Weekly Featured Image: Week of July 9, 2012

Question

This is the place to submit and vote on photos for the week of 9 July to be featured on the main site. This contest should showcase your best quality work, demonstrating at least moderate skill with a camera and a general understanding of the artistic aspects of photography. Remember, the selected photo will be displayed on our main site header for a week. Submit something that you and the members of our site will want to look at and admire for seven days!  This contest is for the community to choose what they LIKE (not what they dislike), with the most liked being displayed on the main site header for a week. 

.: Voting Closes on July 9nd at 9:30pm EDT (UTC-4) :.

This week, there is no particular theme for the contest. All photos which would be appropriate for the banner are welcome.

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Submissions may be added any day of the week until voting closes. The winning image (with the highest votes) as of the close of voting will be exhibited on the main site.

Last week's thread
Winners Hall of Fame

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Submitter Rules:

• Limit one photo per person per contest
• A specific photo may be submitted at most two weeks in a row
• A specific photo may not be submitted more than four times a year
• Keep all images appropriate, we want this site to be work safe
• Do not submit any photo if you are currently featured
• Images must be 210 px high and up to 375 px wide
• Images must be in landscape orientation
• Images must not contain any artificially added borders or of any kind
• Do not use this forum as a means to get critiques!
• Showcase your best works!

Voting Rules:

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• Up votes only!
• Only vote up the images you like...ignore those you do not.
• DO NOT use this forum as a place for image critique. Use chat for that (you'll get far better feedback)!
• DO NOT vote down your competitors! UP VOTES ONLY! Don't like, don't vote.

General Tips:

We encourage you to include a link to a larger version of your image. You may host your work on sites such as Flickr, 1x.com, 500px.com, RedBubble.com, etc. to showcase larger versions.

Feel free to include a concise description that explains the image, the emotion behind them, etc. and perhaps some explanation of gear and exposure settings, etc.

Answer 1

Wheat in clouds

Photo was made near Kyiv, Ukraine.

Bigger version

Answer 2

Early morning Stonehenge

Answer 3

Let's look at the bright side

Pentax K-5, Sigma 8-16 at 12mm f/8

Larger version

Answer 4

"You lookin' at me?"

Higher resolution image here

Click the image that loads to get the full resolution original

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focal length = 100mm* - about right for a head and shoulders portrait - even without the shoulders :-)

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Some thoughts on "composition":

Original is in portrait mode - how else do you shoot an Ostrich with attitude! ? :-)
Despite the limitations of the landscape crop and the low resolution allowed, most of the attitude still comes across.

How much to crop? - while this is always a challenge for best results, the small size, low resolution and given aspect ratio make it harder than usual.

Photos on the page need visual impact and filling the frame is desirable.
Cropping off part of the top of his (her?) head is not unacceptable in any context but makes you think twice about the visual effect.

Head 'hairs' go to an appreciable height above the head and, while in for example an A4 or higher resolution print you have the luxury of including them, at 210 pixel total image height they are hard to see, and reduce the overall visual impact for no real gain.

The long Ostrich neck is part of demonstrating its visual pride factor and attitude - but is unshowable here without reducing the head to a minor part of the page. After some trials with various amounts of neck visible it seemed that no neck at all achieved best results in conveying the bird's "in your face attitude" - which is much of what the photo is about.

Get a little closer and you get solid pecks on the lens front - ask me how I know! :-)

All the preceding makes more sense when the full size image is viewed.

*-(150mm @ 35mm FF equivalent)

Answer 5

nel blu dipinto di blu

Bigger here

Answer 6

french bulldog, larger version

Answer 7

Many shots of children fail for various reasons, but with this one the flash froze the water flow exactly as hoped.

In terms of composition, I tried various crops, but this was the one that felt right, allowing equal space for the water and her head.

Answer 8

الشعب يريد إسقاط النظام

These Arabic words were the main slogan associated with the Arab Spring. It means "The people want to bring down the regime". The photo was taken at June 8^th 2012, Egyptian protesters were chanting in front of the Consulate General of The Arab Republic Of Egypt at New York City. Protesters are against the new constitutional declaration amendments by the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces which limits the president power.

Larger here

Answer 9

Not sure why, but I like this one from NYC. Just a random capture as I was crossing the street.