| Last Month's Self Assignment Winners
Last month's self assignment "Striking Skies & Weather
Phenomenon" produced an avalanche of entries. Chuck's hard drive is
still smoking! Here are the winners and some shots that we thought
deserved recognition.
We want to congratulate both the winners and all those who
participated. Thanks to our sponsor, FujiFilm, the winner receives 20
rolls of the Fuji professional film of their choice. The runners-up
receive 10 rolls of the Fuji professional film of their choice.
Winners are notified by email .
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Winner, Greg Summers Rolling Thunder
Sunset
"Looking west on a grey evening, the sun suddenly turned on
the sky as I looked west from the second pond at Sawhill Ponds,
Boulder, Colorado - the air was still and I hardly knew what to do
with the colors flaring around me - called a Rolling Thunder
Sunset."
Greg used his Nikon F100 and Tokina 24-200 to capture the
moment onto Fuji Provia 100. The slide was scanned using a Nikon
LS-2000 scanner. In Photoshop Greg adjusted levels, curves and
hue/saturation to recover the detail and luminosity present in the
original slide. |
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Jody Page, Evening Storm Receding
"I live in a moderately-sized city, but there is a 12-acre
property across the street from my house. It lies to the west and
comes complete with windmill. The neighbor kindly agreed to let me
sneak past his German Shepherd anytime I want to snap a sunset
picture. On this particular night, a huge thunderstorm had passed
through and was heading off to the south. The cloud line is the
receding edge of the storm. The colors were simply incredible, and
I am quite happy that they translated so well onto film. I have
been to this field one time since this photo was shot. On that
last trip I encountered a six-foot long rattlesnake in addition to
the German Shepherd, and I haven't been back since!
Maybe Jody should brave the critters more often! Jody captured
the image using a Pentax PZ-70 with a 28-90 mm lens onto Agfa 400
film. The negative was scanned by the local photo shop who
adjusted the levels slightly. |
 John
Diel, Last Storm of
the Year
"The last storm of the year. I thought I would try to
intercept it at I-35. It Wasn't very impressive on radar, but
apparently it got its second wind."
"I made it about 2 miles outside town (I-35 was 15 miles)
When I found the lowered base and saw the lightning strikes
increase quite a bit. It was hard holding everything together and
to keep from diving into the truck, but I was rewarded with this
shot."
"Of course my wife now seriously questions my
sanity!"
"About a minute after this shot, lightning started
striking very close and survival instincts took over and I
high-tailed it out of there. On the entire roll, this was the best
shot of three that came out. Av mode at f5.6 and about a 15 to 20
second exposure. Too long to freeze the cloud motion (the storm
was moving fast), but enough to capture the colors and bolt."
John used his Canon A2 & Canon 70-210 f4 to capture this
image onto Kodak E-100 slide film which was scanned on a Fuji
Frontier machine at the camera shop. He used Photoshop to remove
dust specs from the image and make some minor color corrections
"the colors you see are very close to the original".
John if it's any consolation every good photographer has a
spouse who thinks their nuts - unless their spouse is a
photographer too. |
Honorable Mentions
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Jay O'Brien, Misty Sunrise
About all Jay told us about this shot is that it was a "foggy
and misty sunrise at Valley Forge National Park, in
Pennsylvania".
He used a Nikon F100 and 28-200mm lens to capture the image
onto Fuji Velvia. The camera was set to aperture priority at f16
and a Singhray blue-gold polarizer was used to make the colors pop
for his tripod mounted F100. The slide was scanned using a Cikon
Coolscan IV and was not manipulated. |
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Dominik Wojtarowicz, Burning Sky
Dominik tells us "This sunset at the park near my house
looked like a forest fire. I framed it low to the ground to help
get that across."
Dominik used his Nikon D100 & Nikor 20-35mm f2.8 and just a
minor contrast adjustment in Photoshop to get this image. |
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Anil Sudhakaran, Arroyo Burro Beach, Santa
Barbara
"This was shot last year sometime in the month of April. It
was a windy day and I was at one of the lookouts at Hope Ranch,
Santa Barbara when I noticed the clouds formed like flames and the
sky turning pink/red. I drove down to Arroyo Burro Beach and was
treated to a great sunset. I noticed a little boy and his father
on the beach and used them as silhouttes for this picture."
Anil used his Minolta Maxxum 5 & Minolta 24-105mm to
capture the image onto Fuji Provia 100F. The slide was scanned
with a Minolta Dimage Scan Elite II. The resulting image was
cropped slightly to remove a time/date stamp and the image was
sharpened slightly. |
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