October Image of the Month

Fall is usually a nice time of the year for photos in Calgary. There's as much colour as there ever is, mostly in shades of gold, yellow, and orange. The reflections can be wonderful. Sunrise and sunset settle back to more reasonable times.

It was a good photo month for me. Lots of walks through Fish Creek, and one downtown. A scavenger hunt was a first for me. A road show with Neil out to the Drumheller area. A fun family shoot, and an afternoon with my favourite model and a rented lens. Some community events. Even going to a talk given by a famous photographer, Dave Brosha!

That means I have lots of choice for image of the month. Let the dithering begin! (I'm writing this on Wednesday evening, having just reviewed the existing 4 star photos, and I'm pretty pleased with them.) Next is to go through the rest of them to see if any should be bumped up to 4 stars.

I'm trying to think about photos through the lens of what Dave Brosha discussed. A photo can be just a pretty picture, and I've done lots of those. But the really interesting photos, the ones that people actually look at or come back to, have a hook or a story. Lots of times when I'm out with the camera, I'm about getting this photo and moving on, though I'm trying to slow down and think about the why of the photo, the hook. A work in progress.

The top three took a bit of thinking, and then trying to get the order took lots more. These tend to be somewhat unusual images for me, perhaps that's why I chose them. Much as I loved the photos of Michelle, the more I looked at the backgrounds the more it killed me. Even looking at some of the Halloween photos makes me wince a bit. Maybe I'm getting too fussy in my old age.

Second Runner up
I never would have taken this if I hadn't been doing a photo scavenger hunt, looking for shadows. The curves caught my eye as I was looking for something else, and it got edited almost the complete opposite the way I normally edit. So far nobody has figured out what it is.

First Runner up
This is a great example of what I think of as a micro-landscape.

Image of the Month
I almost didn't take this image, but the more I look at it, the more it grows on me. There's a different version on my blog where it's exposed much more brightly, and it's boring. A parking lot. Finding the right level of shadow took a bunch of playing, and if I were to ever print this one, I'd probably have to work with the shadow levels even more.