May 2012 Favourite Image of the previous month

[Barry]

In this thread, you are invited to upload your favourite image that your took or created during April 2012. Fell free to add a story to go with the image, or how you edited it, or just why you felt it was your favourite image.

[pjerry]

That was a hard task Barry.
I made so many beautiful pictures that I, at first, didn't know which one to show here.

I didn't want to pick a picture from Flickr, that stream can be visited. My most lovely series I've made in April is the one form the ducklings. I've a couple of pictures of that series on Flickr: www.flickr.com/photos/pjerry/6939822716/in/photostream But as I said, not this one (a little cropped).



A 100% crops of the head (so cute):

[jeeperman]

Nicely done Pierre. He is a cute little guy and you have done well to get the little fuzz ball quite sharp.

[Stevewebb]

This has to be my favourite of the month. I think I am going to get this printed if i can find a spare bit of wall


Taken with 8mm fish eye on one of the few occasions the weather was good enough to get out.

Reason for Editing: spillong

[Barry]

Hi Pierre, nicely captured, I can see why you are proud of this image.

[Barry]

Steve, I like this, nice and simple just having the people walking into the distance, you have even captured the curvature of the earth

[pjerry]

Thanks all.

Steve a really beautiful one with a subtle dandelion in the foreground.

[jeeperman]

This has got to be my favorite capture of the month. I love the fact I caught his pattern and colors so well in what seems to be an unusual pose of this particular type of duck.

[pjerry]

Indeed, a very nice capture Paul.

[jiro]

Here is an image I want to share on this thread.

During Lenten season in the Philippines (Holy Week to Christians) most Filipinos have a tradition to visit as many churches as they could and pray to their patron saints. They call this tradition "Visita Iglesias." It so happened that the Holy Week holiday for this year fell during the weekend and I am usually in Tagaytay, Cavite during the weekend. I was with a friend of mine whom I am mentoring and teaching photography on a one-on-one basis. We're both fond of taking sunset pictures so we decided to change venues and went to the lake instead. While driving towards Taal lake, we were greeted by heavy traffic. Thinking ahead, we knew that the sun would be resting shortly on the horizon so I asked him if he knows any church nearby so we can simply use it as our venue instead. Within 5 minutes we were in a church and was able to take some pictures both inside and out. I taught him the basic skills on shooting in low-light, what camera settings to use, how to use the camera intuitively so he can concentrate more on his composition and the subject. Once he grasped the idea, I decided to ask him to try his new found knowledge and look for some interesting subjects to take pictures of. As he was eyeing a group of religious people praying near the altar, I decided to look around. I saw some young people holding hands and maybe praying together so that their relationship would blossom and get stronger. I saw a family, not praying but just like me was more fond of taking pictures rather than appreciating the essence of the holiday. I decided to go out of the church and went to a smaller nearby chapel instead. Inside the small praying building I saw this lone woman trying to lit a candle. I knew immediately that there is a good chance of a nice photograph to capture here. I set my ISO to 800 even though I know that the camera's digital noise would be horrible but what can I do? I'd rather have a noisy shot than not to have the shot at all. I set my camera to the widest aperture that I can use at 70mm (I am using an 18-70mm f/3.5-4.5 lens). Even at the widest aperture setting and at ISO 800 I can only get down to 1/25 second shutter speed. I braced my camera and tuck my elbows close to my body for a firmer posture and fired 2 shots. This one is the better of the two. I guess I got lucky and I was able to make a usable shot out of this using lightroom and photoshop on the post-processing. When me and my "student" went back to our dorm and loaded up our images in lightroom I saw that he was able to use the tips I gave him and got some pretty good shots, too. Thanks for reading the story and for viewing.



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Nikon D70 using an 18-70mm lens. Exposure at ISO 800, f/4.5 at 1/25 second.

[pjerry]

A very beautiful picture Willie and a lovely story.
And the noise...... what noise?

[jiro]

It was really "grainy", Pierre. I'm glad I have NikSoftware's Define noise reduction tool with me to help me out. Lightroom's Noise Reduction is pretty decent too but the algorithm of NikSoftware's Define tool seems to suit me more on certain occasional shots such as this. Thanks.

[The Wirefox]

Jiro you have really captured the sensitivity and reverence in those hands. Good work and excellent to see you back in the game.

[Kit]

That is a lovley image, Willie and a very good story to accompany it.

[Leslie]

Great images on this thread! way to go everyone!

This has to be one of my favorite images....although my entire spring break hiking and enjoying spring provided me with a lot to take snapshots of.

This is taken against a tombstone in a cemetery behind a 200 plus year old church that I had driven past several times throughout the week. So I decided to explore it on one of my last days. I'm glad I did. It was very peaceful walking around with the morning sun streaming in and hitting places just right. I passed tombs and crypts dating back to the late 1800's. I captured in another shot I took, the reflection of both what was behind me and the sun illuminating the crypt through the opposite window. What drew me to that one? the design on the crypt door looked like upside down hearts Anyways, as I looked to my left I saw the striking color of these tulips. As I got closer, the color against the tombstone just begged to be captured. The shadow was too cool to pass up as well.




Touched by Memories by Lovesvanhalen, on Flickr