See What The Light Stalking Community Has Been Up To This Week

Every weekly recap is different, but there is one thing that always remains the same – the social insights tell us there are many photography enthusiasts around the globe! This week we want to welcome more than 275 new Light Stalkers and we hope all of them will enjoy being part of our community.

Today we bring you the weekly highlights you definitely shouldn't miss! We'll cover many photos which illustrate how to break the rule of thirds while still getting aesthetically pleasing results.

As usual, we also want to share insightful photography discussions from our forum and the most engaging selection of images from our Shark Tank, which is dedicated to constructive criticism.

Photo Of The Week – February 11, 2019

The girl with the ring in her nose- Billyspad

Kent chose a photograph that engendered a lot of conversation and debate this week for photo of the week. Thanks again to Kent for his work in choosing such a mesmerising work and to @billyspad for posting. Here's what Kent had to say:

There were three images that really caught my attention this week.

After much debate, I decided that “The girl with the ring in her nose” was really the worthy winner for this award.

If you go and check out the initial post, you will see how much conversation and debate this photograph created.

That is always a true sign of great artwork- one that creates a stir.

I came back to this picture probably 7 or 8 times over the last week. Each time, I took in some additional nuance to the composition. The woman's direct stare, and the slight expression in the mouth- simply makes me wonder about her. Where was she? What was she doing? What is her life like?

The ring in the nose is telling to her personality and age. It also makes a fine focal point to a semi-abstract portrait.

Congratulations to Billyspad for a wonderfully artistic addition to Lightstalking.

Challenge 420…Break The Rule Of Thirds

These are our favorite shots from the 420th challenge – Break The Rule Of Thirds! And here is what Federico had to say about these amazing shots.

Photo by Beth

This is a spectacular shot, something I would definitely like to print and hang on the wall. Breaking the rule of thirds isn't hard – the hard thing is to do it in a truly great way! Besides the composition, I really like the post-production here – tonal range is rich and textures are fantastic too.

Photo by Mistyisle

Even though I'm not a big fan of these white lines that divide the image, I have to admit that they make me perceive better how busy this scene is. There is no rule of thirds at all but we can still feel an unusual visual harmony in this rather hectic shot.

Photo by Tom M

The contrast given by the colors in this shot (green versus warm brown) is really eye-catching and the lens flare adds a nice poetic touch.

Photo by Rob Eyers

It is amazing how such a tiny creature (small bird!) in a neutral and simple environment can grab viewers' attention!

Here Are Some Engaging Discussions From The Forums You Should Take A Look At

Robert Apple shared with us a truly unique photograph. In terms of composition, it is pretty standard, but it has such a nice vibe and positive mood that I instantly felt the atmosphere captured in this shot. I even shared a music video that could be the soundtrack for this shot!

Yvonne Nystrom is one of our newest members with a great passion for photography – she has been very active in many threads and here is her first post. Welcome to our community Yvonne, we're sure that you'll find it both useful and fun! Yvonne likes to take photos of sunsets, so if anyone out there reading this has a tip or hint related to this topic, please don't hesitate to share it with her.

After being asked by a student about third-party lenses and giving her my personal opinion, I decided to start this thread last week. I got a ton of different answers from our community members and I'm really grateful for that. Third party lenses can be amazing, they allow us to have more creative freedom and some of them are of supreme quality as well.

Graham shared a beautifully lit image of a wooden fishing dock. The mood in this shot is alluring and, is it only me…but want to pack my things and travel!

Here is another great shot from Graham – technically and compositionally, it's a superb image.

We'd Love To Hear Your Thoughts

One of the biggest concerns new photographers have is finding their own style and becoming good at it. Improving yourself is a serious task and it gets more complicated as the years go by. We believe that constructive criticism is one of the best possible ways of becoming a better photographer.

The act of criticism has many benefits. We can become better photographers by giving constructive feedback after a thoughtful review of photographs and we can also receive valuable feedback from other photographers and learn something new.

We have a separate forum dedicated exclusively to constructive criticism and it's called the Shark Tank. Don't worry about the name – it's not a deadly place! Here you can share your images and your opinions as long as they aren't related to gear.

Here are some of the most interesting shots shared in the Shark Tank last week:

Feel free to share your thoughts on the images above and also post your work if you want our honest feedback.

We will be eager to help you out – after all, all of us here love photography!

Don't forget to join our friendly photo community if you haven't done it already and check out our latest photo challenge on love.

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

Happy shooting!

Federico, I’ve been thinking for some time past, reading various articles on “how to”, that there’s a risk they might start hauling young photographers out of doing “X” and – instead – persuade them all to do “Y”.
And it’s left me with the uncomfortable feeling that some articles are simply changing the subject matter of the stampede – rather than stopping it from BEING a stampede.
Put more simply – they mean well – they’re intended to stimulate creativity – but they won’t achieve their goal, by making everyone’s creativity “Y” instead of “X”.
There is nothing “wrong” with the so-called “rule” of thirds. It’s just one of a number of basic ideas that help anyone to compose a decent picture. It is prone to become “wrong” the instant it’s dignified by the title “rule”. If it truly was a “rule”, we’d all be expected to comply with it, all the time.
Once we realise that is not its purpose, and move on to discover other ideas about composition, our creativity kicks in at a higher and more satisfying & productive level.