Weekly Challenge Feb 11th-Feb18th:Smoke/Steam
- Thread starter Blacktop
- Start date
Bob Blaylock
Senior Member
Put some food coloring in there and make some colorful steam. Like @Eyelight said. Just be creative and shoot whatever you want. These challenges are not that strict. Loosen up bro!
The times I've become ornery, or close to it, have been times when I thought a theme was being interpreted too strictly. Most prominent, the “Nifty Fifty” challenge, where I was arguing that I thought I should be able to use my 28mm lens on my D3200. I think that's the only one I ever actually raised any fuss about; though I did feel rather put-off when I learned that the 16×9 weekly challenge was only going to allow horizontal orientation. About the only way I could really think of to be creative with that theme was, at the very least, to orient it vertically (which someone else beat me to, spurring the discussion in which it came out that this was disallowed) or to turn the whole thing to some crazy angle, like I did with this entry in the “Square format B&W” monthly challenge.
Interestingly, the current monthly challenge theme is one that I am inclined to interpret more strictly than the vast majority of other entrants so far have done. Aside from my one entry so far in that challenge, there are only two other entries that I think fits the theme as I would interpret it. My reason for thinking of the fog machine is that I have an object in mind to use for an entry in that challenge, but expect it otherwise to be difficult to photograph it in a way that fits my interpretation of that theme; and I a have an idea of how a well-placed bank of artificial fog might help.
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Bob Blaylock
Senior Member
I was thinking more of the current monthly “Light and its shadow” challenge as I created this, but in the end, I think it suits this “Smoke/Steam” theme better. I suppose there's no reason I cannot use the same image in both challenges, and perhaps, as the month runs out, if I haven't yet reached my three entries for that one, perhaps I'll use this there.
This was an experiment that came out wildly different than I envisioned. I was thinking of a much softer, more romantic sort of look, appropriate for a Valentine's Day theme. With the light source very distant behind, and my fog machine making clouds in front, I was hoping that the heart pattern of the lace would appear in the shadows in the fog. I guess the fog is just too coarse a medium for the detail I was hoping it would capture, and instead of the soft, romantic look I envisioned, I wound up with this very much harsher, “industrial” sort of look. I thought that perhaps I should repeat this arrangement, using some other subject that was more appropriate to the sort of look I ended up producing, but then decided to go with this; and to consider the dissonance between what ought to be seen as a soft, sexy, romantic item and the harsh industrial look that it ended up having, to be part of the artistic theme of the picture.
I used my ancient 50mm ƒ/1.4 lens, with a heart-shaped aperture stencil on the front of it, mounted to my D3200. ISO 100, three shots with shutter speeds of 1/20, 1/50 and 1/100 of a second, HDRed with Geodesic HDR, and then some further manipulation in an ancient version of PhotoShop.
——— Added a day later…
I keep looking at this image, and thinking of superheroes. I most definitely was not thinking of superheroes when I created this, but that's what it most seems to evoke, now, when I view it.
This was an experiment that came out wildly different than I envisioned. I was thinking of a much softer, more romantic sort of look, appropriate for a Valentine's Day theme. With the light source very distant behind, and my fog machine making clouds in front, I was hoping that the heart pattern of the lace would appear in the shadows in the fog. I guess the fog is just too coarse a medium for the detail I was hoping it would capture, and instead of the soft, romantic look I envisioned, I wound up with this very much harsher, “industrial” sort of look. I thought that perhaps I should repeat this arrangement, using some other subject that was more appropriate to the sort of look I ended up producing, but then decided to go with this; and to consider the dissonance between what ought to be seen as a soft, sexy, romantic item and the harsh industrial look that it ended up having, to be part of the artistic theme of the picture.
I used my ancient 50mm ƒ/1.4 lens, with a heart-shaped aperture stencil on the front of it, mounted to my D3200. ISO 100, three shots with shutter speeds of 1/20, 1/50 and 1/100 of a second, HDRed with Geodesic HDR, and then some further manipulation in an ancient version of PhotoShop.
——— Added a day later…
I keep looking at this image, and thinking of superheroes. I most definitely was not thinking of superheroes when I created this, but that's what it most seems to evoke, now, when I view it.
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