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November Photo Competition - Free

I make it about 8 out of 17...

Happily, the competition is a democracy so if you see a photo which you don't think fits the theme, don't vote for it ;)
 
SpookyFrank said:
I make it about 8 out of 17...

Happily, the competition is a democracy so if you see a photo which you don't think fits the theme, don't vote for it ;)

Exactly. Guess the only real challenge left then is to see things the way other people see them.
 
Since moving to Toronto I've been taking quite a few photos with a fairly compact pocket digital, these were all take in the last month and fit the theme well enough.

The Price of Fame - an Elvis bust in that living museum to 1950's consumerism that is Honest Ed's.

Vacancies - no rooms at the inn out near the less salubrious quarter of Niagara Falls.

Free box - an abandoned child's doll in one of the boxes of cleared out junk that fill Toronto every summer.
 
Following my post to this subject which meant i could call on Dan S for a cup of tea and your no 3 mate is a good image but weak in subject matter any how is my First named of course Freedom House and if i was drinking and we had the demise of capitalism then drink would not be such a pernicous evil..
 
I have found this quote with one of my favourite photo's taken by a talented photographer somewhere on this planet, and I thougt it to be very fitting for this months theme. And so I decided to borrow it as the title for my 2nd entry:

"Freedom is be what I am, and not be what everybody expect for me to be.
Freedom is feel what I feel, and not necessarily what I should feel."
(Rough translation of a quote from Jorge Bucay.)

http://www.flickr.com/photo_zoom.gne?id=2049997221&size=l

(when you live in a tiny country like I do, open space gives an intense feeling of being free / freedom)
 
Here are my three photos.

Beach and Bike photo taken with a classic Olympus AX3 compact in the Harwich area summer 2007. Dday photo taken with a Leica IIIC and Jupiter 8 lens at Rougham Airshow again in 2007. I know using a cheap Russian lens on a Leica is a crime!

http://sovietcamera.110mb.com/free/

Scanned and processed by ASDA - arghhh!!! well its cheap and fast.

Edited in Digikam software - a Linux thingy!

I know they are rubbish but you never know?
 
Pavlik said:

It's an OK picture. The composition of having the edge of her face as a horizontal in the centre isn't to my taste. With using such a shallow depth of field you need to have the focus bang on her eye (or eye lashes). Having just a bit of her mouth also bugs me, my first thought is to include it or crop it all out. Although on second thoughts, what makes this photo a bit distinctive is the odd crop on the mouth.

The mood captured is rather tranquil, though perhaps a bit more since there's a hint of a smile. It doesn't say "free" to me, but I suppose sleeping/resting is a sort of freedom.
 
hiccup said:

I prefer this to your other entry (coffee cup still life thingy). I like how the TNT one stands out and the way the row of newspaper dispensers are lined up and cropped at each end.

My only issue is that my eye is immediately drawn to the lone leaf in the middle, which isn't that interesting. Think the composition is perhaps too heavily slanted to the top, maybe cut out some of the empty foreground?
 
alef said:
It's funny, but someone else's art really?

(BTW, I'm only expressing my thoughts to those who I already know or have clearly asked for feedback)

Aye, I was hesitant to enter it because of that exact reason. Then I looked at some of the other entries and wondered how they were 'free' so thought bugger it.
 
tom_craggs said:
Not a new one this one, but fits for me.

Running free

edited to add that I have converted this image to B&W and white sqaure cropped it.

As ever, you're a master of b+w. Lovely textured sky, odd architecture, fence and figures behind add to it. Kids running does capture freedom, though that's not what first strikes me about the shot. You're even pulling off a square crop, which is a bit unusual.
 
wiskey said:
not very new I'm afraid but my first entry in a while Lurking in the Dark, taken at an anti war demo in London a few years ago. Kettled in on Park Lane we were getting restless, I jumped a barrier and found this lot looking at me.

Nice shot, wiskey, I really like it. Wonderfully creepy. Empty shells of uniforms that tell you the cops are there without any of them being visible. Doesn't really say 'free' but it's a damn good photo.
 
djbombscare said:
Right lets ave another go cos I had fun last month.

Well its Nov and the theme is free. Soo I've gone with free being a release.

In this insatnce a release of sound, energy and light.
Firework


Well it is November so it had to be something to do with them :D

Its unedited and the background could be seen by some as a bit of a mess, but I like the lights from the flats through the smoke etc.

I have thought that if I win again I'd choose the theme "abstract". This works for me as an odd abstraction, though going with "free being a release...[this is] a release of sound" is pretty tenuous.

(I'm increasingly convinced that Robster and others are right: just say what you think. The danger of treading too carefully is a dull forum where people lose interest.)
 
dansumption- that's a really nice take on the theme, and some great frozen action in the cork pic!

stowpirate- despite what you said, I think there's a great quaility to all three of those pics, not sure about the dday one but the big sky and odd angle in 'beach' and the contrasting take on freedom in 'bike' is very effective in relation to the theme.

Good stuff, like em.
 
alef said:
It's an OK picture. The composition of having the edge of her face as a horizontal in the centre isn't to my taste. With using such a shallow depth of field you need to have the focus bang on her eye (or eye lashes). Having just a bit of her mouth also bugs me, my first thought is to include it or crop it all out. Although on second thoughts, what makes this photo a bit distinctive is the odd crop on the mouth.

The mood captured is rather tranquil, though perhaps a bit more since there's a hint of a smile. It doesn't say "free" to me, but I suppose sleeping/resting is a sort of freedom.


I think it's a lovely photo. It left me wanting to see more.

Have you seen any of the other photos this guy has done?

Are you a professional photographer, Alef? This is my first post in this forum. :)
 
Cheers all!

Not at the moment, I may make a return shortly, waiting to hear about a job :)
 
Honey said:
I think it's a lovely photo. It left me wanting to see more.

Have you seen any of the other photos this guy has done?

Are you a professional photographer, Alef? This is my first post in this forum. :)

Always good to have diverse views!

I've sold a few photos, but not a professional, just an opinionated amateur.
http://www.alef.co.uk/photos
 
Give us two minutes I'll have a look. ;)

I'm on the look out as it goes, for a very special photo to go in a massive frame in my living room. Do you sell your stuff (any of you?) I shall slip in at this junture the fact that the living room belongs to the first flat I have bought by myself, thus clarifying my skintness from the outset. :D

Firsky that photo looked like the tube to me....
 
Honey said:
Give us two minutes I'll have a look. ;)

I'm on the look out as it goes, for a very special photo to go in a massive frame in my living room. Do you sell your stuff (any of you?) I shall slip in at this junture the fact that the living room belongs to the first flat I have bought by myself, thus clarifying my skintness from the outset. :D

Firsky that photo looked like the tube to me....

I "sell" my photos for the cost of printing plus a £25 donation to Amnesty.

Suspect anyone here would sell you a photo. Paul Russell is, deservedly, the one here who has had recent solo exhibitions. He needs to go professional:
http://www.paulrussell.info/
 
Alef, some of those are stunning.

What I always wonder is, from the perspective of one who's photos are never all that, how do you get your shots? The perfect ones of the subject deep in thought or fully animated? Are you just there looking through your lense at things and people until your eye is caught by a subject? I assume you don't ask? I guess I am referring to the still lifes really.....

I forgot to say, the favourite ones are the man as viewed from within the ladder steps, the Prod one (is that PRoD)? The cattle with the one with its neck stretched out as well caught my eye.

Loving how you guys see things. I just don't see them like that.
 
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