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The tournament on DPchallenge has been going 4 weeks now and our team so far has won 4 weeks in a row. I have been so busy trying to put in the best entries I possibly can that I haven't had time to shoot much of anything else. It seems weird I only have 5 photos to post but we did have a couple weird challenges that I didn't love how my photos turned out so I am not posting those.

This first one I am almost embarrassed to post but it was for a challenge called you+1, basically a self portrait with another person or animal in the image with you. I wanted to do something goofy so that no one would recognize me in the photo. This cool house is about 20 min from where I live, I found out about it from a friend in my neighborhood. It is called the "up" house and is worth a visit especially if you know the movie. The inside is decorated like the movie as well. I also found out People Magazine has an article this week on this house. I had the idea to dress up goofy and use an umbrella as my prop, but I remember seeing this house on one of my friends facebook photos and thought it would make the perfect backdrop. Luckily it was my 4 year old's birthday party that week so I ordered balloons in colors that matched the house and found some old clothes, including an old prom dress that matched the house as well. I was nervous because I didn't know if people lived in the house and if it was in a crowded neighborhood. Luckily it is a show house for the contractor and no one lives in it, also it is at the end of a street with no house really close by. So I got to make a fool of myself in relative privacy. Just a couple of curious onlookers.

My efforts were ultimately paid off and I won first prize with my photo. As a side note my 4 year old told me I looked really pretty, now I am not going to feel quite as good when she says I look beautiful.

This one was for an expert editing challenge called fool the viewer. In expert editing you are allowed to combine multiple photos as long as they are all taken by you and during the week of the challenge. This photo is made up of 18 different photos, I wanted to make it look like she was under water even though she was just lying on a white backdrop on my basement floor. Here is how I created this photo:

I took a trip to the local aquarium with my 4 year old and took lots of pictures of aquariums and individual fish. Then I took a picture of my daughter laying on the floor with her hair and skirt arranged like she was underwater. I had her hold her arm our in a position so that I could fit a bird cage in later. Next I took a photo of a birdcage, and lots of pictures of bubbles that I made by pouring water into a fishtank. Once I had all the photos I needed I put them together in photoshop, it was alot of work and the bubbles were especially hard to get to look right. They still don't look exactly right but at some point you just have to say it's good enough.

I had some pretty stiff competition for this challenge so even though I got one of my best scores ever I only ended up with 4th place.

This one was for a challenge called motivational poster. I really didn't have any ideas for this one but when I was out fishing with my family I saw this flower that had about 4 different kinds of bees on it at once so I started snapping photos to see if I could get a good one. When I got home I thought it would make a good subject for the poster. Funny this is the same theme as my kids school sponsored art contest. Maybe I should have let them take the photo, although taking pictures of bugs is really hard to do. They are so small and move so fast.

This one was for a challenge called "Wine" since I don't drink and I don't know anyone who does I wasn't going to enter this challenge. But on the last day I remembered we do have some wine grapes that grow on our pergola so I picked a few and some vines and threw them in a wine glass and called it good. It scored pretty well but I don't really think the photo is anything special. I just have to remind myself on challenges like these I do learn a lot about lighting, which is worth something.

This last one was for free study, I really didn't have high hopes for this one. I had used all my best photos for other challenges so I just didn't have a good one left over for free study. This is one I took at the aquarium. I thought it was kind of a cool shot so I decided to enter it just to see. It actually did fairly well. Anytime I can score over a 6.0 in free study I am happy.

Team Competition Starts

This last week we started a team competition on the website where I enter my photos for challenges. Photographers group themselves into teams of 7 and in each competition the top three scores are averaged to give you a team average. If your average is higher than the team you are against that week you win the competition. Not only did we beat our team this last week but we also ended up with the highest average out of all the teams competing. The competition goes until the end of November and at the end the teams with the top scores compete against each other to see who the ultimate winner is. We are lucky to have some of the best photographers on the site on our team, so I am hoping we will do really well.

I was able to help my team out quite a bit this week I got the highest score for my team this last week and got first place and the blue ribbon with this photo. The challenge was "The Three Amigos" I was struggling to come up with an idea and I almost didn't even enter the competition, but I thought of this at the last minute. I have always wanted to do a Norman Rockwell style photograph and after looking through his illustrations I was inspired to do this shot.

My little girl and her friend were playing at my house so I dressed them up and gave them Popsicles and sat them on this bench. My hope was to get Lu Lu to lick one of the Popsicles. I was a little discouraged at first. Sydnie tried first but Lu Lu did not like the banana flavored Popsicle and would not cooperate. So I switched Lu Lu to the other side and had her try the cherry one. It only took a few tries to get this shot. She loved the Cherry one and happily licked the Popsicle while I snapped some shots. And don't worry I got the girls new Popsicles as soon as the photo shoot was over.

Title:

Whats a few Licks Between Friends?"

This next one scored well for me as well and I got in the top 10 with it. The challenge was to get lens flare in your photo. Most of the time lens flare is a bad thing in photos but done the right way it can really look good. I found this Large Juniper tree just up the hill from our house and got the idea to tie a swing to it. So I hauled a ladder up the mountain and tied a homemade wooden swing to one of the branches.

Title:

"At the Close of Summer"

This one also did well with this next one and got in the top 10 at 7th place. It was an Expert Editing Challenge so it was one that you can combine multiple photos to create your image. I decided to try and depict what a typical Soccer mom has to juggle everyday.

Title:

"Juggling Act"

And once again I got in the top ten with this photo. Earning me the nickname from one of the other photographers on the site "Top 10 Jenn" This was for a challenge called granular. My first attempt was an Ant hill with some ants on it but it didn't work out. So I started thinking about some of my Christmas decorations that look like they are coated in sugar. I wondered if there was a way you could do it to real fruit. Sure enough I found a tutorial on YouTube that explained how.

Title:

"Visions of Sugar Plums"

These next two were just fun ones I took and then did not end up entering them in any challenges. This first one was taken at the Utah State Fair.

And this one is of a Hornet cleaning his antenna after a long sweet drink of grape juice.

This Weeks Challenge Entries

I had a fairly good week with my challenge entries, I got another ribbon and an honorable mention. This first one was my favorite and the one I won a second place ribbon for. It was a really cool evening, there were thunderstorms going on all around me. I was hoping to catch some light from a lightening bolt in one of my images. This is one of the ones I managed to get it. You can't really see the lightening bolt because it is a 5 min exposure but the lit up part of the clouds is were it struck. It was so dark outside that I didn't even know it was raining on the other side of the lake until I got these photos onto my computer and saw the rain falling on one side of the image. You can't imagine the trouble I went to to get this photo, the bugs were so thick I thought I was in one of those horror movies. I would have to get my camera set up and press the shutter button and then run for safety a few yards from the lake. Not all of them were biting bugs but I got my fair share of mosquito bites. Anyway in the end it was worth the trouble since I won a ribbon for it.

title:

Thunderstorm at Night

This next one was for a minimal editing challenge that means "strait out of camera" no editing what so ever allowed. You can't even crop, so it takes some patience getting everything right. The challenge was called out your favorite window. Since acquiring this cool looking door it has definitely been my favorite window so I thought it would be fun to take it to a cool location and have my favorite window also include one of my favorite views. I did quite well with this one and got an Honorable Mention with it.

title:

A Door With a Window Into My World

And here is the door again, this is one that didn't turn out very well for the minimal editing but really came to life when I did some advanced editing techniques on it. I entered it in the free study for August and it did quite well I think I will get in the top 20 which is good for free study where there is over 300 entries.

title:

Left Standing

I had fun with this next one, I don't know if my girls did but it was a technique I had never done before and it was fun experimenting. We drove out to the Copperton/Bingham Grave Yard. It is a really old an quite interesting grave yard. There is no grass just weeds and wild flowers growing everywhere so it looks quite haunted. Plus it is in the middle of nowhere which adds to the spookiness. The grave stones are really old and many are tipped over most have some sort of makeshift fence around them, I guess to keep people from walking on the graves. Some had nicer wrought iron fences around them that were in fairly good condition. This was one of the better spots.

Here is how I did it for anyone curious. I had Kaylee pick a pose she could hold for at least a minute. Depending on the light your model must hold their position for 30 seconds to a minute. then after the minute is up you have your model walk out of the frame. Then you let it continue to expose for another couple minutes. What you end up with is a ghost in a single exposure. You can also add ghosts to images by layering photos in photoshop but this way is much more challenging and fun.

Title:

Not Yet at Rest


This next challenge entry was for "the letter C" challenge. You had to take a photo of something starting with the letter C. I thought it would be fun to do a cornucopia with vegetables that start with the letter C. These crates I found at one of the abandoned buildings I photographed are also coming in handy and crate also starts with the letter C so it was a bonus.

Title:

"A Cornucopia of C's"

That's it for challenge entries now onto a few I took this month that I really liked. This first one is of a sunflower, I really like how it turned out when I converted it to black and white. I think I am going to try and do a grouping of flowers in black and white for one of my walls at home.

Here is my next attempt at a flower for the grouping. It is a Cosmo I like it but not quite as much as the sunflower. But I do think it will work in the grouping.

And one more I am experimenting with. Not sure if the side view works for the grouping or not. But I liked it anyway. It is a Black Eyed Susan.

These next two are just some close ups of some bugs I took I thought they turned out pretty nice.