Atherton & District Amateur Photographic Society

It's that time of year again, the nights are drawing in, and the leaves are turning from green to gold, so my topic for the next forum competition is “Autumn” – I’m particularly interested in the lovely images you can produce with lovely autumnal hues. The closing date is Sunday 27th October at midnight, so you have plenty of time to get clicking – and hopefully the weather will improve to give you chance to get out and get some great images. Happy shooting!

Regards,

Phil.

Rivington Walk

Dunham Massey

Autumn Leaves, Paula Lodge

John Chappell:
Nice autumn red and orange colours making the subject really stand out in this image, and a great bokeh effect too. Maybe would benefit from darkening the sky/background which is just a tad bright?

Anne Smith :
A lovely harbour scene with nice reflections in the water – my kind of image! Unfortunately the white hulls of the boat are lacking in detail, due to over-exposure – but you might be able to recover some of the detail in Camera Raw or Photoshop. The photograph seems to have a slight yellow cast on it – I’m not sure if this is due to the White Balance that you chose or whether it was at the end of the day and it’s just the “golden hour” colours?

Mike Aspinall:
Boo to you too! A real cosy image – that wouldn’t be out of place on a greetings card – but only for Halloween! A clever arrangement by M&S. There’s a slight over-exposure on a couple of the props, but nevertheless very colourful, and with a nice vignette. I love this photo.

Phil Jones.
An excellent mix of autumn colours here (maybe a tad over-saturated), with a nice contrast of the tree roots. I would like to have seen a subject/focal point, and perhaps more of the surrounding scenery/trees etc, too.

Mike Forrest:
This is one type of photo I had in mind when setting the competition. A good mixture of colours, not only from the trees and moss, but on the fallen leaves. The photo would benefit from enhancing the saturation of the orange hues slightly, but a good photo, well exposed, and the portrait orientation suits the image.

Graham Otty:
Another well-composed image – a bridge framed by the leaves, and good reflections in the water, forming the letter C (for canal?). The colours look just perfect. I would have like to have sees the bridge off-centre, but rules are meant to be broken – at least in my book!

Darren Hanson:
This is another good image – lovely autumnal colours, dappled light across the path, and the curved path leading you no doubt to a relaxing autumn stroll. It seems either slightly out of focus, in which case it would benefit from sharpening, or slightly pixelated (I note that the file size is small), otherwise it’s superb and fits the specification admirably.

Paula Lodge:
Another good image. I like the way that the path has been framed by the trees, and the colours really stand out on this image. Good use of a black to frame the photo too. It’s a shame that there is purple colour fringing on the upper tree branches, which lets it down a little - but the chromatic aberration can be easily be removed in Camera Raw (in Lens Correction), or in Photoshop using a Hue adjustment layer (talk to me and I’ll show you how).

So here are the results:
Thank you all for your entries – they are a really diverse set of autumnal images. I always find it difficult to select a “winner”, because it comes down to personal preferences, and I’m sure if you gave this task to another ADAPs member, they might choose completely differently. I have always looked at this competition as a means of learning from the opinion of others, because judges often point out areas for improvement in my photos which were not obvious to me when I submitted them. So critique is valuable for improvement, and I hope you take my comments in this spirit. So here goes:

3rd place goes to
Graham Otty

2nd place goes to
Mike Aspinall

And the winner is:
Mike Forrest. Over to you Mike, to set a new subject (and deadline – usually about 2 weeks) - use a new thread “#227.…subject title…..”

Well done Mike!

It's great to see how many of our newer members are chipping in with entries to these competitions, it's a great way to get your pictures seen and to speed up the learning process. Feedback is always useful, just what Mel says really.