[Choc-Ful-A]

I have a few more “camera meltdown” images which I prep’d for this contest. If you like sort of randomness, you can see them in this b-sides gallery.

The ones I came close to picking are these.

Red-streaked beach cliffs
Orange toned beach over lily plant
Psycadelic houseguest at the beach
Heavy blue air on coast

I just wish I could turn that “effect” on and off at will. It’s only happened three times since I’ve owned the camera and this was the only batch where a number of images were unusable afterward.

[Choc-Ful-A]

Added some to the album that I took today/yesterday. Thoughts? Will likely go with at least one of the flame ones and one of the abstract ones, maybe one of the berries, not sure.

http://s141.photobucket.com/albums/r69/clouddancer19/Farktography/Artsy/

Between the two berry shots, for this contest I’d pick the single berry on the darker background. The shadow of the twig/berry on the leaf is the deciding factor for me.

Between the two flame photos, I’d pick the blue one for this contest. I like both photos, but the orange one has unlit black sections on the left and right which distract me from the central light effect. If you really like that one maybe you could crop out the sides (maybe after rotating)? It might look like some astronomical phenomena that way?

And for what it’s worth, given how often my opinion is at odds with voters that’s definitely debatable(!), of the three “food coloring in a glass jar” (nice idea) photos, I prefer the multi-color one. And between the two photos of glass rocks, I prefer the portrait oriented one (meaning #14) since while the color are more muted the crop works better for me.

[Choc-Ful-A]

My camera has malfunctioned and created randomly distorted images a few times since I’ve owned it. Usually it means the raw format files are corrupt and are unusable. But twice I’ve gotten images that while messed up, still were formatted in such a way that they made sense. One example is in this gallery along with normal photo from the same session for comparison. The other batch I have essentially included rectangular sections from previous photos with whacked colors superimposed on what I was photographing. I find some of those really interesting. The question is whether or not they are acceptable for this contest? Meaning, if my camera lost it’s marbles and scrambled the photo in ways that were outside of my control, can I use them?

[Choc-Ful-A]

A six-pack of bees: http://www.flickr.com/photos/42385982@N06/sets/72157626007121333/

I really like the second one, called “pepper pile”, as a photo. But I doesn’t fit the black theme as well as the ones you posted, so good call… I’d definitely keep it in mind for another contest though.

[Choc-Ful-A]

FYI… I often rely on the FSM to make sure I haven’t used a photo before and it’s not working at the moment. I just get mostly blank screens with headers but no content. So if I post something that triggers a “oops, seen it before” flag let me know and I’ll ask a Fark moderator to delete it.

Update: FSM is back to normal, sooo nevermind. 🙂

[Choc-Ful-A]

Beautiful car! What price range do they go for these days? I have no idea…

[Choc-Ful-A]

Wow–Choc-Ful-A–nice!! There’s a lot of really good ones, actually. Plamadude‘s opera theatre, sleeping‘s mail, millera9‘s skylight and stadium seats among them. It’s going to be a good race!

Thanks! This week has been challenging so I was just glad to have found time to post at least one post before the contest went live. Also, a big “Thank you!” to zincprincess for suggesting I use a photo from the rainy windshield set for this contest. That was a great idea, I owe you one.

I scanned the contest tonight and so many of them practically jumped off the screen. I’m going to spend time looking in detail and vote (probably a lot). But I’m already eager to nominate this theme for “classic” status so we can repeat it.

And ravnostic, it looks like we have similar greenery around our homes. Or maybe I’m in your shrubbery, taking photos of your succulents? 🙂

[Choc-Ful-A]

lol nah, I’m so old school, I never even used macros or clients when mudding–I refused. I type everything out 😉

OK, I have to ask if you really meant “mudding” as in “playing text based MUD games” cause that would be just too cool to find someone else that used to do that.

[Choc-Ful-A]

Ahh-ooooooh, werewolves of London, ahh-oooooooh….

Tonight’s Full Wolf Moon, rising betwixt the trees.

Nice! The trees (pine needles?) are a great touch.

[Choc-Ful-A]

I keep hearing people mention extension tubes, which could be a good way to go since I think he has an lens reaches 200mm already. Thanks for the feedback!

allow me to nitpick. ext tube v teleconvertor but you probably knew this.

D’oh! That’s what I get for trying to submit a quick comment as I was trying to pack up and get out of work.

[Choc-Ful-A]

I love the idea of attaching a camera to a telescope/tripod with an adapter. That’s now something on my personal “think about doing this” list. It just sounds like fun and might work well for the times I walk the hills on the coast and want to get shots of things in the distance.

I’m going to copy all the ideas y’all posted into an e-mail for the guy at work who is shopping for a long lens. I keep hearing people mention extension tubes, which could be a good way to go since I think he has an lens reaches 200mm already. Thanks for the feedback!

[Choc-Ful-A]

Wow, thanks for all the positive feedback folks! I’ve been taking my camera bag with whenever I leave the house for awhile now. That’s the only reason I was able to get those shots, since I didn’t expect to find anything interesting on the drive home from work. So it’s nice to see dragging it around pay off.

And the I’m Beginning to See a Pattern sounds like a great idea zincprincess, even better than weather. Thanks for that idea!

[Choc-Ful-A]

I love that photo! Aside from the “see no evil” hand in face, guy in boxers and “Hooters to go” bag, there’s also the fact that she’s wearing a winter coat and his legs are exposed.

[Choc-Ful-A]

Or, you could build a Jacob’s Ladder
http://www.ee.washington.edu/circuit_archive/circuits/jacobs.html

I attempted it, but I couldn’t generate enough voltage with transformers on hand. I had two MOTs with the primaries wired in parallel, and the secondaries wired in series for 4000VAC total, but just could draw a spark. I had the electrodes less than 1mm apart, and had a starting electrode in the middle and still no joy. I honestly felt that I couldn’t get them any closer without shorting.

So I went and got creative with a flash-cap about four hours before the contest.

I’d decided not to post this story since it’s third hand. That way the person who made the device I’m about to describe could announce it on his own if he wanted. But since you all mentioned (and commented on) Jacob’s Ladders explicitly I had to mention it! This astounded and scared the hell out of me when I heard it…

A coworker who is an electrical engineer with LOTS of experience building strange contraptions is also a photographer. He hasn’t started submitting to our contests yet, but he does check them out and vote most weeks. I occasionally tell him about upcoming contests that I think might be intriguing enough that he’ll enter and the “sparks” contest was one of them. He’d told me about building a Jacob’s Ladder before and how he’d “improved” on the design a couple of times to get brighter and more dramatic electrical displays. The last one I heard about was driven by a car battery and was so powerful he thought it was generating a plasma field, not just a cute little arc of lightning. Cut to this contest… He wanted it to be brighter to make photographing if easier so he added a second car battery. The test of that device was the story that made my jaw drop. He’d used the beefiest MOTS he could find online so he was confident they could handle the power and rods were upgraded a few iterations ago so they seemed fine too. And it all did work and apparently it was spectacular. The display was unbelievably bright but there was so much power that small bits of metal were flaking off the rods creating glowing sparks that fell onto floor. And about 30 seconds into the run the device shutdown when the MOTS overheated and literally blew the tops off the chips. So no photos made it to the contest (since that was the test run). But apparently the exploded chips look interesting under a microscope so I might get to see the aftermath at least.

[Choc-Ful-A]

i’m going to go against the grain here and say just the one print. signed. unless you really expect some demand for additional prints in which case maybe ten. again signed. unique art has more value..

I agree with this statement since I consider “only print this pic once” a limited release. If you can stomach the idea of never using the image again once the person buys it, that’s ideal. If that’s too strict for you, which I can understand, then a limited run of 5, 10, 20, whatever number you can live with, seems like the best option.

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