Weekly Challenge July 23-30: "Fire"
- Thread starter Eyelight
- Start date
That happens to me all the time. It may or may not show up next time you visit the page.
Got it now... this site has some unusual "getting used to" occurrances
for me...
But, I will persevere!
Why set something on fire? Just lie instead of telling the truth.
Liar, liar, pants on fire!
Why set something on fire? Just lie instead of telling the truth.
Liar, liar, pants on fire!
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
Creative thinking.
Bob Blaylock
Senior Member
This challenge has made me startlingly aware of just how scarce any actual fire is in my life these days. Another participant posted a picture of his stovetop burner, but in my home, it's electric, so no fire there.
If I come up with an entry at all, it will probably have to be somewhat more abstract—not anything with actual, visible fire, but something of which fire is a component of how it works; and at that, I'm coming up with only two or three ideas; all of which may be deemed dubious at best as entries for this challenge.
I just got back from my Sunday ritual of going out, to take my weekly shots for my project 365 daily thread,(lol) and have not seen one fire in the 100 miles that I drove.
I really wanted to win this weeks challenge, because the winner gets to name next weeks challenge. I was going to post my thermal nuclear explosion.
I really wanted to win this weeks challenge, because the winner gets to name next weeks challenge. I was going to post my thermal nuclear explosion.
Bob Blaylock
Senior Member
Seems like a theme has ready been established, that ought to continue through the two remaining Empedoclian elements—Air and Earth; before we move on to other themes.
Sounds like classic pixel block syndrome. A little review of the pertinent portions of the Challenge might help.
"This week's photo challenge is Fire. Let's see how inventive, imaginative or creative you can be! Flames, flickers, embers, what it does, how it's used, etc. Color, B&W, HDR...anything goes!"
"Any photo will be accepted for the challenge. Edited or straight out of the camera, it does not matter. You are left with complete freedom to do whatever genre of photography you wish to do, and your own interpretation of the challenge subject."
Fire might be from a match, a candle, a star...............
Blades of grass kind of look like flame......
"This week's photo challenge is Fire. Let's see how inventive, imaginative or creative you can be! Flames, flickers, embers, what it does, how it's used, etc. Color, B&W, HDR...anything goes!"
"Any photo will be accepted for the challenge. Edited or straight out of the camera, it does not matter. You are left with complete freedom to do whatever genre of photography you wish to do, and your own interpretation of the challenge subject."
Fire might be from a match, a candle, a star...............
Blades of grass kind of look like flame......
I was just wondering why people aren't thinking outside the box. Here is a photo where the flame was generated in Photoshop (the link comes after the photo). The photo is NOT mine.
How to create fire effects in Photoshop, part 1 | Photoshop Creative - Photoshop Tutorials, Galleries, Reviews & Advice | Photoshop Creative Magazine
Matches, candles, butane lighters are a few suggestions...add the flame in front of a mirror to generate even more flames. Add layers and layers of flame images in Photoshop.... Hey, it says Flames, flickers, so why not even try an artificial candle? Lots of things people can do if they are interested in participating!
Hey, it says Flames, flickers, so why not even try an artificial candle? Lots of things people can do if they are interested in participating!
Where's the double like button??
Bob Blaylock
Senior Member
I was just wondering why people aren't thinking outside the box. Here is a photo where the flame was generated in Photoshop (the link comes after the photo). The photo is NOT mine.
View attachment 103566
How to create fire effects in Photoshop, part 1 | Photoshop Creative - Photoshop Tutorials, Galleries, Reviews & Advice | Photoshop Creative Magazine
Matches, candles, butane lighters are a few suggestions...add the flame in front of a mirror to generate even more flames. Add layers and layers of flame images in Photoshop.... Hey, it says Flames, flickers, so why not even try an artificial candle? Lots of things people can do if they are interested in participating!
Though I see the point you're trying to make, I don't think I agree with it. This is a photography forum, after all, and I assume that the contest/challenge/whatever is about photography. This means recording an image of something that is really there. There's a lot of room to enhance an image in postprocessing, to give it traits that the original image lacks, but to completely create an important component of the image ex-nihilo would, I think, not be consistent with a challenge that is supposed to be about photography.
Bob Blaylock
Senior Member
Here's my entry—not as big a stretch as I thought I'd have to make. I was thinking I might use my car's engine, or an arrangement of a gun and ammunition—things that use fire to operate, but where the fire isn't really apparent.
Then I thought of this butane-powered soldering iron. Though there is no open flame, the orange glow is from the combustive reaction of butane and oxygen, to produce heat—fire in the technical sense, if not in quite the form in which we think of fire.
I was hoping to catch drops or splashes of melted solder, as I have sometimes done with water. No such luck. But I did get some interesting patterns of smoke, sufficient to make a worthwhile image.
I was startled, in postprocessing this image, to realize that at some points, the smoke is sharply-enough resolved that I can see individual smoke particles—not something that I think I've ever seen before in any context. There's even a bit of a rainbow in that portion of the smoke. You can't see that in the whole image, shrunk down to the size that this forum shrinks it to, but I've included a detail portion afterward, and have put the full-sized image on Flickr.
Whole image (This one is my entry.):
Fine detail of smoke (This image is not, itself my entry, but just here to show some fine detail that you otherwise won't be able to see in the main entry.):
Then I thought of this butane-powered soldering iron. Though there is no open flame, the orange glow is from the combustive reaction of butane and oxygen, to produce heat—fire in the technical sense, if not in quite the form in which we think of fire.
I was hoping to catch drops or splashes of melted solder, as I have sometimes done with water. No such luck. But I did get some interesting patterns of smoke, sufficient to make a worthwhile image.
I was startled, in postprocessing this image, to realize that at some points, the smoke is sharply-enough resolved that I can see individual smoke particles—not something that I think I've ever seen before in any context. There's even a bit of a rainbow in that portion of the smoke. You can't see that in the whole image, shrunk down to the size that this forum shrinks it to, but I've included a detail portion afterward, and have put the full-sized image on Flickr.
Whole image (This one is my entry.):
Fine detail of smoke (This image is not, itself my entry, but just here to show some fine detail that you otherwise won't be able to see in the main entry.):
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Looking at the concern of @Bob Blaylock. I cannot necessarily speak for anyone else, including the Weekly Challenge Team. I frame it this way because the Weekly Challenge is pretty much wide open to the individual photographer's interpretation, imagination and even capabilities. Participants are free to explore any direction the challenge leads them and learn from the experience.
It is a photo challenge, so kind of a given that the entries involve photography. And though maybe more PS than photo, the image in @hark 's post does involve photography.
I suppose if an entry appeared to be entirely CG, then it may be considered outside the guidelines, but if within the posted guidelines & rules, the final word on acceptability of a particular method will be decided by the likes an entry receives.
It is a photo challenge, so kind of a given that the entries involve photography. And though maybe more PS than photo, the image in @hark 's post does involve photography.
I suppose if an entry appeared to be entirely CG, then it may be considered outside the guidelines, but if within the posted guidelines & rules, the final word on acceptability of a particular method will be decided by the likes an entry receives.
I like Bob's added explanation because I think it helps the rest if us see what was going on and we can learn and pick up stuff. So, I'll add some info on the image I posted.
I first thought about using a candle to light a small flower, with the flame off to the side. In the process of looking for the right candle, found a mostly used dark red poured wax candle in a tapered glass about 3" high (borrowed from the neighbor). The image posted is that candle laid on it's side with a daylight as back light to light the rim. The cave-like look is where the candle had already melted down into the wax. Vignette added to black out the background and a little canvas top and bottom to balance the circle of fire in the center of darkness.
I first thought about using a candle to light a small flower, with the flame off to the side. In the process of looking for the right candle, found a mostly used dark red poured wax candle in a tapered glass about 3" high (borrowed from the neighbor). The image posted is that candle laid on it's side with a daylight as back light to light the rim. The cave-like look is where the candle had already melted down into the wax. Vignette added to black out the background and a little canvas top and bottom to balance the circle of fire in the center of darkness.
Bob Blaylock
Senior Member
If the challenge involves a specified theme, then shouldn't the elements in the image that relate to that theme, at least, be something that was photographed, rather than artificially-generated?
In the image under discussion, there's a human figure that was probably photographed, and a bokeh-laden background that was almost certainly photographed, but the fire is completely artificial. Until the fake fire was Photoshopped into it, the image had nothing to do with fire.
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If an image were posted that was similar to the example, I may or may not like it or vote for it if it made the polling round, but I would not object to it as an entry, provided it was within the posted guidlines.
There was a photo posted in someone's 365 that had plants or grass that made me think of flames, which I think would be acceptable.
I have photos of sunsets that look like the sky is on fire, and I think that would be acceptable.
Point is the entrant is free to interpret the topic and the members who view the entries are free to like the interpretation or not.