Photo Competition for December 2013 - THE RESULT

[Donald]

I suggested that this seemed to be about the overall highest quality monthly challenge we'd had. That was certainly reflected in the voting that was all over the place and was very tight. Choosing one was obviously quite a challenge for folks.

In 2nd equal we have:

Joe (jprzybla)

with



and

Dave (Overeasy)

with

And in 1st place we have

Homer (Boatman)

with

Coming up fast on the rails (but the winning post came too soon) were Image numbers 10, 14, 15 and 32

To view all images in the challenge, click here.

[Jeff S]

Congratulations to the three winners, all worthy selections. I know I had a difficult time with my vote because there were so many fine images from which to choose (which is a good thing).

Jeff.

[Otavio]

Sorry, Donald, but something looks wrong here. You said Bobo, but that is Joe's image. I am not sure wether Bobo or Joe was the winner.

Congratulations to the winners, though. It was really a high level competition this month!

Regards,

[Kris V]

Congratulations to all - Homer, Dave and Bobo (or Joe?)
Also to the runners-up!

[IzzieK]

Congratulations to all the winners...

[Rita]

Congratulations to the winners. There were some really great pics in this one.

[Donald]

Congratulations to all - Homer, Dave and Bobo (or Joe?)
Also to the runners-up!

Thanks to those who pointed out my stupid error and, originally, attributed Joe's image to Bobo in the above announcement. As you can see I have now corrected that and apologised by PM to both of them.

[Bobobird]

Great. Now that is cleared up. Congrats Homer, Dave, Joe. Great shots all.

[wilgk]

Congratulations all! They were certainly stunning entries this month!

[Mike Buckley]

Congratulations to everyone! Terrific submissions and winning entries!

[Brownbear]

A HUGE congratulations to all! As always, exceedingly difficult to choose, just one.

[Nancy Moran G]

I had to come back a few times before voting. As everyone said, it was a very tough choice!
Congrats to all. I think the bar has been raised!
Nancy

[Jim35010]

Like Nancy, I too had to return several times before choosing. I am very impressed with the quality of all the photos. Congrats to all the winners, and a tip of the hat to the honorable mentions.
Very Nice.
Jim

[WJT]

Thats a piace of art work Homer, congratulations.

[jprzybyla]

Thank you all for viewing and voting.

Homer, your image is filled with wonder. I feel like I am standing in the street viewing the scene, excellent rendering and processing. Congratulations, the best by far.

[Nancy Moran G]

Oh yeah, Homer, HOW did you make this masterpiece ie: settings, pp?
Again wonderful choices.
Nancy

[NorthernFocus]

Congrats to all the winners. There were a lot of great images submitted for this month.

[Hui Song]

Congratulations to all Winner. Homer's image is well-deserved winner for December / Christmas season .

[Wendy Stanford]

Congratulations to the winners, was a very difficult month to choose just one

[Boatman]

Thank you everyone for your kind words and votes. There is a bit of a back story to my entry.

The home is the house of Kathryn Buckless. Her late husband, Dan, was the founder of a very successful construction company specializing in interior retail space – they do a lot of mall work. Kathryn loves Christmas, so every year they really go all out on the decorations, but in a very tasteful way. The interior is well decorated as well, but I’ve never been inside the house. They have connections with some of the biggest Christmas stores in the New England region.

On Christmas Eve this year, I was returning home after spending the evening at my in-laws in Manchester, NH. On the way home I passed the Mill House. It was cold but still. I knew I had to stop and take some shots. Those shots are the ones without snow on my Zenfolio page, http://homershannon.zenfolio.com/p512153469. I was very happy with those results, but two days later we had a nice, light snow. That evening I went back to the Mill House, it is only about two miles from my home, and took more shots. The snow really improved the images.

I shot all the images from a tripod using about f4, ISO 320 and exposures ranging from ½ to 8 seconds, bracketing the bright lights and the shadows of the building. My camera is a Panasonic GH2 and I used the 12-35 Panasonic zoom lens. Most of the images in this group are made using NIK HDR Efex Pro 2. I also experimented using Photoshop with two layers, using the second layer to ‘dodge’ the brighter components. The middle range exposures from the bracket groups are quite good. You could get a decent photo from just one frame.

In this particular image I let the HDR have a more ‘HDR look’, but I thought the result was quite pleasing and not over the top. After posting this image, I tried merging the exposures using Enfuse, which is claimed to work differently than HDR and gives a natural look. My results look pretty much the same with this software, though Enfuse does a much better job of preventing halos on the branches of the trees. These look pretty bad in the small image shown on CiC. In the full size image they are not very noticeable at all. With Enfuse they do not exist.

All in all, the image is a fairly straight forward photograph. The subject was fantastic and the timing, with the snow, was fortunate. I’m pleased with the shot and that it won the December competition – it certainly is a fitting subject.

Thank you. Homer Shannon