Round 3 - DVXUser Photography Contest

I just adjusted it so all three weeks show up on the front page...

Remember, come Friday you can go ahead and say which is yours.

-Jeremy
 
Sorry I missed this last one.

I work in a hospital, and wanted to catch a pic of someone smoking thru a tracheostomy (hole in their neck). Couldn't get that. Then wanted to get a pic of someone with a white coat smoking outside the hospital. Couldn't get anyone to agree to that (fear of job loss-against the rules).

Finally settled for a shot of a place called "Smokeland" that sells (obviously) cigs and beer. Wanted to get someone smoking outside, but couldn't get anyone to agree. Shot a shot of the place at night with my film cam, but didn't get it developed in time.

Hope to get it together for this week.
 
After midnight tonight if you submitted a picture please login and post which is yours and shed any additional light on the subject that you want to. I am really impressed by this round of submissions and can't wait to see what everyone does with week 4.

-Jeremy
 
Joe Kras said:
Sorry I missed this last one.

I work in a hospital, and wanted to catch a pic of someone smoking thru a tracheostomy (hole in their neck). Couldn't get that. Then wanted to get a pic of someone with a white coat smoking outside the hospital. Couldn't get anyone to agree to that (fear of job loss-against the rules).

Finally settled for a shot of a place called "Smokeland" that sells (obviously) cigs and beer. Wanted to get someone smoking outside, but couldn't get anyone to agree. Shot a shot of the place at night with my film cam, but didn't get it developed in time.

Hope to get it together for this week.
Click to expand...

I'm sure you'll be back in swing for the next topic. I think what's really exciting me about these challenges right now is the diversity we're seeing in entries... Lots of interpretations and we've actually made it to week 4... week 52 might happen if we continue to have entries :)
 
Well, I definitely intend to be back next week. I was disappointed to not have the time for this one.

Some nice shots, this week btw.
 
Go reveal people! Here's mine....

1157117569.jpg


I thought of the idea of a coffee addict right away when I learned the subject matter. I get Starbucks 5 out of 7 days of the week... Anyway, I originally planned to take my sister and brother to a Starbucks and snap some pics there, but alas things did not go as planned, so I set my junky coolshot camera to timer mode... set it on a good level for the shot... hit the timer and posed... the lighting did stink, it was in my office... I added the grain and desaturated in post... thought it looked cool! Anyway, thanks for all the comments! Can't wait for the next one!
 
Warning: What follows is an overly elaborate narrative that describes the relatively simple process of releasing a shutter on a camera.

normal_Relapse.jpg


Alas, this was my image and yes, just like last week I have a full on story to tell.

So when the topic was originally announced it was 48 hours after I had quit smoking (2-2.5 packs a day down to nothing other than Zyban & lots of patches)... Obviously smoking was the first thing that entered my mind with the exception that I thought everyone would do smoking. I thought about taking 2 packs of cigarettes stuffing them all in my mouth at once and using a blow torch but part of the thing with quitting smoking was to not buy smokes anymore. I then debated for about two days about what I wanted to shoot... I like studio stuff a lot (especially since my second bedroom has been converted into one) so I came up with the idea of tattoos. I called tons of people I know and finally secured a model who was going to come to my home at 9PM on Wednesday to model. My idea was for her, who is covered head to toe with tats, to stand nude, arms outstretched, head slightly tilted in almost a religious symbol with dual soft lights coming in at 45 degree angles with light fall off on the background and then desaturate 50%. She has this long jet black hair so I decided to go sans hair light. 8:45PM rolls around and I'm taking the battery off the charger and she lets me know that she cannot make it because she doesn't want to drive in the storm (we had a heavy rain storm). Crap! OK, time to think fast. A lot of you who know me know that I have been one of those recovering people for over a decade now so I went to my bookshelf and grabbed an ancient Big Book and raced to my father's house (I needed internet access and a bottle of booze). I keep a reflector and two or three hard lights in my trunk (I'm out of closet space in the house) so I set up a very course and abrasive set up in his kitchen. I wanted to shoot through a full glass of vodka, thus enlarging just part of the AA title yet focus hard on the bottle cap. This made for a pain in the ass shot because normally I prefer monopod or tripod (normally tripod) for anything I stage (which is 75% of my shooting now) yet I couldn't get the angle I wanted, get tight enough, get the DOF right, nothing. Ultimately I took about 125 pictures or so before I got closer to what I was looking for. I'm a little bothered by the shadows comnig off the glass and bottle cap but given this set up without a longer lighting set up there was no way shadows were going to be completely eliminated. Regarding the photoshop process for post, it was a little desaturation and leaning more towards the yellow. I did do a lot of curves and contrast but I wanted to really lean towards the yellowish tones because I wanted it to have a sickly feeling of depression without crossing the border into green and over the top sickness. Ultimately I wish my original idea had panned out but I'm not completely unhappy with the speed and result of a rushed last minute project. Procrastination is certainly something I'm getting better at (waiting until the last minute). Thank you everyone for the comments, criticism, and suggestions.

-Jeremy
 
Mine was "Chocolate!"

You'll have to go look in the gallery at it because I'm too tired go upload it somewhere else right now.


I took the picture at London Heathrow airport as I cuised past the store (I got 3 shot's off as I passed) heading for the last of 3 flights of my 23 hours of travel.
Thanks to timezones I was stillhead of the dealine when I finally gota roudn to 'shop at 6am to boost up the hue and give it a bit more pop with curves & levels.

2 things I would want to improve:
- The polarizer filter was in my luggage so I couldn't use it to loose that reflection on the glass.
- Immidiatly someone commented that I should have sharpened it a little.. as I still had photoshop open I gave it a try, and lo and behold it looked much better with a bit of artificial sharpening.


Thanks all for another good round.

- Mikko
 
Presenting the most controversial image of this week's contest:


1157129855.jpg


I loaded the camera on Sunday and went out for a coffee-cigar idea:

1157129936.jpg


It's the typical Greek breakfast cigarette and cofee ( "frappe" ). Besides being a
decent photo one reason I didn't use it is because most ideas would be around the cigarette and I'm not quit addicted to it.

Then I did another idea turned out really bad, anyway when you shoot in film you typically don't know the result until you scan it. I have a really terrible scanner. Then looking and trying to adjust the images I thought to use the ladder which looked the best picture from the roll. I brought the levels down and the only thing left was how to "sell" it. Indeed climbing is related to success, but can we say that for some person hunting success is an addiction? I guess for some people. You can say they become obsessed with it and addicted.

Enough with my monoloque and thanks everyone for stopping by and commenting. Regarding the little red streak it's from the film. I didn't want to remove it.
 
Hey guys

just joined the photographic contest forum, really looking forward to entering my first contest. I've entered a few of the DPChallenge contests and have really got the bug so looking to having a crack at this one.

Am I right in thinking there is no contest running right now for the next week whilst the voting is done

All the best

Steve
 
No you are not right, there always a contest running... it lasts for a week, winner of previous contest picks subject, starts on Wedsnday, so we have plenty time to soot in the weekend, ends next Wedsnday, voting starts on Friday... I think i messed up, well something like this. Anyway this week's topic is "City Life". You can shoot in the weekend.

What format you will be using?
 
SteveDunster said:
Hey guys

just joined the photographic contest forum, really looking forward to entering my first contest. I've entered a few of the DPChallenge contests and have really got the bug so looking to having a crack at this one.

Am I right in thinking there is no contest running right now for the next week whilst the voting is done

All the best

Steve
Click to expand...

Welcome!

Current contest is "City Life" - check out the thread here:
http://www.dvxuser.com/V6/showthread.php?t=69441


Chad
 
fantastic - thanks guys, off to the thread now

EDIT: oh, my format: D-SLR

For the benefit of my feeble brain, can somebody tell me what 8"x10" @ 72 dpi is in pixels, is it simply 72x10=720 pixels?

Is there are file size restriction? I assume we submit in jpeg.
 
Last edited:
Mine

Mine

This was Mine. Now you can see why I did not want to crop this. This is the Mock Ad. Also I think that if the Cig. was lit it would not have read the way I wanted it to. Thank you all for you feedback.



1157143246.jpg
 
SteveDunster said:
For the benefit of my feeble brain, can somebody tell me what 8"x10" @ 72 dpi is in pixels, is it simply 72x10=720 pixels?

Is there are file size restriction? I assume we submit in jpeg.
Click to expand...

Yep... try to keep it under 720 pixels on the long side. Just helps for viewing (especially on monitors that are set at a lower resolution). Yes, submit in jpeg. And the file size should be fine if you stick with the above guidelines (there is no set restriction).

Chad
 
This was mine

draganres2.jpg


I've always loved candid shots with cigarettes, but to me this seemed to fit the challenge addiction not just because of the obvious addiction to cigarettes but also his story. He is actually only 65 years old, I've been guessing he was around 90 until I asked him. His chain smoking has aged him dangerously.

Excellent man, full of mystery. He's told me his name about 3 times, each time has a different variation.

Here are some more I snapped of him, the wide shot is not candid, I asked him to stand there for the picture and gave him a copy after.

e583aac2.jpg


woodmanhappysmokeres2.jpg
 
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