Thank you to everyone who entered this fun contest!  We have picked our favorite top 10 images that best fit with the challenge we provided for you.  Now it is up to you to vote for your favorite image, and remember we were looking for light and perspective used in an interesting and creative way.  Voting will end on Friday Feb 12th.  Please only vote once, and NO vote for me links.  Lets do this on merit and not popularity. We will be monitoring stats/links, and any vote for me posts, will result in disqualification.  You are welcome to share the link, but this is an anonymous competition so please do not tell which image is yours.     Please note, images are in no specific order.

In our workshops, we talk about the importance of light and perspective in photography.  A new year brings change, growth, a charge of excitement and sometimes a creative block.  We want to help you get past this block, or just challenge you to think differently. 

We want you to see light and subject in a new way.  To inspire you to shoot for yourself, to watch shadows and sun-flare as they interact with the objects around you.  We want you to slowdown and really think about every shot that you take.  Value each capture.  The only limit to this challenge is your imagination. 

Rules:

- You have to use an object in you image. {pear, shopping cart, rock, etc.} No animals or people.

- Your image must have interesting available (natural) light, used in a creative way.

- Change your perspective, shoot from interesting angles.  Try shooting with negative space, think outside the "box".

- You can submit a maximum of 2 photos. They can be completly unique from one another.

Please send images to info@redleafstudios.ca {please size your image to 854pixels on the longest side}.  no logos on your images please.

This contest will run until February 6th, 2010.  At which time Richard & I will select the top 10 images.  We will then display these pictures for you to vote for your favorite.

THE PRIZE:  Our friends at GTA Imaging have generously donated a $400.00 print credit to the winner!



Here are two examples to get your creative thinking started. 

With the release of our new workflow + vintage & antiques actions set, it only seemed appropriate to feature a photographer who uses a 150 year old photographic technique called wet collodion process.  "The collodion process is an early photographic process, which was replaced at the end of the 19th century with dry plates - glass plates with a photographic emulsion of silver halides suspended in gelatin. The gelatin had the effect of greatly increasing the speed of the plates enabling shorter exposure times.  The wet plate collodion process was still in use in the printing industry in the 1960s for line and tone work (mostly printed material involving black type against a white background) as for large work it was much cheaper than gelatin film." -Wikipedia

Jody Ake's work is truly stunning, and it reminds us of the true craftsmanship of photography.

Here are a few images from his website:

last week we headed out on a fun winter shoot with Christina.  We did not have much time to shoot in the cold, but it was fun none the less to get out and shoot in the frosty winter wonderland. Thanks Christina for coming out on short notice with us.

All of these images were edited with our new Actions