This Week in the Digital Photography School Forums

It’s been another week in the forums, and a lot has been going on.

Assignments

This week, we finished the Beach assignment, which was our first weekly assignment that was part of our mini-contest. We had a lot of amazing entries even though some people are in the middle of winter, and others live nowhere near the beach. It was a hard choice picking a winner, but our winner was phillj for his shot of the colourful beach houses at Brighton Beach. Our honourable mentions go to rdaw for an incredibly creative interpretation of the theme, and kairos for his picture of Henry the dog enjoying a day at the beach.

Our current assignment is Music and everything related to it. In order to be eligible for the contest, the picture needs to have been taken between the 11th and 24th of July and have Assignment:Music somewhere in the post. We’ve had a lot of fantastic entries so far, and there’s still a few more days left to post. And next week, keep an eye out for our next assignment, Planes, Trains, and Automobiles.

Weekly Poll

This week we asked forum users to vote on whether they would pick to shoot in colour or black & white if they could only choose one. We had another overwhelming result this week with most people picking colour.

velvet4269 said: “It’s a tough choice, but I’m going to have to stick with color. There’s so much brilliance in the world, and I’m fortunate to be able to see it.”

But Sime had this to say about black & white photography: “I voted B+W for no other reason than I love it… contrasty B+W shots… storms, old things… yep – if the color button fell off of my 30D, i’d live with B+W…”

Don’t forget to vote in our newest poll and tell us if you had to pick, would you print photos yourself, or would you always send them to a professional printer.

Hot Threads

How to get great color & contrast with landscape shots (not HDR): While HDR can be useful for getting everything exposed just right, there are ways to get good colours without using it. This topic was posted a while back, but the helpful tips just keep coming.

Who would you choose?: Have you ever thought about which photographer you would love to have take your picture? Come share your thoughts with us on who and why.

Accessing exif files: With all the talk about the weekly contest, the question has come up about how to check if your exif data is intact and some info about why exif information sometimes goes missing.

Parades are great for people photos: It’s summer in the northern hemisphere and parades and festivals are happening all around. They really are a great place for people photos, so stop by this thread for some examples.

10x Macro lens for point & shoot: A gear thread that people with point & shoots might be interested in, read about adapters that you can use if you want to get even closer on your macros.

Other threads to note

The alphabet continues, and we’re up to M is for… so come and show us your pictures of items that start with the letter M. Don’t forget our weekly post-processing thread either, and come show us What Would You Do to this week’s photo.

Finally, don’t forget about July’s contest where 4 forum members will win Cam-Pods. There’s less than 2 weeks left to get your entries in!