Get Inspired By The Community This Week At Light Stalking

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As always, we want to say a big warm hello to all of the new members we got this week – yep all 210 of you! Wow, that really is a lot!

A lot has been happening this week on the forum, we have seen so much activity from you all that it is just awesome. So we hope to see you around the “Introduce Yourself“, “General Chit Chat” and, of course, “Shark Tank” forums.

This week we had a weekly challenge with the theme of Favourites. This was Tersha‘s magnificent idea and basically was created so we could all enjoy a collection of the best photos produced by our community – thanks again Tersha for coming up with a brilliant challenge. 

Today, among other things, we are bringing you our favourites from the Favourites Challenge!

Photo Of The Week – January 14, 2019

The Happy Policeman – Lenny Wollitz

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Photo of the week was a tough one and really had Kent in a bit of a conundrum. Here's what Kent had to say about his choice this week:

Whoa! This was a very difficult week to be the POTW Judge, as you Lightstalkers pulled out all of the stops on me! I finally narrowed it down to three selections.

“The Happy Policeman” by Lenny Wollitz.

“Hiding in Plain Sight” by Erik Fransman.

“Magnificent Pose of a Young Buck” by Bruce Gordon.

Each image had strengths that made it worthy of the POTW! The Happy Policeman has immediate visual impact. It's a simple shot, and yet it sticks with you. It really sticks with you!

Hiding in Plain Sight is a carefully crafted, professional level, magazine-style portrait. It is exquisite in my opinion.

Magnificent Pose of a Young Buck is a beautiful example of a top-level wildlife photograph- that only a photographer with particular knowledge and patience could capture.

It was a really tough choice.

After much internal debate- I gave this week's POTW award to Lenny for his eye-catching portrait of the smiling policeman.

Congratulations Lenny.

Definitely congratulation to Lenny for this weeks Photo of the Week and our thanks to Kent for making the tough choices week in and week out.

Challenge!

Let's do this, Weekend Photography Challenge #416 Favourites. What a wonderful collection of simply amazing photographs from the community.

We encourage you to go and trawl through the whole challenge and revel in the talent that is on display. Here is what Federico has to say about just a few of the wonderful images posted to the challenge. 

Photo by Ed

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The great thing about photography is the stories it can imbue from a single object. Here this mere piece of wood at the supermarket, seen from the right perspective, turns out to be an interesting and even revealing object.

Photo by Bhushan

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A striking image of star trails that looks more like delicate clouds in the sky. Here Bhushan took a total of 360 photos to achieve this beautiful final composite.

Photo by Dave Watkins

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Well executed macro photographs require great skill and a lot of patience as well. Here Dave, after reading an article written by Jasenka made this amazing shot that is not only a favourite for him, but also for us.

There are so many other beautiful images that everyone has posted from 2018. A very big thank you to everyone who took the tough decision to choose a favourite from 2018 and, as always, thanks to Tersha for another inspiring Weekend Photography Challenge theme.

Discussions From The Community

For me, printing is a completely different world that requires a different understanding of light (just like video) in order to excel at it. This past week Ed raised a very interesting and not easily answerable question about paper, canvas, steel or acrylic printing. If you have anything that you'd love to share (even if they are questions or doubts) related to that, please share them with us here at this post.

Some nice photographs where shared as well in the general chit chat forum, here is a nice composition of a red house by Antonio and this is a nice and small lily pond leaf by our friend Graham.

LilyPond Leaf – Graham Hart

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Get closer if you want to see all the tiny graffiti Graham captured in a thick wall of bamboo trees. Bamboo has the fame of being able to grow extremely fast (some species can grow almost a meter in a single day), and for some other reason, people love to engrave them with their stuff while still planted on the ground as we can see in this shot.

If you are curious about how John Thompson looked 33 years ago, then take a look at this self-portrait he shared with us earlier this week. It is amazing how photography enables us to cheat time, at least in an image format.

We'd Love To Hear Your Thoughts

Improving as a photographer is hard, believe me, and one of the best possible ways to improve is via critique (received and even given). We are talking of course about constructive criticism focused on the photographs and not the photographers. We are totally against negative and poisonous comments; for us, feedback is meant to help people become better photographers.

We have a special place focused entirely on this, and we call it Shark Tank, but don't be scared of the fierce name, it is a friendly place.

Here you can share your images and also you can share your opinions on others' images. Here are some of the most interesting shot shared during last week on the Tank:

One More Thing…

Kent had such a difficult time with choosing the Photo of the Week this week, and for good reason. Here was our runner up – a beautiful portrait from Erik Fransman. Here's what Erik had to say about his work:

Hiding In Plain Sight – Erik Fransman

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“This is a portrait of my uncle. He is an artist and he specializes in colorful light panels. Many of his artworks have a Jewish connection, like the monument for the victims (women) of the WWII concentration camp Ravensbrück.

Two days ago I was at his studio, filming him for a documentary I am working on. When I first asked him to participate in the film he did not want to do it. When I asked him why he did not want to participate, his answer was that as a Jew he does not want to show that openly. Then I asked him, how can you say that? The Ravensbrück monument is monumental. Very big.

His answer to that question was: I can hide my identity behind my art. The people do not know it is mine. In his studio, he walked passed two colorful panels and was backlit almost silhouette. So I decided to make a portrait of him in silhouette, hiding in plain sight in front of is art, not behind it.”

Thank you so much Erik for inspiring us with your story and image.

Today We Leave You With

Our third runner up in our Photo of the Week was from Bruce Gordon – and one of his favourites for 2018…it is also one of ours.

Please remember to join our friendly photography community if you haven't done so already, also please check out the latest Weekend Photography Challenge, on Big and Small.

And as always, If you have any questions or comments, please leave them below. 

Happy image making!

About Author

Federico has a decade of experience in documentary photography, and is a University Professor in photography and research methodology. He's a scientist studying the social uses of photography in contemporary culture who writes about photography and develops documentary projects. Other activities Federico is involved in photography are curation, critique, education, mentoring, outreach and reviews. Get to know him better here.

It’a certainly a shot in the arm to see that the photo I purposefully intended to make (find) in order to kick my pastime in the butt, to prove to myself that I could do it, got selected by a curator. I keep a quote taped to my desktop as a prompt:

“… creativity comes down to showing up every day and practiving your craft, crearing s space [and time] for the magic to happen where discipline, skill and passion all come together in a single moment….”

Thanks, Federico… Thanks, Rob, for providing the place/space. It’s fun being here. And I do get inspired by everyone else.

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