Tag Archives: Silhouette

How I Took That Shot – Joseph Keniry

Joe Keniry came second in Grade B in our ‘Christmas‘ competition in January last. This time around, Joe made it one better and won the Grade in our second internal competition of the year with the unusual image below. The theme was ‘Curves’ and this is how he made the image:

joe keniry-1

Having checked that my daughters were in bed and asleep, I noticed some wrought iron dolls-house furniture they had being playing with that day. The furniture had curves so detailed, that I could not miss the opportunity to take the shot.

As I was taking the shot, I noticed a dim silhouette so I tried using a torch which also created an arch in the background. After many attempts I still felt that it needed something, so with the help of two “Sylvanian Friends” who decided to have a tea party/picnic, I snapped it there and then! The torch was held in position by a €15 tripod and a G clamp. The camera was also on a tripod.

Camera – Nikon D7000
Lens – Nikkor – 18-70 1;3.5-4.5 G ED
Aperture – F 18
Focal length – 27mm
Shutter – 1.3 sec
ISO – 400
JPEG
White balance – Auto

ECCG ‘Curves’ Competition – 03/03/15
How I took that Shot – Gráinne Davies
How I took that Shot – Catherine Millad
Competition Results and 2015 League Table

 

How I took that Shot – Karen Fleming

Making it a hat-trick of wins for 2014, Karen Fleming took first place in Grade A in the recent ‘Silhouette’ competition. Here’s how she did it:

Silhouette-13

“When we first heard of the title for the competition I thought to myself, what am I going to come up with for Silhouette? I took to trawling the internet for some inspiration and then decided to do a shot using studio lighting.”

“The shot I took was a very simple studio setup. My niece is Vietnamese so I asked her to wear one of her traditional outfits. I used one of the paper umbrellas which was beautifully decorated and placed her in front of a blue wall and put a studio light with a snoot attached behind her and pointing toward the wall. I did a little post production afterwards to bring up the exposure of the umbrella a little bit.”

Canon 5d, 24-105mm lens at 65mm. ISO 100, F4, 1/125.

 

Well done Karen.

See also:

ECCG ‘Silhouette’ Competition – 20/5/14
How I took that Shot – Kevin Barry
How I took that Shot – Trevor O’Connell

How I took that Shot – Kevin Barry

Kevin Barry took first place in Grade B with the stunning composite image below. The image was so popular indeed, that it took second place overall across all grades. Here’s how it came together:

Silhouette-14

“I had great fun “making” this “shot”! There were three photos involved.”

“Photo-1
I took this shot of a full moon on a clear dark night. I used a sigma 170-500 zoom lens, fully extended to 500mm, camera on tripod, remote control activated to reduce camera shake. S/S= 1/800, F/stop=6.3, ISO= 250, F/L= 500
(I had tried many different settings, these seemed to work best, on the night).”

“Photo-2
I took this photo of a single tree on a hill in daylight. (This particular tree always looks sinister to me!) I got a friend to pose with the dog. I deselected the sky from the photo, in photoshop elements, converted photo to B/W and altered contrast and colour to create a full silhouette effect. I then imported it into the moon photo and positioned and resized it for best effect. S/S= 1/200, F/stop=8.0, ISO= 100.”

“Photo-3
I have hundreds of bird photos- not very good ones, but nature photography is what I like doing! I selected a silhouette shot of a rook in Photoshop, altered the size and imported it into the the moon shot, for dramatic effect. S/S= 1/4000, F/stop= 6.3, F/L=500.”

“The final result is some kind of “photo-art”, but not proper photography, to my mind.”

 

Well done Kevin.

See also:

ECCG ‘Silhouette’ Competition – 20/5/14
How I took that Shot – Karen Fleming
How I took that Shot – Trevor O’Connell

How I took that Shot – Trevor O’Connell

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

Silhouette-22“For this shot, I knew if the sky was good there would be a lot of birds flocking around this tree at sunset. It’s always that way. When I heard the crows screeching I rushed out and took a few shots handheld.”

“Later, I processed the image in Lightroom, I reduced the noise, sharpened the details and used the split toning function to bring out the pinks in the sky as there was a lot more blue in it to start with. A small crop was needed to cut out half a crow.”

“Canon Eos 6d, 70 – 200 f4l @ 200m, iso 800, F4, AV.”

 

Well done Trevor.

See also:

ECCG ‘Silhouette’ Competition – 20/5/14
How I took that Shot – Karen Fleming
How I took that Shot – Kevin Barry

ECCG ‘Silhouette’ Competition – 20/5/14

Silhouette Results-10

photo: Finbarr O’Shea

Thirty one members attended the third internal competition of the year at the Midleton Park Hotel on Tuesday 20/5/14. The theme was ‘Silhouette’ which had members practically gasping for inspiration when it was first announced a couple of months back but as you can see in the slideshow below, interpretation was diverse among the twenty-three entries received.

Silhouette Results-12

Number crunching: Anthony OConnor and Denis Barry by Karen Fleming

Following two viewings of the projected images, scores were awarded, checked and entered into our new results program. 1st, 2nd and 3rd in each Grade and overall, were projected ‘live’ on-screen as the results were recorded which made for a fascinating spectacle as competitors in the top places changed and interchanged as the process developed.  There were some tight battles in some grades and it was great to see some of our newest members feature in the top three of Grade C.

With the final results computed and checked, the winners and runners up were declared and it was no surprise to anyone to see Karen Fleming make it a hat-trick of wins for the year in Grade A. The results were as follows:

silhouette-results

 

Above photographs of the winners and runners up with Chairperson, Denis Barry, by Finbarr O’Shea and Mervyn Daly.

See all entries below. Mouse over the image to see and activate the slideshow control buttons and photographer’s details. Well done to everyone who entered. Enjoy.

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