead the viewer into the photo. Be sure to check out the other entries at Blogger's Community Photo Challenge! The first photo is from Newport, Rhode Island, taken along the 10 mile Ocean Drive. The second photo is one of the wonderful views of Manhattan from Governor's Island. The last photo is from one of my favorite locations...Sandy Hook.

Current Challenge - Colors of Autumn

Marie posted the current challenge back in the middle of October and, of course, we chose an Autumn theme for it. Rather than grabbing local color, I waited until I was able to go to Newport, Rhode Island (this year's fall color trip for my husband and me). The following are three photos taken on that trip. Hope you enjoy!

Rule of Thirds Contest

Well...it was a real surprise and honor to be selected as the winner in the Rule of Thirds Contest on our Bloggers Community Photo Challenge! Thanks to all who voted for my image. I realized after posting the other two examples for this subject that it was to be a secret vote, so I sent Marie an entirely different photo. It really wasn't hard to do that, since I frequently compose my images using this rule of thirds. Sometimes I break it on purpose, but I have a lot of images that conform to the Rule. Here's my 'winning' photo, entitled SECRET GARDEN:



Here's what Marie wrote in the Challenge Blog:

"Vicki 's Secret Garden is our winner. None of the team members were involved with this contest. That is why I had everyone send me their images & votes. Thank you all who participated & voted!

We will still post helpful photography tips, so you may still get alerts from the challenge blog.

Check out our future topics on the sidebar.

Enjoy your summer & take plenty of pics.

Congratulations Vicki!Here is a helpful link on composition: http://www.johnharveyphoto.com/LearnComposition/"

I would like to wish everyone happy shooting this summer...and be sure to keep the topics in mind when you're out and about with your cameras.~Vicki

Bloggers Community Photo Challenge: RULE OF THIRD CONTEST

This is a fun way to learn about photography...one of the fundamental rules (and one of the main one that can be broken with great results once you've mastered it) is the Rule of Thirds. It's more of a suggestion than an actual rule, but is something that's very important for photographers to understand. There are also some 'rules' for this contest:

1. All images will be a certain size 72 DPI 4X6(432 pixels X 288 Pixels) Try to get as close as you can, no larger.

2. No watermarks, signatures or copyrights symbols on photos.

3. To submit,you must send a copy of your image to me @ Mariebm56@aol.com & I will add all photos to a post. Please label the subject area - Challenge Contest. Days to submit photos JUNE 10 & 11th only. We should have the voting on the 13 & 14th.

4. Our team members/judges will decide which best follow the challenge & also include good photographic qualities.(sharpness, contrast, color or B&W)Once our team makes the final selection, we will leave it up to our community to vote on the winner.

I'm sending one of the images below to Marie for the contest...want to guess which one? :)

Blogger Community Photo Challenge: FLOWERS

The last challenge before the summer break is Flowers. To visit the Challenge Blog and the links to all the other entries, click on the banner below:

Blogger Community Photo Challenge: PHOTO STORY

The Current Challenge is to create a Photo Story of related images. I probably have a ton of photos I could use, but lately I've been focusing (no pun intended) on Sandy Hook, part of the Gateway National Park System, and absolutely love taking different angles and types of photos of the lighthouse...so, my entry is a series of photos of the Sandy Hook Lighthouse. I'm not sure if it qualifies, but I love it. Click on the green banner above to go to the Challenge Blog and check out the other wonderful entries.

(Also, click on the collage below to view it larger.)