*2017/03/19 - Creative and Pictorial competitions
Hey Everyone!
I hope all is well!Here's the original image that I started my creative entry with.
This photo took me around 30-40 hours to get to this stage, but I'm very happy with the results!
Everything else in the image was manipulated or created. I probably spent 5-10 hours just creating shadows on her face and other objects around the room... The judges really raved about this one, which is a welcome change!
Everything else in the image was manipulated or created. I probably spent 5-10 hours just creating shadows on her face and other objects around the room... The judges really raved about this one, which is a welcome change!
"Witches Brew" - First Place - Creative Competition
"Swallowtail Butterfly" - Did Not Place - Pictorial Competition
I knew a number of reasons why this photo wasn't going to do well in competition, but I entered it anyway. It was less about placing, and more about just entering something different. In the end, I just like this photo...
"Cross-eyed Cat" - Honorable Mention - Pictorial Competition
I have hundreds (if not thousands) of pictures of cats sticking out their tongues... I always enjoy catching that moment in time... 8þ
Aside the competition thing, I spent some time updating the "Honors and Awards" section of my website. Give er' a look if you have some free time... feedback is welcome!
http://www.dansandy.me/awards
http://www.dansandy.me/awards
I've done some volunteer photojournalism for 2 different events in the past few weeks, and will share a few of those photos when I find some time...
Have a great one!
*2017/07/14 - Nature & Pictorial competition
Hey everyone,
Friday evening was the first Nature photo competition of the season at CPS, and it was a fierce one! There was at least a perfect score in each category, and a total of 3 for the competition. Although perfect scores are typically rare, they do seem to occur in bunches. Since the scoring is based on a sliding scale where the highest score determines how the rest of the scores will place, I had to try harder to compete. That said, if you question how some of my images did during this comp, this is the main contributing factor.
It should be noted that CPS has some incredible photographers/artist, and it seems like they're getting better every year! Everyone is pushing everyone else to greater heights, which is spawning some tough competition! I'm just happy to be in the mix!
Friday evening was the first Nature photo competition of the season at CPS, and it was a fierce one! There was at least a perfect score in each category, and a total of 3 for the competition. Although perfect scores are typically rare, they do seem to occur in bunches. Since the scoring is based on a sliding scale where the highest score determines how the rest of the scores will place, I had to try harder to compete. That said, if you question how some of my images did during this comp, this is the main contributing factor.
It should be noted that CPS has some incredible photographers/artist, and it seems like they're getting better every year! Everyone is pushing everyone else to greater heights, which is spawning some tough competition! I'm just happy to be in the mix!
Nature category:
"Sea Stack Sunset Surge" - Did not place
As I was driving down the coast of Oregon last month, I had the pleasure of stopping by the sea stacks in Bandon, OR during sunset. It was essentially miles of beach with geologic protrusions springing from the seascape. On misty mornings or near day's end, you'll find spectacular views at every turn. Truly a sight to behold!
Pictorial category:
"The Little Tug boat That Could" - Honorable Mention
During a sunset walk on the pier before the fireworks at the Port of Cleveland on the 4th of July, I had the pleasure of seeing this massive ore boat being towed backwards up the mouth of the Cuyahoga river by a little fella. Couldn't have asked for better weather for a spectacular sunset!
"Yaquina Bay Bridge" - Honorable Mention
One of the only days I was able to catch the sunrise in Oregon was when I was in Newport. A nice fishing town with a lot of character, and the Rouge Brewery! I woke early and decided to go down to the beach to catch some photos at the shellfish preserve. Although I never actually captured a sunrise on this day, I still love what I managed to capture!
That's it for the competitions until next month! I'll be in touch soon enough...
Until then, Have a great day and take care!
*2017/07/07 - Creative & Pictorial competition and update
Hey everyone!
I've been quite busy since I last wrote! I recently returned from a 9 day road-trip through the state of Washington and Oregon. I managed to take over 200 gigs of photos (a few thousand), and drove a total of 2,487 miles (1,400 were in the first 3 days) despite flying in to Seattle from Ohio! I'll be making a separate post about that as soon as I can find the time to edit all the photos! I've already spent over 40 hours going through them, and have only gotten through about 1/3 of them!This evening was the first photo competition of the 2017-2018 season at the Cleveland Photographic Society. As with every year, the Creative category is the first of many increasingly impressive competitions throughout the year.
Due to an urgent family matter, one of the judges couldn't make it to the club, so I sat with the 2 other judges and gave critiques in his stead. Fortunately, the competition was judged prior to today so the absent judge was able to score the entries, and I just filled in as necessary. As for my critiques, some were good, some were bad... some incoherent... In the end it turned out pretty darn good!
Creative category:
"Alien Headdress" - Honorable Mention
This image is composed of 2 photographs. One taken during a model photo shoot a few years ago, and the other was during a hike in the park a few months ago. The neat thing about this is that the final image was made in the camera itself. I did this using a function called "Double-exposure" where you take two photos and merge them together. It mimics the film days where a photographer would forget to advance their film, causing the film to be exposed twice. This accident quickly became an intentional act as photographers started exploring more creative avenues. I've only tried this technique twice with my digital camera but I plan on exploring it further in the future!
Pictorial category
"Beautiful day in Palouse" - Honorable Mention
"Beautiful day in Palouse" - Honorable Mention
This was taken during the first 3 days of my trip out west... Couldn't have asked for better weather for my time in South East Washington state!
"Solitary Sunset" - 3rd Place
This was also taken during my trip out west. I'm not an overly emotional guy, but this place literally brought a tear to my eye as I drove up to this spot during sunrise... truly an incredible place that I won't soon forget!
Although I pride myself in not spamming you fine people, there is a Nature photo competition next Friday... so you'll be hearing from me soon enough... you have been warned :)
I wish you all the best!
Warm regards,
Dan
*2017 City of Cleveland fireworks
Hey there,
As previously promised, here's a recap Cleveland firework displays that I've captured from the Port of Cleveland this year. A huge thanks to the Port and my older brother for allowing me exclusive access to capture these shots!
Before the actual fireworks, I had some time to kill, so I just wandered on the pier and captured some photos!
a tug was pulling a massive ore boat up the Cuyahoga as I walked out on the pier!
This photo recently received an Honorable Mention in a photo competition at the Cleveland Photographic Society!
Still chugging along! It's incredible the power the tug boats have!
Look at the dents on that ship... apparently caused by ice flows during winter.
Now for the fireworks! There was approximately 15,000 fireworks shot off over a 30 minute period, which was quite impressive! The following shots were captured from next to the concrete silos near the mouth of the Cuyahoga river (which was where I was sitting at the time).
To give some sense of scale, here's a zoom in on the people setting the fireworks off.
Along with the shots I captured manually, I also set up my older camera with a timer that you can program to take a series of shots over a specified amount of time (intervalometer). Seeing that I could capture photos without actually being present, I placed it in the fallout zone just under the fireworks... All I did was frame the shot to where I thought the fireworks might be, and then press go. I set the intervalometer to take a 5 second long photo, with 1 second in between, for a a few hours. I wish I had lens that covered a wider angle to capture all of the fireworks, but I made due with what I had... I love that Cleveland is in the bottom right corner!
as you can see, my camera almost got hit by debris.
another really close one!
I really liked seeing this unique perspective, and am really happy these photos turned out! I tried this in 2016 and I screwed it all up... Can't wait to try this again in the future!
I'll be sending more from years past in other emails, so keep your eyes pealed!
Have a great day!
*2017/04/17 - Concert Photography - Doyle
Howdy folks!
Through a random string of events, I recently photographed a heavy metal show for the publicist of a band named "Doyle". The band was named after the guitarist "Doyle Wolfgang Von Frankenstein". A man that strums so vigorously, that he had to engineer stronger guitars to withstand the intensity! He cycles through a guitar between each song, as the other 5 are being tuned. I'm not entirely sure why he tunes them at all, because with the amps set to 11, there was no way of hearing the difference between notes. Be that as it may, he is a perfectionist in his own right, and that has to be respected to some degree.Two of the members in Doyle were formally with the punk rock band named "The Misfits". If you've never heard of them, just know that they had hit legend status in the punk scene over the past several decades, but have since split due to creative differences. It was because they were a part of that band that I decided to endure the other heavy metal bands. If I were to sum the show up; there was a lot of screaming in contrast to a wall of noise that was being passed off as music.
Although I'm certain I suffered irreparable hearing loss, I still had a great time! The bonus was great learning experience in the ever challenging constantly changing lighting schematics from one second to the next. This is also why I ended up taking just over 600 shots...
(Left to Right: Bass - Brandon Strate; Drums - Brandon Pertzborn; Vocals - Alex “Wolfman” Story; Guitar - Doyle Wolfgang Von Frankenstein)
Before each song, the lead singer would say "This one here... this one is a love song... and you can dance if you want to". Needless to say, they weren't love songs... unless "screaming your love" is a thing... Now-a-days, you just never know... At any rate, it made me laugh every time!
I mean... how many hours a day can this guy work out?
It was funny seeing all the cellphones... Doyle WVF hates cellphones at shows...
The bass guitarist kept on blocking a bunch of shots, so I squatted down to shoot between his legs for this one... gotta do what you gotta do...
It looks like he sprouted a second head out of his neck!!! Not to worry, it's just the Bass guitar player in the background.
This guy was lively!
Gum and heavy metal go hand in hand... well... I'm not sure if that's actually a fact or not... but it sounds about right!
I'm not convinced that Doyle Wolfgang wasn't trying to scare that kid in the front row...
Drum solo!
an intimate moment at a heavy metal show
This guy also plays in a band named Black Flag (which is also a huge punk band)... He clearly loves playing the drums!
Something a parent doesn't want to hear from their daughter's mouth... "Here's my new boyfriend... and I'm pregnant... can we live here?". At least I imagine you wouldn't...
Someone shouted "Play Freebird" between songs... they never did play it... However, they did play a love song that you could dance to... if you wanted.
After the show, Doyle was explaining the finer intricacies of science and technology to their younger fans.
Here's where the photos were used, along with a little write up about the show.
http://willtorock.com/
Here's where the photos were used, along with a little write up about the show.
http://willtorock.com/
Until next time,
Have an awesome day!
Regards,
Dan
Daniel A. Sandy