Contest: out in the midday sun -- win a prize!
Since the monthly contests seem to be on hiatus for a while, I thought I'd hold my own little contest. I'll even throw in a US $50 prize for the winner.
The theme of the contest is "out in the midday sun". Normally photographers tend to regard midday light as rather poor, since it's harsh and comes from overhead. Your task is to make a virtue out of such light.
Here are the rules:
1. The subject can be anything you want, but the photo should be taken outside on a mostly sunny day when the sun is reasonably high in the sky and is casting harsh shadows.
2. You can use supplemental lighting such as fill flash or reflectors. You can even just stick your subject in the shade if you want. However, the judging will lean to those who make creative use of harsh light rather than those who just shun it or obliterate it.
3. Any post-processing should not significantly alter the quality of the light. For example, don't take a portrait and then dodge like crazy to completely eliminate "raccoon" eyes. Try to stick with adjustments to white balance and contrast, doing B&W conversion, cropping, etc. I might ask to see the original photo before any processing, so keep a copy!
4. The photo should be taken with a 4/3 camera OR a film camera. Any lens is fine.
5. If you want to post your photo in the forums here or in other places for suggestions before submitting it, that's fine.
6. I'm the sole judge.
7. The contest starts today and ends in one month. Photos must be taken between July 8 and August 8 (inclusive), your time. I'll allow another few days after that for people to process and submit any last-minute entries.
8. To get the $50 prize, the winner must have a paypal account that I can send the money to. The prize will be paid by a personal transfer from a bank account, so you shouldn't have any paypal fees (other than perhaps currency conversion fees if you're not in the US).
To submit an entry, just post to this thread sometime before the contest closes. You can attach the entry, post a link to an external site, whatever. Only one entry per person, please. If you change your mind about your entry, either make a new post or edit your original post. A size of around 800 pixels on the longest side should probably be fine for judging, though I may PM you and ask for a higher-resolution version in some cases.
A few days after the contest closes, I'll post the winner and my thoughts on any other entries that I find especially noteworthy.
One suggestion for dealing with harsh light that I came across recently is to shoot wide. Bright sun makes for a poor close-up portrait, but when the person is a small element in a bigger scene, the facial lighting is not so important. You can use this idea or any other techniques, as you desire.
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Originally Posted by InOmaha
One week to go!
