So today we’re going to kick off the next Photography Assignment which is going to be reeeeeeeeaaaaaaaaally tough, but first, I’m going to announce the winners of the Reflections Assignment. I’ve got to say that you guys never cease to amaze me with the quality of work you’re turning out. Thanks again to all those that got involved, and for those that voted. As usual, I’ll count down in reverse order from third place.

In third place, with the image “Drive to Work” is “Mojo_Yugen”, real name Brian Schultze. Congratulations Brian. Excellent image! Remember if you are punching the photo numbers in manually on the top page or Podcast page on my Web site, for member’s photos, add the letter “m” for member to the beginning of the number. Brian’s third place image is m3007. So Brian’s photo really struck me when it was uploaded too. Hopefully you’re viewing along with me, but basically it’s the side of what looks like an office block with four rows of windows in solid bands across the width of the image, and in those windows are reflections of a church steeple, and beautiful blue sky with some fluffy white and grey clouds and the top of a mountain range in the bottom row of the windows. The mountains have some clouds pluming over the peaks too. There seems to be something to look at in each of the windows, making for an incredibly interesting shot. I find too that once I’ve inspected all the reflections, I pull my focus back a little and start to look at the texture in the building siding, and then realize that there’s a tree in the bottom left as well, that keeps me busy for a little while longer. In image that keeps the viewer interested for a long time like this is a real winner. Once again congratulations Brian.

In second place is “WI_Rob”, real name Rob Rock with his image “Standing Water”, which is image number m2682. This is a very graphical, somewhat abstract image. The composition is perfect. It actually makes me twist my head a little as I view it as there is some optical illusion going on making the image actually looked crooked on the web site. I’m not talking about the contents of the image, I mean the actual image, including the one pixel white border looks crooked, which of cause is not the case. This is to me another reason why this image works so well, because it gets me physically moving in my chair trying to understand it. Of course, I also like the striking orange colour, especially around the nearest part of the barrier, and it’s dark reflection, looming down there in what a closer inspection reveals to be a really quite shallow body of water. Obviously this barrier would have floated away if the water was much deeper, but the darkness of the water makes one think it might be much deeper. All of these things are getting me thinking, which is great. Excellent work! Congratulations Rob!

In first place, the winner of the Reflections Assignment with his image “Window cleaners nightmare” is “Prism”, real name Nigel Byde. This is image number m2586. It’s a very striking image that at first glance is very difficult to understand what you’re looking at. It is a building with mirrored sidings, totally covering it, but the angle Nige chose is exquisite. He’s contained just a small piece of I think what is a window viewed directly, then we can see the reflection of a few other windows across the bottom of the image, but the element that really makes this image is a perfectly exposed beautiful blue sky with some big fluffy white clouds. The line of the edge of the clouds is also reflected in the largest visible mirror panel and again in the second largest panel to the left of the largest. I find my eye jumping all over the image trying to figure out what is real and what is a reflection, and all of this is emphasised by the angle Nige chose. There’s also one splash of rusty red in one of the reflected windows, which nicely breaks up what would otherwise be a totally blue and white image. Not overwhelming in any way, but an understated splash of colour. Really top class work! Well done indeed Nige.

The notable theme through these three and most of the other images entered to the Reflections assignment is that they have some kind of optical illusion and/or amazing detail that really draws you in and keeps you interested for a long time. Although the standard of entries for these assignment is always very high, I think I’ve probably spend more total time viewing the images for this one than the previous ones. Thanks again to all that got involved and congratulations once again to Nige for scooping first place. I’ll be contacting you soon with details of how to select the image and options for your original print from my online gallery.

Remember you can see the winners and the updated accumulated votes for all assignment to date on the “Photo Assignment Winners and Scores” page that can be found at the bottom of the Gallery menu at the top of all the pages on martinbaileyphotography.com.

I have a question for you all now. Over the last few days the question was raised in the forum whether or not it should be OK for people to vote for their own images in the Photography Assignment. Now, I have my own opinion on this, but I’m going to keep it to myself for now, and simply ask you to think about this for a moment, then if you have a minute, vote in the poll that I’ve started in the Photography Assignments forum. It will be very easy for me to block this in the web site programming, so that is not a consideration. I’d really just like to know what you guys think. I’ll put a link directly to the poll in the show notes too if that’s easier for you. Thanks in advance for thinking about this and voting in the poll.

OK, so on that serious note, let’s talk about the next Photography Assignment. This is going to be really quick, because I don’t have any example photos from my gallery that would really help to explain the new theme, which is “Sound”. This theme was suggested a few weeks ago by member “xxdabroxx”, real name Dave Brownson from California, USA. Thanks very much for this excellent idea Dave. To be honest, I really only have a few ideas of what to shoot for this right now, so I’m going to be tested as usual, along with the rest of you to come up with something for this next assignment.

Again, the theme open to interpretation and I’m really looking forward to seeing what you guys make of it. Dave said in his original post “While on my way home from work today, sitting in traffic, I thought of a possible assignment topic – depicting sound”. So Dave was probably surrounded by noises, with people sounding their horns and maybe screeching breaks etc. What I’m thinking is that the images submitted should without a doubt make me here the sound in question. Of course I don’t mean that literally, but I should be able to image what sound without mistake. There should be no question as to at least the sort of sound that pops into the viewers head when we look at the image. I think the winner will be the entry that achieves this. It will be very easy to loosely link a sound to a good deal of photos. I thought about including some of my own where you can imagine the sound of say a swan paddling the water as it gathers speed to take flight, but this is weak. This is not what we should aim for here. Please bear in mind that all entries have to have been shot no earlier than today, November the 6^th, 2006. I imagine you’re going to need to do a lot of visualization to shoot a winning shot for this assignment, but who knows, you might get lucky and be confronted with one of those serendipitous moments that presents itself to us every now and again, so be ready. Let’s get out there over the next 6 weeks and really work this one.

The assignment album will be ready for uploads by the time I release this Podcast, and I’ll include a link to it in the show notes. Remember that you have to create a separate account in the mbpgalleries.com web site where we house the Assignment Gallery, because I have not yet linked this site to the martinbaileyphotography.com site. Please use the same user name and email address when you register though to enable me to link your accounts later when I finally find the time to join the sites together. You will be able to upload your entry until the end of Sunday December the 17^th anywhere in the world. From Monday the 18^th voting will start until the end of December the 31^st, New Years Eve.

Start Wrap-up: So thanks very much for listening. Also note that we are still accumulating votes for a grand prize that will be something other than one of my own prints that will be awarded at the end of the first year of assignments, which is just a few assignments away now. This means that you don’t need to win any one assignment, but rather just keeping on scoring constantly throughout the year and you’ll be in with a chance of scooping the grand prize that I’m hoping to be able to announce very soon.

Remember too that I’m currently calling out for recorded comments or questions for future Podcasts. I haven’t had a single question recorded yet, so please do hook up a mic to your computer and click on the “Leave a Message” button on the applet on the top page at martinbaileyphotography.com and record away. It’s really easy. If it’s just a greeting, or a shout out to other listeners, I’ll include it in the intro of a future episode. If you record a question, I’ll round it up with a few others and do an episode dedicated to answer them when I have enough to make a full show.

So have fun with the new assignment, and whether you are out shooting for this, or something else, or whatever you’re doing this week, have fun doing it. Bye bye.

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Show Notes
Music from Music Alley: www.musicalley.com/

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