Crit 3, 4, and 5

I've been very behind on my recipe's so I decided to bang them all out with this post, I hope that is ok :)

I decided to choose all the ones that had the most votes from Crit's 3, 4 and 5

This image is actually just a landscape just outside my family's home. They live in Bensalem so the area is very remote and the property is somewhat old so there are plenty of these types of trees there that I always found interesting. When I take shots like this I like to play around to see what the most interesting crop I can get is, and I also use the Black and White function in Photoshop to bump up the contrast. I used the same process for my Crit #4 photo which seemed to be the most popular. 

This image was taken along route to my apartment. Since taking this class - I made more of an effort to take long walks around the neighborhood to see if I could find any interesting shots. I was always drawn to this home and the pile of wood by the doorway -- I always thought there was something eerie and a bit old fashioned about the house. I wanted this to come across in the image so I attempted to capture it during the afternoon when I knew the shadows around it would be the strongest.

A lot of my images taken in Crit #5 were while visiting friends down in Eerie, PA. This image is of the Lake, and I was initially attracted to the color around this time of year. It was very stark and calm, and I sort of tried to give the bottom half an interesting texture by cropping a lot of the ground out and just focusing in on the ice forming around the lake. 

Taylor Donges - Crit 5 Recipe

For this photo, I used the panorama function on my camera. I wanted to capture as much of the tunnel as possible with an ultra-wide panoramic experience. I stood at one end of the tunnel. I started the photo aiming the camera at the left wall of the tunnel. I rotated, capturing the opposite end of the tunnel, and ending the photo with the trashcan near the end I was standing at. I believe the application stitched together five photographs to make the finished product.

I thought that photographing the tunnel with the panorama application would provide a really surreal experience. I was hoping to capture the setting with one smooth motion. I thought the tunnel would look really incredible in such a wide frame. I wanted it to seem like the the walls were warping outward.

Daniel Peterson - Crit 5 Recipe

I obviously used the panoramic view for this picture, but there is actually a lot more to it. First off, my phone didn’t come with a capability of taking panoramic pictures in the camera app that came with the phone. I downloaded the “Pano” app for Android as Professor Berkowitz suggested. At first, I thought that this app didn’t work, but it was actually the photographer (me) who wasn’t using the app correctly.

Once I found out how to use the app, I knew how to find what I was looking for in a panoramic picture. I was driving by this corner store and for some reason the content in this setting made me want to pull over and observe what I might be able to create out of the scene. I came up with what you see with the assistance of Snapseed’s drama filter. 

Brittany Smith- Crit 5 Recipe

 

 

Critique 5 was a little more difficult in my opinion.  I never really liked the panorama setting on my phone in the first place because of how exact you have to be.  I did see that some students played around with how “steady” you have to be while taking the panoramas and they worked very well, so I wish I did more with that.  I definitely enjoyed doing the long exposure photos a lot more.  I downloaded a long exposure app and I had a fun time playing around with it. 

This was my POW and I don’t necessarily think that it was one of my strongest photos.  Other students just said that they really liked the composition of the photo and the way that the cones lead your eyes up the photo.  That is definitely what was intended, especially with the theme of extended seeing.  I’m glad that I was able to successfully pull that off for this photo. 

Bill Wilson - Crit 5 - Recipe

I was really not a big fan of the slow shutter photography.  I downloaded multiple apps but I couldn't get the desired result from most.  This one was taken using an app called "SlowShutter."

I literally took hundreds of these slow shutter pictures, and only a handful came out as usable, and this was probably the best of those.  I used the 4x shutter speed, and the bus passing by became translucent, as you can see the street behind through the moving windows.

From an editing standpoint, I spent a lot of time trying to find the right filters and light levels with this one.  In it's unedited state, the photo was pretty good, but I thought it could get better and I wasn't exactly sure how.  I settled on a 25% light fill, about 50% highlights, and boosted the color strength by about 25% (all using Picasa).

Bill Wilson - Crit 4 - Recipe

The wine glasses photo was voted as the picture of the week.  Several people mentioned this photo having the deepest memory, with feelings of awkwardness and mystery associated with a “first date” (interestingly it wasn’t taken on a date, but at a business meeting).

I tried to capture the split between the red wine and white wine, and if you split the photo diagonally from top left to bottom right, there is a clear division between the darker red and lighter white/yellow colors (not just the wine, but the color and tone of the surrounding atmosphere).  I basically just got lucky that I noticed this, and I didn't stage it that way.

I took 3 or 4 similar photos and this ended up being the best one, most of them captured too much of the room and it lost the meaning.  From an editing standpoint, I used a color boost filter to make the colors more pronounced, but only subtly so.  There is the tiniest bit of blurring in the photo.

Kat Fleck Crit 5 Recipe

I started off crit 5 by shooting the view of the city lights from my apartment window at night. Ultimately, this led to my focus on light as a subject for my photographs during this session. For this photo, I just used the panorama feature on my phone. To me, there wasn't anything visually stimulating about the park (seen at the left of the photo), so I wanted to make sure to capture as much of the cityscape as I could in one photo. I was incredibly lucky that the sun was where it was over the buildings to the far right, and that I caught the "line" of sunshine extending across the photo.

Jess Fred - C5 - Recipe

For Crit 5, I played around with the contrast in all of my photographs in order to see how dark I could make the shadows without losing the form. Using the Snapseed, an app for iPhone, I adjusted the levels and heightened the contrast to make the shadows on the right and the row of chairs much darker than the light wood flooring.

Jake - Recipe 5

For my picture for topic 5, I got to experiment with panoramas and slow shutter photography, which is something that I don't do normally. I usually just open up my iPhone camera and snap pictures, but for these, they took longer and a little more planning. And, the slow shutter required that I do it at night, which limited my time with it.

I have messed around with slow shutter photography before, but not on a phone. It took a little bit of research to find an app that did it, but eventually I found "Top Camera". It was very easy to work with, and did exactly what I needed. It cost $2.99 which isn't too bad, either.

After purchasing it, I went out with a couple of my friends and had them walk around and we messed with the slow shutter feature. The result of my pic of the week was done by my friend walking across the street when the light was green for him, causing the cars that faced him to light him with their headlights. That's why we get the result of his head in his walking pattern.

While messing around with panoramas, I turned my phone sideways for them to be a vertical picture rather than a landscape view, which I tried to avoid.

The pic of the week required to touch ups, I just posted it and it was one of my favorites, too.

Crit 5 Extended Seeing

The app I used was PhotoSynth. A panoramic application. I like it because ti doesn't limit you to just doingleft and right or else just up and down. You can do where ever and just click.

I was having trouble with it limiting you of where you can take a photo, if it couldn't catch a reference points it would not let you take a photo, but if you clicked fast enough it did it for you.

This photo was done looking down and taking photos in quick sequence. I would go back and forth overlaying photos even if I took a photo in that area. I did this because looking down it was just a mess of leaves in a chaotic form. And wanted to try to exaggerate that feeling in the photo.

Andrew Gatzemeyer C4

I revisit most memories while trying to sleep, either very late or early. This image reminds me of that early morning scenario when the light is coming through the window and keeping me from falling back asleep. The low angle provides that perspective as if my head were still on the sheets, lingering before leaving bed.

I reduced the contrast the ease some of the harder shadows and adjusted the highlight tones slightly to add a bit of red into the more exposed areas and adjusted the shadows for a touch of green. It is very subtle but provides a bit of vintage feel without distracting from the content. The shallow d.o.f. helps to accentuate that early morning grogginess (and waking up without my glasses on).

Andrew C3 recipe

This was my personal favorite of the group. I took a version of this with the lamp shade level with the table but then felt flat and uninteresting. But by tilting the shade slightly, it gained some mystery. There was also a perfectly soft light filling from a window on the right that gave a pretty uniform light on the wall.

To accentuate the hard lines of the light cast, I added a few layers of contrast and darkened the shadows. This brought out the grainy texture in the shade itself and made for an overall appealing image.

Bennett Moore - Brush Strokes Technique (Hopeful extra Credit!)

Using low shutter speeds I tried to recreate the look of brush strokes. I velcroed my phone to my tripod (a very useful thing to do regardless of the topic) and then went outside on a windy day. Depending on how strong the wind was blowing I would shoot anywhere from a 3 second (heavy wind, see 2nd picture) to a 20 second exposure (lighter wind, see 1st picture.) It took a lot of experimentation but I got something that I think looks absolutely beautiful, like an impressionist painting in our world.

Brittany Smith- Crit 4

 

 

Crit 4 was so far my favorite topic to shoot.  In my collection of photos, I really tried to capture items that we use to record memories, items that contain my own memories, or how memories seem to us in our heads.  Often times, memories are very vague and sometimes hazy when we try to think back on them, which is why some of my photos have less clarity.  Also, sometimes we only remember a certain part of a moment, like a few seconds of a laugh, a chair, a hand, etc.  That’s what I tried to capture. 

My POW for crit 4 is this picture of a bear laying out in the trash for trash pick-up.  I was walking down the street one night and found this.  I thought it was kind of comical, actually, but then also felt bad because I have also been through break-ups that made me want to just throw out everything that reminded me of that person.  This photo goes very well with the “memory” category for obvious reasons.  It vividly represents memories that we wish we didn’t have to carry with us.  Sometimes we wish we could just throw them out. Unfortunately that doesn’t always work. 

Brittany Smith- Crit 3

 

 

 

 

No one voted on the same photo for the passion critique.  So out of the ones that were voted on, I chose this photo.  It was my favorite out of the collection for a few reasons.  The angle that the photo is taken from is intriguing.  I woke up one morning and my feet were in this position and I liked the way the light was coming in from my window.  I feel like the picture is exposed very nicely and contains enough mystery.  I also feel like it is making a play on “passion”, because this person is obviously just laying in bed so its almost portraying them as lazy. 

Amanda- Crit 4 Recipe

These two photos were voted the best in my collection of photos. I think that the first one was the most successful so I will comment on that. I took this picture while at a stop light driving through Philadelphia. Taking pictures while driving is  bad idea but I found a lot of subject matter and outside lighting that was particularly interesting, not all of my photos came out focused though. Thinking of "vintage" and "memory" as our theme for this critique I was particularly interested in the wear on buildings and architecture in Philadelphia. The blue trailer and the blue trash bins stood out for their color and I played around with using filters on my phone. I downloaded several applications yet I couldn't find one that didn't require more photo storage on my phone. I decided to create a new account through Instagram and use the filters offered there which also required a square cropping. Cropping these photos actually helped me a lot in creating nice framing and composition and the filters offered gave me endless possibilities of tones and colors for the same image which was interesting. After exploring each filter, I ultimately chose the most enhancing of contrast for both of these photos which intensified their color and made the image more successful.

Dann - Crit 4 - Recipe

 

First off, I want to say texting while driving is bad as well as taking pictures while driving. To completely contradict myself, I’ll have to admit I took this while I was driving my car. Actually, I was at a stop sign and no one was laying on their car horn behind me, so I had a chance to roll down the window, stop, and take about three or four shots. There was only one shot where the little boy on the bike completely made it into the frame of the picture. Just thought I should mention the production in the field since it had kind of an interesting story. However, I realize I should be talking more about post-production, so here it goes…

Even though this photo was dramatic when I took it, I decided to make it a little more dramatic by using the drama filter effect with Snapseed. I didn’t have the filter effect maxed out, but I would say it was at a higher level which helped with the desaturation which everyone loves in this photo. The scene itself had a pretty good contrast, but I did actually go into the tuning options in Snapseed and slightly increased the saturation for contrast since the drama filter made all the colors look so flat. It’s pretty hard to believe I increased the saturation when everyone talked about how much they liked the lack of saturation. I would highly recommend the drama filter in Snapseed as a method for lowering photo saturation.  

Lauren W. Crit 4 Recipe

This image was taken while I was at work of a co-worker (who has no idea I took his photo, by the way).  I increased the contrast and brightness super high, increased the white balance slightly to create a subtle sepia look.  I would consider my approach to this photo as a shooting from the hip style, mainly because I did not want the guy to realize I was taking a picture so just held my phone low and tapped away at the screen.  I am happy with the results and am glad mostly everyone voted unanimously.  The space flows throughout the image really well and creates tones of shapes which adds to the composition.

Kat C4 Recipe

I actually had some trouble getting started on this critique. I downloaded several vintage filters and apps to my phone, but they each required an external memory drive, which I don't have. Eventually I just decided to use the features that my phone already has: a "Kelvin" feature, which seems to emphasize reds and yellows, and a "Toaster"feature, which is a graduated highlighting feature. These filters helped, but I would have preferred a wider selection.

The memory subject was also a challenge. My fa
mily and I just moved to Hoboken, so there's not much in the terms of "memories" yet. I decided to focus on the Fall, and some of the more noticeable vintage locations in Hoboken, which is why I decided to photograph the Clam House sign in image 4.

Jess Fred - C4 - Recipe

I also tried new processes of toning to get all of my photos to look exactly the same tone. with the most. I took the photo and used the vintage filter on the iPhone app, Snapseed. Then, I took the saturation down and added a slight blue tone top. I really like the final tone; it looks vintage, but the cooler colors on top give it more mysterious, memory look. The comments on my blog post also agreed; they thought that the tonality was cohesive throughout my shots and gave each piece both a vintage and mysterious feel. One comment even talked about the tonality making my shots look like dramatic events.

Taylor Donges - Crit 4 - Recipe

Double Exposure/Instant Camera Effect 

For this photo, I used a combination of a customized version of the instant camera effect and the double exposure feature on the Vignette application. I took the first image of my friend Rory, taking a picture of me with his DSLR. The second image is a close up shot of a sign that reads “DO NOT PARK ON GRASS”.

I tweaked the preset “instant camera” effect by scaling back the intensity of the initial effect and turning up the vignette feature. I thought that the text would look interesting superimposed over the image of Rory in the woods. I added the "Print" frame, putting a white border around the image to give the illusion of an actual photographic print.

Bennett Moore - Recipe Crit 4

For this photo, I had already decided I wanted to feature the toy dinosaur I found and was outside in my back yard when I decided to stick the cigarette butt in his mouth. It was difficult to hold the camera steady with one hand while reaching around with the other to spark the lighter, but I eventually got one that wasn't blurry. I used the app Snapseed on this and my other photos this week to give it the vintage feel. The filter isn't as heavily plastered on as some of my other photos but it is definitely noticeable. I don't remember exactly which settings I tweaked, as I usually just mess around in Snapseed until I get something that looks good. If I could do it again, I'd frame it with a slightly different background because the fence is at a bit of an off-putting angle. The leaf in the foreground bottom right is also starting to bother me...grrr.

Jake - Recipe 4

For my picture this week, I got inspired while walking around downtown. I was looking for similar shapes, and it sparked an idea. First, I took a picture of a bike, chained up somewhere. It had to be against a background that was not only interesting, but not confusing (for example, it couldn't be chained up with a lot of other bikes, for it would be too dark and wouldn't stand out). It took me a bit but I found a bike off of South Street. Then, I took the picture of me on the sewer grate.

Next, I used an app called "Image Blender". I did exactly the effect you see in the photograph within the app. I had a soft edge on the way I cut it, and moved /scaled it to the right size in order to match the circles.

Finally, I touched it up a little in the Camera+ app to give a little color saturation and pop to the overall picture. The sidewalk lines and brick background added to the photograph and I think it all worked out well!

Jess D - Crit 4 - Recipe

My photo of the week was a point-blank shot of an old heater in my bathroom. I used the editing program, iPiccy, to crop it and run it through a filter. The filter gave the center of the photo a brightened, yellowed effect while adding a subtle darkened vignette. I think this filter made the photo more effective by adding more color and complexity to an otherwise obvious shot. I also think that the composition of the photo worked well to convey a "vintage" feel, and the subject added mystery to the photo since not many people have seen heaters like this one.

Recipe 4 Zachary Van Heel

Recipe Crit 4

Zachary Van Heel

I honestly am not a fan of filters, some minor editing and correction is fine, but none of my images I would ever look at and be lie, I want to make it look vintage.

I don’t really care for this image honestly. I do not think that it is my favorite, but was choosen as POW

The app I used was snap seed I would use either vintage or else the grunge filter. I would then usually raise brightness and increase contrast, trying to blow out some whites and crush some blacks giving an appearance of a smaller latitude. Then would just add texture over it. Raising contrast by itself already raises saturation so I didn’t touch that.

Brittany-crit 2- recipe

 

This was the photo that was voted as number one for the color photos in crit 2.  This one was definitely my favorite.  For this photo, I had been working with food coloring and noticed these splotches after I was finished and thought it looked really neat.  After taking a few shots and deciding what angle looked best, I enhanced the colors very slightly on snapseed.  I felt like the colors were already very vibrant and didn’t need to enhance it too much.   This photo makes me think of painting and leaving messes with the tools, especially with how the colors bleed together in some areas. 

 

Brittany- Crit 1- recipe

For Crit 1, this was voted as my best photo.  I definitely feel like it was one of the stronger ones from this week.  While attending a concert, I could help but notice all of the really cool lights and how they were reflecting off the audience.  During a song that I wasn’t all too familiar with, I was able to take out my phone and snap this photo.  I feel that it this photo looked much better in black and white.  It certainly gives off the effect of an alien abduction, so there was a little mystery.  I just used snapseed app to change it to a black and white filter that I felt suited the scene. 

Kat- Recipe Crit 3

For my pic of the week, I was able to use my mediocre phone to my advantage. It seems to pic up oddly-refracted light that I otherwise don't see with my naked eye. My boys and I were at a soccer game, and there happened to be a laser and fireworks display after the game. We had a full moon over the pitch the entire evening, and in an effort to capture that during the fireworks show, I caught this image. There's no editing here, just "right place, right time".

Taylor Donges - Crit 3 - Recipe

For this photo, I spotted a vibrant, colorful flower that was growing next to an old, broken piece of pipe. I wanted to get the contrast between the metal and natural color of the plant. After I took the photo, I played with the different values in the Photoshop Express application. I boosted the brightness, the contrast, and the saturation. I thought that by boosting the values I would exaggerate the difference between the flowers, the pipe, and the leaf caught in the middle.

Bill Wilson - Crit 3 - Recipe

This photo was voted my best in Crit 3.  It was the middle of the day and I working and looked at the window across the room and thought it might make a good picture, so I walked closer and snapped a single shot.  My immediate reaction was I didn't like it, so I only took that single shot and forgot about it.

When reviewing all my photos for this Crit, I revisited it based on its good level of natural light and color, and began to experiment with some different types of processing for the photo.  I decided to go with a lomo-ish filter (using Google Picasa app) that boosted the color significantly, and blurring the edges gave the photo a mysterious feel.  The photo really came alive with the filters.

Gabriella: Recipe 3

For the passion assignment, my most voted photograph is the one of the purple/pink sky. I was taking the trash out at work and when I came outside and the entire sky was lite up purple/pink and bright as if for a few minutes we lived inside a beautiful, florescent light bulb. I remember in elementary school I read the book The Giver. There is not much I understood at 10 years old but I remember the feeling when he experienced color for the first time, and it was how I felt walking outside. I loved the way the street lights illuminated the tree just enough to remind me of reality. The photograph, without a doubt does not do it justice. I wish I had been in a different location other than next to the Chuck E. Cheese dumpsters. 

Dann - Crit 3 - Recipe

 

For this photo, I didn’t get crazy with trying to position the camera in a certain way. I didn’t stand there and try to frame the picture in twenty different ways for at least ten minutes. I just saw an interesting composition, waited for the right moment, and then...snapped!  This was very different from my typical twenty or more shots I take of one subject. Doesn’t hurt to break habits, whether they’re good or not every so often!

Jess 3 - Crit 4 - Recipe

For my Passion photos, this picture of a seal was voted best. Interestingly, some people weren't sure what it was (one commenter called it a foot) so I think I did better on the mystery aspect this week. I took this picture at the Philadelphia Zoo at the seal exhibits, so this seal happened to pass by at the perfect moment for me to get the underwater portion of his body in focus. They were swimming so fast, it was hard to get anything in focus at all, but I like the way it turned out. I edited the photo in a free online editor, called iPiccy. I boosted the contrast, and made the colors a bit greener.

Jess Fred - Crit 3 - Recipe

For this critique, I tried a new process of toning. First, I used the vintage filter on the iPhone app, Snapseed. Then, I took the saturation down and added a slight blue tone and a slight green tone on top. I really like the way the final tone came out; it looks slightly vintage, but the cooler colors on top give it more of a laid back, cool feel. The comments on my blog post also agreed; they thought that the tonality gave the piece a relaxed feel. I think this type of toning will be very successful for our next critique on Memory/Vintage.

Lauren W. Crit 3

For the photo below I increased the white balance so to evoke a vintage feel because the composition itself felt the same.  I focused on angles and line in this photo and pushed them further by increasing the contrast to provide strong lines with dark shadows or bright light that creates the lines.

The photo below was one of the first I shot for this critique.  I adjusted the focus to be on the grass to emphasize the depth of field.  I am very satisfied with the outcome of this photo. I increased the saturation to get the true green and yellows in the grass.

Amanda- Crit 3 Recipe

My recipe for this photo was based on angle. I spend a lot of my days and nights in this alley way and it holds a sort of nostalgic, personal meaning for me. I kept trying to capture a photo of it for Crit 3 but I kept feeling like each shot was just a typical "alley" photo. I happen to notice the beautiful red building across the street reflecting in the puddle and took shot after shot for the perfect angle to explain the space using a reflection. I did not use an app for this, or edit this at all. I felt as if the subdued colors did this photo justice without amplifying anything.

Joshua Feo - Crit 3 - Recipe

For this series I used Pixlr Express app which was free for my Android phone. I wanted to use an app because I've never edited photos that way before. Pixlr is very simple and easy to use and has all your basic adjustment tools for editing. For each photo I used the Sharpen tool to sharpen the images, Contrast to adjust the contrast and brightness, Color & Vibrance to adjust the hue, saturation, and lightness, and then Focal Point to create depth and blur the edges around what I chose to be the point of focus. These photos came out a lot more soft and grittier using the app, but overall I liked using it.

Bennett - Crit3 - Recipe

I discussed this picture a bit in my self-evaluation, but I suppose there's always more to say. People really liked this one. It was very "in the moment" in that smoke is constantly changing and this exact plume was different the instant my shutter clicked. What a lot of people didn't seem to notice was the cigarette butt in the bottom right. Initially I was trying to frame the shot so that some of the smoke seemed to be originating from it. This wasn't successful, but the subject being the smoke itself came across. I cropped this photo somewhat, and increased the contrast slightly. The increased contrast is most evident in the wood chips on the ground. I like that the smoke is thick enough to hide what is behind it because it enhances the sense of mystery which is so critical in all of these.

Jake - Recipe 3

For my picture, I used the app "Camera +". The app changed a bit after the iOS7 upgrade, but only in a positive way. Now there are more filters to play with, although I didn't end up using them for this picture. People seemed to like this photo, and I think it has a cool mystical feeling to it. I was driving up to Ithaca, NY last weekend and while in the passenger seat the fog looked really great outside. I put my phone against the window and waited for subjects to contrast the fog. I used the new iOS 7 feature where you can hold down the shutter button and it takes many photos a second. This was one of them and it looked great in my opinion. I liked the balance of the van and the tree. Then, for effects. I opened it in Camera+ and added "clarity" to pop the contrast up, and added "vibrant" and "HDR". I played with the amount sliders and it resulted in this picture. The yellows really add an interesting look, in my opinion.

Crit Three Recipe Zachary Van heel

Was mostly just capturing it at the right time. No real effects added. I was at an outdoor concert and the lighting was insane. i got up to the front and it kept pulsating to where I couldn't even see the stage with my eyes. I took a few photos and this is the one that finally captured the light at its full intensity.

Bill Wilson - Crit 2 - Recipe

There really wasn't anything special with this photo, other than I had the unique experience of being near the top of the tallest building in the western hemisphere.  This photo was taken over the "glass floor," and was one of several shots I took.  This one in particular I took from overhead and slightly tilted and off center, which I think contributed to the disorienting feeling of the photo.  No color filters were applied after the fact, but when taking the photo I did experiment with different focal points for brightness (which I learned recently is possible with my iphone), and this one resulted in the color you see.

Personally this was one of my least favorite photos in my collection, mainly because the word "Aquarium" is visible making it look sort of tacky.  If I could go back and reshoot it I'd move six inches to the right or choose a different angle so that wasn't so obvious.

Bill Wilson - Crit 1 - Recipe

The recipe behind this one was pretty simply.  This was one of the first shots I did, so I tried to remember the basics of framing.  Keeping the picture "level" was tricky, so I to look toward the background for guidance.

I used the Photo Fx app, first to make it black and white, then I applied the red filter to give it this look.

In a "live" shot everyone is moving, so I tried to wait for the right moment, I definitely didn't want anyone looking at the camera, or in the middle of making a loud gesture, laughing, etc.  I wanted to capture a calm stillness in a scene that naturally had more energy than the photo lets on..  

Logistically, a challenge with this one was getting it right with only a few tries.  Normally I'll take about dozen shots of a particular subject/scene so I can choose from the best later, however constantly snapping photos in a public bar is kinda creepy, so I only took two, and this was the best one. 

Taylor - Crit 2 - Recipe

For this photo, I wanted to experiment with the way the light was reflecting off of this tall grass. I was taking a bunch of photos of this fountain that was lit up at night by lights that changed color. I took a few straightforward photos of just the fountain. However, I saw that the way the colored lights would shine through the grass planted around the fountain produced an interesting effect. I got as close to the grass as I could while still managing to take a decent photo. I waited until the light was changing from one color to the next. In that small, transitional phase, the light on the grass looked extraordinary.

Daniel Peterson, Recipe 2, Smartphone Photography F13

My main challenge with taking pictures like this, is to stay away from the obvious. I'm afraid I might have failed at this since many of the comments indicated that they could tell what the subject in this picture is (keep in mind I did get the most votes for this photograph). My goal was to stay away from letting people know what the subject is that I was shooting. I did have a few pictures with better angles of this watering can which might look a little more abstract. However, they were pretty out of focus. 

Now I'm thinking I should have given the blurry ones a run on the blog. I think this photograph is  somewhat abstract and creates a little mystery, but not to the extent that I wanted. Having said this, I think I need to get back out there and push this to another level!

Jamie - Crit 2 Recipe

This photo was taken outside on my playset. I used the app Afterlight in order to increase the saturation and contrast. Pretty simple- but that is all I did!