Simple tips for winning photo competitions

Actually, these are really just good tips for improving your photography in general. I'm not sure I like the idea that you should solely focus on winning a competition.

http://www.my-photo-school.com/2012/07/25/photography-competitions-how-to-improve-your-chances-of-winning/

Where there's a will, there's a way

And Mother Nature ALWAYS has a strong will.

She can even encourage moss to grow in as inhospitable an area as a rusty old truck's running board.

Icy Twig

Cropped a slightly sharpened. I really liked the shallow depth of field here, so I enhanced it as I did with Pretty In Pink a few days ago.

Daily Photo

I have discovered the 365 Project, and for now, I am going to be posting my daily photos there instead of here. I have a couple more days preloaded here, so I'll let them run out, but then all of my new pictures will be here: http://365project.org/staceyb/365 We'll see how that works out! Perhaps there will be outings where I still want to share multiple pictures, and then I may return here for that purpose.

I will be aiming not just to post a picture every day, but to take that picture on the day it is posted. Wish me luck, and please come visit!

Chain Plant

I used the macro lens for this one and then heavily cropped it to get just what I had wanted in the first place.

This is just a really cool plant!

Shattered

I did not have a macro lens when I did this, but I think the picture worked out very well anyway. I like the shallow DOF, which allows the background to give context but not intrude too much on the subject.

Pretty In Pink

This picture looked great (to me) right out of the camera!

But I played with it anyway, because how else will I learn anything? First, a little obligatory cropping. There was a pale pink smudge on one side that had to go, and I wanted the flowers to be just a bit more off-center than they were. I also used the feature to adjust depth of field, so the flowers stayed brilliant, but the background was pushed even further back than it already was.

Happy New Year!

Wishing you all a bright and beautiful 2014!

White Amaryllis

I took this picture early in the day, before I decided the flash was just screwing everything up.

Viewed on the camera screen, I thought this was awful. There was no context! The flash had brightened the white flowers and killed the entire background! When I saw it on my computer screen, however, I liked it a lot more. I think it looks neat the way the flowers almost seem to be floating in nothingness.

I did clone out a little bit of stem at the bottom and played a little with the brightness and sharpness. But nothing too severe. I like the droplets of water on the petals, too. :)

Fall colours

This one I played with a little bit in post-processing.

This scene and therefore the image already had great colours. Late fall gave the gorgeous reds and oranges, and the sun was setting, leaving the pinks on the left. The water was quite still, giving a very beautiful reflection. So, what did I do to this?

First, I cropped it. I actually cut out most of the sunset, because that isn't what I wanted to focus on. Then I added some "warmth" to the picture. It gave the sky a slightly odd cast, but I think it made the rest of the colours pop even more. Third, I increased the saturation a bit, again, just to bring out those gorgeous colours even more.

I love this picture.