We had our last regular meeting of the HOTPPG two weeks ago. As always we had our image competitions. The challenge for this month was Low Light images. It was a black and white print competition. While we were on our cruise in August, I took photographs during the entertainment in the evening. In looking at them, there was one that struck me as a good candidate for conversion to black and white. So, I used Nik Silver Effects Pro and converted it to black and white, and then cropped it square. It ended up coming in second, but that was enough to guaranty that I would win the Black and White Artist competition for the year.
The August Guild Image Competition included a “Challenge” Competition. The Challenge was a Black and White natural light photograph. One day last week when I went to get the mail, I noticed cobwebs forming on the remnants of the roses by the mailbox. So, I used those as my subject. I took a series of images, that were pretty good, but when I sent one to Pounds to have it printed, it came back and the focus was not sharp enough. I still had time. So, I took some more images and found one with really sharp focus. I quickly sent it to Pounds. That was last Friday. They did not process it until Monday and shipped it for Tuesday. The competition was Tuesday evening. So, things were tight. At about 5:45, it had not come yet. So, I decided to go without it. I got down to Franklin and New Road, and Debbie called that it had just been delivered. So, I raced back home to get it. The competition was supposed to start at 6:30. So, I had a little time. I drove down to Coach’s and got there in plenty of time. They set up the prints, and all went well. That is, until the prints were revealed. I was amazed at the extraordinary quality of the prints for this competition. Let’s face it, the prints are always strong, but these images were beyond that. Turns out, I didn’t place. But, I am not disappointed The images that won were really better than mine.
