This Week in the Digital Photography School Forums (6-12 Sep ‘09)

Weekly Assignment

In some parts of the world it’s time for students to head back to school. Which is why our assignment this week was School Days. There are a lot of different things that we associate with school and a lot of different ways that this assignment was interpreted. Our winner this week was JeremiahX’s little girl waiting for the bus. It was a sweet shot, and there was something about the way the bag was nearly as big as her and she stood there ready to take on the new year that really made it stand out. Our first runner up was Lady Blackice’s university tunnel shot. It wasn’t actually a tunnel, but symbolized the tunnel of thought you can get sucked into when studying. This was an instance where breaking the “rules” really worked for a shot to make it a little more abstract and conceptual. And last, but not least was rt80639’s bullets and crayons. Does it symbolize the growing violence in schools or the destruction of creativity? Nope, according to rt, destroying stuff is just fun, and let’s face it, it can yield some great results.

This week’s assignment is all about the Seven Deadly Sins. Lust, gluttony, greed, sloth, envy, wrath or pride, show us one of these sins. Stretch your imagination, get creative and show us some sinfully good images. If you want your image to be part of the mini-contest to be featured on the blog, there are a few things you need to do to ensure that no wrathful moderators descend on your post. First, your photo needs to have been taken between 2 – 16 September 2009. Second, your post must have both the date the photo was taken and the words “Assignment: Seven Deadly Sins” in the post. Finally, your EXIF should be intact, and it’s useful if you can include some of the main points such as camera, lens, ISO, aperture, and shutter speed. Next week’s assignment will be contrast.

Hot Threads

• You own the world’s last roll of film…: What are you going to shoot? What would you shoot if you had the last roll of film? No digital camera, just 24 exposures.
• Newbie Lens Help: Being new to photography can seem overwhelming with all of the jargon and technical terms. But how do you learn what these terms mean? And how do you decide what lens to use in a given situation?
• Digital Noise in Blue Skies: One of the places that digital noise can frequently show up is in blue skies (this is also where you’ll often find out if you have dust on your sensor). But how do you avoid noise in your skies? Upgrade your camera? Fix it in post-processing? Just ignore it? Come join in the discussion over in the forums.
• Tips for Wildlife Photography: Wildlife is one of the more difficult things to photograph. First you have to find the wildlife you’re looking for, then you have to make sure it doesn’t run away when it sees you, then you have to actually take your shot. But how do you get up to step 3 and what do you do when you get there? Share your wildlife photography tips in this thread.
• What would you do?: Time again for another post-processing challenge where you get to edit the photo of another forum member and show us just what you would do.