POTN SPEED CHALLENGE #274-HIGH KEY

[Michael Wells]

Challenge #274 - HIGH KEY

Back in challenge #191, Boutty had us explore low key photography. This time, we'll let the pendulum swing the other way and explore high key photography. If you need help, or examples, simply enter "high key photography" into your search engine...there is plenty of information to be had on the internet. ENJOY!

While I have found a number of descriptions, definitions, and explanations of high key photography, I personally find them to be a bit "mystical", for lack of a better word. You all delivered in spades this week, and while there were not a lot of entries, I still had a tough time sorting them out. Well done, to all of you!!

Boutty-Johnnie Walker (Blue)...Simple, striking, and very effective in my opinion!

teekay-Mermaid in a Glass Prison...While I liked the concept of the picture, the overall tone was a bit too gray for my taste, and your edit left what appears to be a lot of digital artifacts in and around the subject that I found distracting.

Kevan_G9-Snow Tiger...I had a love/hate thing going with this picture all week. I absolutely loved the tiger, but in this high key setting, the big black rock in the foreground is a distraction. ( I actually preferred it before your edit.) Since I have no idea what you started with, I'll just ask, because if you can do it, I'd love to see it. Could you take a copy of your pre-edit entry, and do a crop of just the front portion of the tiger, cropping right to the edge of the rock, keeping roughly the same proportions, but in a vertical format?

rpolitsr-Archer...I loved everything about this picture!

objetda-Indigo...While the cropped head bothered me in this one, as well as the lost detail in the right side of the face, it still works for the photo. The color contrast is very well done, and it all draws you right to her beautiful eyes. Very nicely done!

mrshobden-Contemplation...Nicely composed picture! I like the angle you chose to shoot this a lot! For me, if it was a perfect world, I'd like to see a little more detail in the subject, and less in the background, but I'm being picky here. Well done!

afkenner-Sit...Like Boutty's picture, this is simple, yet very interesting. The play between the chairs and the shadows makes for a lot of detail in a simple subject!

***This Weeks Winners***

First...rpolitsr-Archer

Second...Boutty-Johnny Walker (Blue) on the Rock Please

Third...Kevan_G9-Snow Tiger
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[Boutty]

G6 - f/4.5, 1/100 sec, ASA --

[teekay]

G1

[Kevan]

G9:

[rpolitsr]

powershot Pro1

[objetda]

G11 - 30.5mm, ISO 800, f/4.5, 1/40

[mrshobden]

G11

[afkenner]

G10

[Michael Wells]

POTN Speed Challenge #274-High Key, is now closed for judging. I'll get results up by tonight.

[Michael Wells]

Right or wrong, the results are posted at the top! Thanks to all of you for your entries!

[chisel]

Quite a challenge. Wonderful set of images. Good decision, Michael. I would have had a hard time selecting between the top two.

[afkenner]

High key may be one of those things that's hard to define, even though technical descriptions are everywhere. But it surely fits in the category of "You know it when you SEE it." I think rploitsr's "Archer" is truly a beautiful and artistic example of this genre. I SO want to learn how to make a photo that looks like that! Thanks for this interesting challenge - for whatever reason, I wanted to find and shoot a high key shot rather than reworking the post on something taken previously. Nice job everyone!

[teekay]

Congratulations to Rafael and the runners up! It's rather surprising there weren't more entries to this interesting challenge - I learned a lot.

Re my own entry (Michael: "...your edit left what appears to be a lot of digital artifacts in and around the subject that I found distracting."), those are actual flaws and reflections in the glass ornament, not digital artifacts. The item is only about 3" high so every tiny flaw and bubble showed the macro shot that I had to use. I did do some editing but that didn't add any noise.

[objetda]

Congratulations to rpolitsr and the runners up. High Key was indeed a challenge since I had never attempted this.

Thankyou Michael for your comments, I was in two minds about using the whole image or crop to pull you into the face.
The original image had the head already cropped...

[Michael Wells]

Thanks for the clarification on that, teekay...I had NO idea it was that small, and didn't really notice the "stuff" until after your edit. Nice macro!