Tag Archives: Emotion

How I Took That Shot – Karen Fleming

Karen Fleming-1

Taking first place in Group A for the fourth time on the trot this year, Karen Fleming chose a portrait of her son Aaron with his canine friend, Rosie. Here’s how she made the image:

Just before we broke from the club meetings for the summer we were given our final theme for our internal competition for the club year which was ‘Emotion’. We had a bit more time to capture our image this time round due to the summer break which was great because I had no idea what to do for it. As the summer ticked by I had a couple of ideas in mind but I still hadn’t shot anything. Then before I knew it the reminder for submission came in and I still didn’t have my image captured.

I was contemplating not entering an image for the competition ’till an idea was suggested to me. The day before submission I shot the idea and, though I got an image, I decided to shoot again just hours before the submission deadline. I borrowed my mother’s West Highland terrier puppy, Rosie, who my son Aaron is crazy about. I got a black sheet and hung it in the bay window in my living room. I set up two studio lights, one with a softbox and one we with a snoot. I got Aaron to play with Rosie and captured the shot.

Canon 5d
24-105 mm lens
ISO 400
f20 1/160 sec

Post production was basic levels and curves then converted to monochrome.

How I Took That Shot – Finbarr O’Shea

Coming into the ‘Emotion’ competition, Finbarr O’Shea had a first and two second placings in Grade B already under his belt this year. When the numbers were crunched in the ‘Emotion’ competition he came out on top again with the image below. This is his account of how the image came to be:

Finbarr OShea-7

My shot for the recent group competition “Emotion” was a portrait of my granddaughter Mikaela. The shot came about when my son Mark and Mikaela were reacting with one another in the kitchen.

I thought a square crop suited this picture best.

The camera settings for the shot were:

f5.6 1/60 sec 400 ISO, with speedlight flash, focal length 70mm.

– Finbarr

How I Took That Shot – Trevor O’Connell

Trevor O’Connell took his second first place of the year in Grade C in the recent Group ‘Emotion’ Competition with the image below. Here’s how he did it:

Trevor OConnell-1

This shot was a selfie!

Camera settings were –
Canon EOS 6d / 24 – 70mm lens @ 70mm
ISO 800
f/11
1/250 sec

For the shot, I was looking up at the sun and squinting. The camera was on a tripod with a shutter release cable attached.

In Photoshop, I cropped it a little and using layers I added the dark border, drained the colour except for the blue and sharpened the eye detail.

The tears were painted in using different layers with layer effects like drop shadow to and gradients to create the water drop effect. The reflection in the eyes is a seperate image of my daughter masked out so as most of it only appears in the pupil.

The rain streaks were applied using a rain brush i downloaded for free from the internet.

It was a bit of fun really and a nice way to pass an evening!!!!

– Trevor

ECCG ‘Emotion’ Competition – 16/9/2014

‘Emotion’ was the theme to the latest of our competitions held at the Midleton Park Hotel on Tuesday 16/9/14. Following two viewings of the projected images, marks were awarded and results calculated.

As results were fed into our scoring software, a close battle was evident in all Grades for the top spots with very little separating the places at the end.

emotion_results

For the fourth time this year, Karen Fleming took first place in Grade A putting her in very strong position coming into our final competition, Photographer of the Year, in November.

After a first and two second placings, Finbarr O’Shea took first place again in Grade B while Trevor O’Connell took his second first place of the year in Grade C. Trevor also took third place overall with his score of 432 to join Karen Fleming, first and Fidelma Read, second, from Grade A in the top three.