2016/11/04 - B&W & Pictorial competition

November 04, 2016 • Leave a Comment

Greetings friends,

It's incredible how quickly time flies! There seems to be no shortage of things to do, and photographs to take.

I had the pleasure of photographing the Cleveland APL's Furball banquet/fund raiser at the Intercontinental Hotel last Saturday. Proceeds from the event fund "The Second Chance Program", where the APL helps animals that have more serious medical issues. If you're interested in seeing a 11 minute video with examples, here's a link to a video from a few years ago - Second Chance Program video - Just know that you may tear up... Also worth noting is that one of my photos shows up at 1:31 into the video! If you don't want to watch the video, just know that the program is for a good cause!

Anyway, I was taking photos of the event from every angle from 4:15 till midnight, and ended up taking just under 10 gigs of photos. Needless to say, I still have days of work ahead of me!

Along with taking photos of the event, I also donated a 20"x30" canvas print of the Key Tower which went for $220! Not too shabby if you ask me!

"The City Is Alive"

Along with that, last Friday was the second B&W / Pictorial photo competition of the season, and it was an interesting one for sure. There were some incredible photos that didn't place, and then some blurry one's that did really well... It just goes to show that art is subjective! Someone also recieved the ever so rare "Perfect Score", which raised the bar for the B&W competition. Although I like my entries, they just didn't do to well for this competition... I think I'll do better next time!

B&W Competition - Did Not Place - "Historical Homestead"

This photo was taken in Cades Cove during my photo trip to the Smokey Mountains earlier this year. If you ever get a chance to visit the area, make sure you stop by to get some honey comb from the visitor's center!

B&W Competition - Did Not Place - "One Stick To Rule Them All"

An alternate title for this was "Strangled by infrastructure", but that just seemed pretentious.... so I went with an obscure Lord of the Rings reference that nobody would get. Don't question it... just go with the flow.
Anyhow, this was a dead or dying tree that was under the Turnpike bridge just off of Riverview road near Boston Mills Ski Resort. I got this and the next photo when I decided to use my very last vacation day of the year. I don't regret that idea at all! The fog rolling through the valley, was just too incredible to pass up. Although this photo doesn't completely capture the true feeling, you'll be seeing some during the next B&W competition.

Pictorial Competition - First Place - "Early Morning Mist At The Beaver Lodge"

I woke up around 4 on my last vacation day to catch the sunrise, and whatever else caught my eye. Eagerly, I searched for the sunrise time, and roughly planned out the series of events that needed to reach my destination on time. I'm not certain how, but I must have faltered in my calculations because I arrived hours before sunrise. Despite the misstep, I set up my gear and started snapping away in extremely dark conditions. It didn't take long to realize that these weren't ideal conditions, but about an hour into the shoot when the light just barely illuminated the hazy sky. That's when things started looking up! Not long after this photo was taken, a dense fog filled the area which denoted my departure. The sun never made an appearance in that valley until I reached the bridge that's shown above. All in all, It was a great day to have off to enjoy some of the final warm days before the onslaught of winter.

2016/11/04 - B&W & Pictorial competition

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