Venetian Tourists by Lois Haglund
End of the Trail Boot by John Tubbs
Cutting Horse by Steve Piepmeier
The Photo Club of Quail Creek continued with its monthly member’s contest with March having the topic of footwear. Each club member could enter up to three photos taken in the last three years. This subject proved to be a little more challenging but still drew 25 entries. All of the photos can be seen on our Flickr site https://www.flickr.com/photos/129343350@N08/albums/72157691433489953.
Steve Piepmeier won First Place with his photo Cutting Horse. Steve commented, “A visit to the Cutting Horse Ranch was a special morning with Scott and Sherri Raftery. They have decades in training the art of a cutting horse. Knowing that the theme was footwear, it was as Scott was introducing his horse and the traits to work this morning that the access to get a shot of the boot stirrup set up came as an opportunity. This was a great morning with the way of the horse.” The photo was taken with a Panasonic Lumix, 1/640 sec at f/5.8, ISO 200 and a focal length of 160 mm.
John Tubbs took Second Place with his photo End of the Trail Boot. John commented, “When I first heard the theme for April (footwear) I thought, ‘What am I going to do with this?’ I figured I might not have the time to figure something out. Then I remembered that for the last month or so, right across from our house in an empty lot, was a lone boot that had been around the block way too many times. I went over that day late in the afternoon for low light for good shadows and good quality light. I didn’t touch the boot at all, just took a few photos as it lay there, from different angles and then picked what I thought was the best one. Processing was very basic; cropping, lighting tweaks (levels, shadows/highlights), a bit of saturation and normal sharpening. The camera was a Sony RX10, handheld, set for large JPEG. Processing was done in Photoshop Elements. I like the image because it is very basic yet leaves the viewer with questions; what was its history, how did it get there, who owned and wore it?”
The photo Venetian Tourists by Lois Haglund placed third. Lois said, “When visiting the city of Venice, there is always a chance one will experience water in the streets. On our visit there this past spring, we got to experience a 25 year ‘Acqua Alta’ with record high levels of water everywhere. Tourists were walking around in multi-colored boots. I saw this group of people and thought it reflected what I was seeing all over the streets of Venice. I used my Canon EOS 70D at f/5.6, 1/160 sec and ISO-640.”
The Photography Club of Quail Creek has a monthly photo contest for its members and also schedules numerous photo field trips for members throughout the year. Meetings are held the second Wednesday of the month at 7:00 p.m. at the Kino Conference Center, Mesquite Room. Room venue can vary each month. Consult the club’s constantly updated website http://www.pcqc.org, as well as the weekday HOA What’s Happening for additional information.