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Firstly, I would also like to thank Scott for the great work he does in hosting these challenges, and for everyone involved in making these happen. Big Kudos also needs to go to Birdy, as I’m sure his extremely generous contributions made it all the more attractive for entrants to get out there and submit a photo – for the chance to win that D70s (and other prizes).

Now, my first submission, titled “Turning Me On” was a “staged” moment, which I know some people feel were against the theme of this challenge. My thoughts behind the photo, which is what I tried to capture, are this:

The speed of light travels at a ridiculously fast speed, so fast that it’s almost instantaneous. When someone flicks the switch to power up a light (light bulb in this case), there is an extremely short period of time between the globe being fully OFF and fully ON. Within this short period of time, electricity passes through the element and in turn, heats up the element to produce the bright light.

What I hoped to capture with my photo, which I have hopefully done, is catch that point in time where the globe is partially on, but not yet fully ON…..if this makes sense. It took well over 100 attempts and eventually I managed to get a shot I was happy with. If anyone ever needs an exercise to teach you patience, I’d recommend it

For my second submission, titled “…and two become one”, I think it’s fairly evident what the photo is all about. I was just lucky enough that our babies happened to be born within the valid timeframe of the challenge. After this, I couldn’t think of anything else I could shoot, that would top it….so I had to enter it !

Anyway, that's a bit of background behind the images I submitted. I congratulate everyone who entered a photo into the challenge and I hope that future challenges are met with such gusto….even without such magnificent prizes on the table !

Good luck to everyone and I look forward to hearing the results on Saturday night (via the forum….I can’t make it to Sydney – for obvious reasons).

Cheers

Dave

Thanks for the commentary. I think the light globe shot worked - I certainly "got" it and, as I've said in my comments on that image, I liked it. What I also find interesting is that two such radically different shots were submitted by you.

I liked both your images... Your first one was a nice artistic and cliched image of the descisive moment (it made me think of the cartoon light bulb that apears when you have an idea) your second one was a litteral descisive moment, a very raw image of an emotional event. Our daughter was born during an emergency Ceaser so it had an emotional impact on me...

Good work!

Dave, an interesting precis on how you captured your theme shots. I was in the same boat - the first shot of the martini was staged but the second shot of the man bending down was not staged.

Bresson himself staged an awful lot of pics - so staging IMO is acceptable.

There is a very famous shot of US marines raising the American flag after capturing Mt Suribachi on Okinawa - my point is that this shot was staged. Not many people realise that 3 photos were taken - the original was not inspiring so Joseph Rosenthal staged the now famous shot based on the original taken by a US marine. . .

Hi Dave..

I was a little confused by your title for "two became one" as surely the separation of child and mother would be "one became two"? But then I could be completely wrong and there's some deep meaning I've totally missed here - which would explain why my English teacher disliked me at school! =]

Liam

beetleboy wrote:Hi Dave..

I was a little confused by your title for "two became one" as surely the separation of child and mother would be "one became two"? But then I could be completely wrong and there's some deep meaning I've totally missed here - which would explain why my English teacher disliked me at school! =]

Liam

Liam - go to the comp gallery site and have a look at the comments on Dave's image where he has discussed this very point. (I think you need to be logged in there to see the comments)

I'm sorry AussieDave, I completely missed the idea of the light bulb. I just looked at it and thought it was a light bulb on a dimmer switch. I now realise that I missed the point, but I thought I'd let you know anyway.

I too thought the light globe was an outstanding image...but could not releate it to a decisive moment. Like the others...I missed the point. Need to hit me over the head with a hammer before I get anything.

My main concern with the "light bulb" image was that others may not instantly see it the way I did, but I liked the photo enough to enter it anyway.

As the topic was/has been open to wild differences of interpretation, I guess this is the chance one took when entering such an image.

At the end of the day, it was still great fun....which is what the challenges are really all about !

Thanks everyone for your comments though. If anyone else has comments on these pics, I'd be interested to hear them !

It's nice to read what others thought or saw in the images. Sometimes when you take a photo and see something in it, it's not always evident to everyone else (which is something we can ALL learn from this...I hope)