The challenge on the Photography Cafe was “Food”, I was pleased to find my shot of cinnamon sticks came top of the shots after a 3 way tie in the first round of voting.

Another World was taken at Námafjall, Mývatn, Iceland.

This image just missed out on Picture of the Day at the Photography Cafe, but managed to come top of the Monthly open photography competition at “The Digital Site”

Mick (the reviewer of the competition) had this to say:

Iceland is a place I have always wanted to visit and this image helps to illustrate why. The place truly is like another world of dramatic volcanoes, waterfalls and glaciers…amazing stuff. A quick google tells me that the Hverir solfatare field is one of the largest in Iceland…an area where sulphurous vapours rise through the earth’s crust and create the scene we see here. We can clearly see yellow sulphur deposits in the foreground. This scene is very well composed and the viewer’s eye is taken through the landscape to the distant lonely figures, the steamy vapours rising from below, the distant snow-capped mountains and the wonderfully dramatic sky. This is a truly stunning image which I like very much and it is my personal favourite in this comp.

In September we travelled to Iceland for a weeks tour. Our book of the trip is now complete and is available from Blurb. You can see the pages in the gallery, or via the Blurb Web site

Big Al said: Jane’s POTD looks like selective colouring was used but this is not the case. The cold grey of the water is in big contrast to the warm red of Jane’s coat. Though the waterfall and Jane are totally different in size, they share equal prominence in the image.

It was actually taken by Stephen and not me, as it has me in it.

I was pleased that a second of my Iceland shots achieved Photograph of the day at Photography Cafe today.

Big Al said: Jane had the advantage of getting an unusual landscape to start with but getting POTD requires more than that. By getting the foreground land at the bottom of the picture she made use of the zigzag line of hills as your eye follows the route from bottom-left to top-right. The subtle use of HDR brought out the differences in the clouds and land on the horizon showing the vast distance involved.

It was also nice to see my “Another World” made a second appearance in the list, after being runner up in yesterdays competition.

This shot was a 13 second exposure. I was pleased to be awarded
Photograph of the Day at the Photography Cafe

Big Al’s Review:

A lot of the strength of today’s POTD comes from it being an unusual and dramatic subject. But it’s not just about pointing the camera and clicking; the composition is important. Note how the light forms a diagonal into the corner and how there’s enough reflection of the colours without it overtaking dominance of the sky.

The gardens of the Bishop are a tranquil place and we had a lovely time wandering around them.  This shot shows the west front of the splendid Wells Cathedral from the ponds which are fed by the wells, which give the town it’s name.

I was delighted to be awarded Photograph of the Day at Photography Cafe for this image.

Over at TDS they had a fun challenge, take a shot of a stone rabbit and “do something with it”.

So I got out the photoshop and merged it in to an old shot of Abu Simbel, to add it as a statue. It worked pretty well and I got a nice review from the challenge monitor.

This is something really different. What do you do with a sand-coloured statue? Answer: put him with some other ones…but with imagination. Great concept here, Mr Rabbit has been upsized enormously simply by fitting him into a picture with the huge figures of Abu Simbel…this is possibly the largest bunny I have ever seen. The angle and perspective of the images has been very well matched so that he is facing just the right direction. The legs have been skilfully blended in to end with the original statue’s feet showing great attention to detail. This works very well indeed.
…

If I could award four first places I would love to do it but I must make a choice.
Based on an even share of technical merit and originality I award the Gold Medal for this Challenge to….
Jane_t with ‘Mr Rabbit Goes to Egypt’. Well done !!

Mick @ TDS

With the lovely weather yesterday, we walked to the top of Mons Acutus, the site of a Norman Castle which is shrouded in woodland, which was filled with wild garlic flowers.

It’s a bit of a climb up from Montacute, but well worth it.

Sometimes I see a competition and I just have to raid my archive this was taken a few years ago in Turkey, but when The Digital Site had “Shadows and Silhouettes” as a theme I knew just the image I wanted to enter.

To my delight it took first place. Additionally I took second place in the “Open” competition at the same site with my “Into The High Atlas”.