Tuesday, November 13, 2018

Portfolio Competition

This month our photo club had a portfolio competition.  The purpose of this competition was to show the photographers versatility.  We had to enter three images.  It was an open theme competition so I decided to work on my own theme.  I chose to use secondary colours for my theme.

For my orange image, I chose to do a checkerboard pattern combining 8 different photos of orange roses.

My green image is a young girl dancing through the grass.


My purple image is a food image of levitating purple macarons and lavender.





Monday, November 12, 2018

Photojournalism Competition

In October, our photo club had their Photojournalism Competition.

These are the images I entered.  They are both from some years ago.
The photo of the bride was taken at a wedding that I did some second shooting for.  As she said her vows, she had to stop and take a breath to get control of her emotions.

While we were in Tanzania, filming music videos for a group of Maasai, these young people came along to see what we were up to.  I turned toward them and they started clapping.  So I snapped a photo.  My favourite part of this image is the little boy on the far right hiding behind another child curiously looking right at me.


Both of these images got the highest score.  Neither of them won trophies.

Wednesday, September 5, 2018

Macro Photography







Tuesday, August 28, 2018

Battle of the Images

Our photo club added a "Battle of the Images" night to our workshop rotation.  It was tremendous fun and I think everyone enjoyed the night.  The images had to be taken in the last 18 months. 
I entered three images:


This photo titled "Honey" was photographed in my garage using clamps to hold the spoons in place while I poured golden syrup out of a plastic bottle.  I lit it from behind and really enjoyed the result.




This horse's name is Tiger.  He is the most beautiful ginger colour.  I really enjoyed photographing him when I visited the USA last year.


This delightful youngster was seven months old in this photo.  He was playing in his excersaucer.  Thankfully the room he was in had floor to ceiling windows.  I rotated his excersaucer around to face the window and called his name.  He looked up and this was the expression on his face.

This photo won the "Conqueror" award at the Battle of the Images.  I was so pleased!




Sunday, August 26, 2018

Landscape Competition 2018

Landscape photography is a very difficult genre of photography for me.  I find I don't end up in the right place at the right time.

This photo though, was taken in Tanzania in 2013.  We had been in the desert for almost a week and were taking the day off filming music videos.  My two friends, Morgan and Natasha and I went for a drive to get away from everything and to scout the location of the next few days filming and we stopped here.  

The sun was low in the sky and the wind blew in just the right direction and the clouds of dirt whipped off into the distance.  Morgan had wandered into the shot as she was enjoying a moment of quiet.



This image won the trophy for best digital image of the night.  It is my favourite image from my two weeks in the desert in Tanzania.  

Triptych Competition 2018


A triptych is defined by the Oxford Dictionary as: 

A set of three associated artistic, literary, or musical works intended to be appreciated together.


The two triptychs I chose to enter into our photo competition really show off two of my favourite kinds of photography:  Portrait photography and Still life photography.



This brother and sister were so much fun to photograph.   I loved showing their personalities through these photos.





These shells are called Paua shells.   I love the colours they show off in different lighting situations. 






Thursday, March 22, 2018

Black and White (edited)

My husband mentioned that you all might be more interested in the story behind the photos than the scoring system from my photography club.   These photos were for a competition titled "Black and White".

This photo was taken in Tanzania in 2013.  My family and I were volunteering with a media ministry that was filming music videos for a group of Maasai who were raising money to develop a school that they have built for their children.  This young man was a student from the school.  He was cast in the music video.  We were inside a hut built from mud and cow dung and he was outside looking in.  We filmed him just like this.  I don't think we ended up using that footage in the music videos. 


I found these sea urchins, or kina as they are called here in New Zealand, over many walks along the beach.   I painted the white one a year ago for another still life but ended up not using it.  I had planned on using unpainted kina for this photo but thought the white one made the kina on top stand out more. This photo was taken in my garage with studio lighting.  I used a reflector to block the light from the background to make the kina stand out more from the surroundings.


My Happy Place

My photography club had a competition in February titled "My Happy Place".

The photo I entered was a photo of the still life photos I have taken laid out in grid view in Lightroom.  The photo earned an Honours score which is the highest score you can get.  


The second photo I entered into our competition is of the view from the actual place that I love to be.