Reflections ~ Exploration Thursday

"Reflections" EPPC #3

Was working on the upcoming challenge for the Epic Personal Photo Challenge group's next theme "Friends" when I realised I hadn't posted my last EPPC image for the theme "Reflections".

I had done a similar image years before but hadn't worked with lighting at that point and wanted a new take on it. And the three reflections happening in the image.... were all there before I started processing. In camera.

Now a magician usually doesn't reveal their secrets, but it was just so darn fun to set up and photograph that I'll tell you how to at least get the glass to flip that dual background I set up with white and red seamless.

Water inside anything clear eventually flips whatever is reflected behind it if you pull the glass far enough away from the object behind, in this case the overlapped seamless. In fact, the more objects you have, the better the illusion as seen in my first example done about four years ago.

Give this a try! There's a ton of ways this could be used in a photo... get your creativity on! And by all means, please join us at the EPPC on Facebook if you'd like to follow along with our themes and join in. We've already more than twenty group members and growing steadily.

Thanks for the ramble gang! See you here tomorrow!

The EPPC ~ Mono Monday

"Bow Thruster"

Epic Personal Photo Challenge #2

I didn't get a chance last week to blog my last EPPC image from the theme "Machinery". Since it's a B&W I thought I'd do so now. It's the propellers from outside the bow thruster of a tanker. I couldn't believe all the texture and cool lines and raking light I had to play with when I took a closer look.

If you were wondering, the EPPC has a facebook group now, and you can request to join up. So far we're 13 strong and the next theme we're currently getting ready to post this coming weekend is "Reflections". We'd love it if you joined us. It's a chance to push yourself, see how creative or observant you can be with your surroundings. And you'll meet some great people. How can you resist?

Busy day today, so it's just a short little post. But come check out the EPPC and join in the challenge. See you all tomorrow, and thanks for the ramble!

The Epic Personal Challenge! ~ Exploration Thursday

"The Big Bang"

The Epic Personal Challenge #1

Today's image is the result of a conversation I had with good friend and photographer David A. Pratt the other week. We've both been learning and working in photography now for a few years at around the same time, albeit from different countries and it's not unusual for us to encourage the other in some practical way, or exploring a new technique in camera, or in editing, or processing... well you get the picture. (pardon the pun)

The conversation involved which other photographers we'd been following that week, whose new work we admired and ended with us deciding to do a spontaneous bi-weekly photo challenge to keep our creativity honed. Easy enough to do on your own I suppose, but much more exciting when someone else is in on it too. And so began The EPC! (Epic Personal Challenge)

The grand thing about this is every other week we'll just pick a random theme and have to find ways to give our own interpretation of it in a photograph (not a new concept really but so much fun)... and the interesting part is waiting to see how the other is going to approach it. Last week's challenge was , you guessed it, Rust and Decay. But our approach and decision making in regards to subject matter, interpretation, and even processing were completely different. To compare the image above to Dave's resulting photograph and his description of it, you can view his image HERE. See? Vastly different.

While he found an object that exuded rust and decay with great textures and a really gritty sidelight suitable to the theme, I went in a different direction and chose to make the rust, found in the inside of an old wheelbarrow, it's own subject, giving an abstract feel the felt like some kind of crazy sky or atmosphere in space effect. I think the differences are fantastic... Dave's approach made me realize just how varied every interpretation will be, sometimes I get too caught up in my own style that I forget that the possibilities are endless. Photo challenges are the perfect way to have fun with your camera, have fun with your peers, and start seeing your world around you better. And after we revealed our images to each other, we decided we needed a round two!

So this bi-weekly challenge for the EPC is "Machinery" and already I'm finding this a very challenging theme. And loving it. The cool thing is, you never know what else you'll stumble across while out on your scavenger hunt for the assigned subject matter. I have three images now waiting for next week's blog that were exciting all on their own merit while I was out hunting decay and rust... so you can see how this kind of activity can be very important to your own personal exploration of your craft.

Dave and I are very social people as well... if we hear from enough of you that you'd like to join us for the EPC, I'm sure a FB group or page or blog can be put together... or if you'd like to simply follow along on your own, feel free to contact me or leave a comment with a link to your results so I can include you here on the blog as well in two weeks time. I'll be posting our results every other Thursday... and I'll have Dave do some guest blogging those days as well, so you can hear his thought process behind it all... what do ya say Dave? Hmmm?

If you'd like to see today's image larger just click on it above, and if you visit David Pratt's photo in the link above or on flickr, he'd love to hear your comments too. Thanks for the ramble gang! Have a great one!