First place, entry number 12, Not So Seaworthy by Denny Huber
Second place, entry number 16, Greased Lightning by Jim Burkstrand
Third place, entry number 14, Music Maker by Shari Rogers
Jim Burkstrand
The Photo Club of Quail Creek just completed its seventh quarterly photo challenge, which had the theme of “Inanimate Objects.” Each club member could enter up to three photos, which had to be taken within the calendar quarter. The photographer/artist could post-process the photo in any way, including using Photoshop filters and manipulation. This challenge proved to be quite popular and drew 29 excellent entries. Club members voted on their favorite photos. All of the photos can be seen on our Flickr site: tinyurl.com/y698a8dz.
Denny Huber won first place with his photo “Not So Seaworthy.”
Denny commented, “In July, a bunch of us guys went on a fishing trip to Alaska. In the back of the fishing lodge was an old boat that looked like it was abandoned 30 years ago. Not so seaworthy!
“I thought it was a pretty good inanimate subject, but I needed to de-emphasize all of the “animate” encroaching vegetation. So, in Photoshop, I selected the surrounding vegetation and desaturated it to a bare hint of green. Then I brought out the red and yellow of the boat by saturating those colors a bit. Finally, I ran the image through Topaz Studio to abstract it (using the line and ink look). I like to use abstraction just enough to give it an interesting look but not so much that it is noticeable.” Denny shot this with an iPhone 8, 1/710 sec at f/1.8, ISO 20.
The photo “Greased Lightning” by Jim Burkstrand placed second. Jim wrote, “This photo was shot in two parts this summer. On Aug. 15, we had one of the season’s few lightning storms. I was in my backyard with my camera mounted on a tripod looking southeast towards the Santa Ritas. I caught quite a few good strikes, but this was the most spectacular one. Just the previous week I had shot a nice landscape shot of Madera Canyon. As the left side of the lightning was over Mt. Hopkins, I thought about putting the two shots together. After processing both shots in Lightroom, I combined them in different layers in Photoshop.”
Jim used a Canon 90D with a Tamron 10-24 at 13 mm, 0.5 sec, f/4.5, and ISO 400 for the lightning.
Shari Rogers took third place with her shot “Music Maker,” and she commented, “This photo was shot at the Tubac Presidio. When I saw the old Victrola, I had to get a pic! It was inside, so it took a little doing and tripod. I used Nik to turn the photo into the black and white shot and Luminaire for other adjustments. My goal was to have the emphasis on the player’s arm as I loved its shape and style.” Shari used a Nikon D3300, a focal length of 58 mm, at 1/5 sec, f/22, and ISO 12,800.
The Photography Club of Quail Creek is usually quite active. During the current COVID-19 pandemic, we are meeting via Zoom. Consult the club’s constantly updated website www.pcqc.org, as well as the weekday HOA What’s Happening for additional information.