Phoetica

New Era of Culture and Humanity Photography Contest

2007-02-10T06:14:38

The Epoch Times newspaper is now holding the Global 2006/2007 New Era of Culture and Humanity Photography Contest. The submission deadline is February 28, 2007 and the winner gets $1,000 USD (and the gold medal!). Both amateurs and professionals are accepted.

Qualifications and Requirements:

· Who: Amateur or professional photographers who are interested in culture and humanity.
· How: Traditional negatives and digital image files are both accepted.
· When: No restrictions as to when a photo was taken.
· What: Photo composition must include human beings.

Good luck to everyone!

Pictures from Bangladesh

2004-02-28T12:09:15

There are quite a lot of countries in the world I know virtually nothing about, and Bangladesh used to be one of them. But things have changed for the better, thanks to the Phoetica visitor Fakrul Islam. He was so kind that he sent me a few photos of his homeland, along with nice poetic descriptions. At first, I’d like to let him say a few words about himself: “I am a lecturer of a political science, serving in the Jayantia College in Sylhet for ten years. I am also the president of the Sylhet Photographic Society and freelance photographer. I’ve got several international and national awards. This year in March, I am going to arrange 5th photo exhibition in Bangladesh. I like photography beside my own job. I think it is a creative medium for expressing artistic and dignified quality of the creation in the world. I have my Nikon camera with me all the time as my intimate friend…” So let’s have a look at the photos now.

Bangladesh Photo Gallery:

The following descriptions were transcribed from Fakrul’s emails to me. Enjoy!

This is the photo I like the most. It was taken during a dusk period, when all cattle with cattle boy go home together. The exposing time is at 6 pm. In Bangladesh, you can find this scene in winter or in summer:

This is a rare photo you cannot find often. In winter when water goes to the narrow position, summer just knocks at the door. The village people go together fishing, and they use those tools. They are called “poloo” in bangoly language. It’s a trap made of bamboo. During the village festival all people go fishing together. They shout loudly and jump in the water all day long. Nowadays, in the computer age, this charm is being abolished slowly, and the global urbanization prevails:

In the Bangladesh city called Sylhet, the careless natural beauty is often seen. I took this photo when summer season was going on. It was very hot this day, and the environment was a bit lonely. I often choose to go out in the middle of the day. This situation is seen often, when rare person go far carrying an umbrella:

In winter, you may find nice river side view as this photo is showing. It’s a semi-ariel photo. The boats are resting together in various compositions. They wait for clients to take them across the river:

In Bangladesh, people of several religions live together. Hindu’s are one of them. You may find an antique temple…2 children standing on the front. This temple is made by Hindu’s, more then 200 years ago. They build it after their relative death. It is called the symbol of the dead soul. It is nothing but a generation gap this days. I composed it to mean the generation gap between old and youth:

Bird Photography of Nigel Blake

2004-02-27T19:21:55

Nigel Blake’s dad was a very keen aeromodeller, and as a good father, he encouraged his son to follow him. This approach is not considered wrong in principle, it’s just that sometimes the results we get are different from what was expected at the beginning. Like in the Nigel’s case - he started to create models as a boy, but after some time he made a very clever move: he purchased a Zenit camera to take reference photos of those self-made aircrafts. But once the air show season finished, the birds in the garden attracted his attention.

This attraction has not faded over time - Nigel Blake has been photographing wildlife for more than 25 years since then. You can visit his personal bird photography website, where you will find quite a few really nice photos. Well, even more than quite a few - “quite a lot” is a much more accurate description of his bird photo collection. Phoetica wish you a pleasant surfing through the Nigel’s website.

Two samples from Nigel’s bird photo galleries :

© Nigel Blake: Grey Heron (Ardea cinerea)

© Nigel Blake: Stonechat (saxicola torquata)

M. Plonsky: Fine Art Macro Photography

2004-02-25T13:12:14

I know quite a few people, who always wonder if there are other dimensions beyond this physical world and whether we can see what’s there. I would say they do exist, that’s for sure, and one of the methods how to approach them is easy in principle: you just have to magnify things. You magnify and magnify, and suddenly it’s like you are in another world. Many photographers taken up this challenge, and they also invented a name for this discipline - Macro Photography. I am a big fan on “Macro” myself, since it’s really able to produce very stunning and spectacular images - when done right. Professor M. Plonsky does, as you can see in his personal website with beautiful macros of bugs, flies, dragons and other insects. And what’s even better, you will find an instructions how you could do something like that yourself.

How did it start? Mr. Plonsky explains in his article called Bug Pictures (Insect Macro Photography) - “When I first got the camera, my (then) 5 year old son came into my office one day and suggested I photograph a bug that he had his eye on and we did. It was worse than terrible by my current standards, but it did allow us to see the bug in more detail than we could in real life. That is what got me started and what I enjoy so much about macros. They let you see what you ordinarily cannot. As a scientist, I am quite curious by nature. I kept shooting the bugs, had fun, and my camera was reasonably good at it. I also liked that as I developed skills shooting bugs, all of my other photos (dogs, family, etc), got better too.”

If you would want to shoot bugs and other small animals, this article is an invaluable resource. It shares many things you will need to know: how to “get closer,” which camera equipment and settings should be used for best results, how to use close ups (diopters), and more. I was glad when I discovered this place, since this is how I think a good photo website should be like: good simple navigation, lots of good photos, and explanation about how they were created.

Phoetica would like to praise professor Plonsky for the three things he has been doing right: following the advice of his son, creating beautiful macro photos, and knowing how to share them on the web. Good job!

My Entry for the February PhotographyBLOG Competition

2004-02-23T15:50:00

Clown Warm-up

The theme for the February Photo Contest at PhotographyBLOG is Movement. The deadline for this month is February 29, so there are still a few days left. I do not have much “movement” photos in my photo archive, maybe except a few images I already posted in the early days of Phoetica in the article Train to Prague. While browsing some of my street photos, I found one clown picture I decided to submit.

This clown was preparing for the performance, which took place shortly afterwards in the square near to this place. I wonder if the central composition will work for you - I tried to place the clown more towards the edge of the photo, but it somehow didn’t feel right. So the entry name is “Clown Warm-up” and you are welcome to vote for it :-). But constructive criticism is equally sought after.

Selected Photography Links at photolinks.ch

2004-02-23T06:52:12

Do you like surfing photography websites? I do. There is a huge number of sites related to photography, and one lifetime would not be enough to surf through all of them. So I’ve been searching for a place where I can find links to the best photo websites only, or at least to above average ones. You know what I mean - some good starting place for photography related surfing. And I have found one which I am satisfied so far: it is a website photolinks.ch - selected photography links. The emphasis is on the word “selected” here. Of course, the term “good photography website” is rather subjective, so no one will find only the sites he considers good there, but the ratio between interesting links/boring links is much greater comparing to other photography related directories I visited before. There’s quite a lot of photo-links there to keep you busy for a few weeks, but not too much to waste your time by pointing you to poor websites. Happy photo surfing!

What’s your best starting point? I’m quite curious to know.

My PhotoFriday Challenge Entry: Abstract

2004-02-15T16:34:25

Pictorial Photography of N.P. Andreev

2004-02-13T13:53:54

Author: N.P.Andreev

I’m happy to announce a new Phoetica category called Pictorial Photography. Pictorialism started in the second half of 19th century, as an art movement which stressed the mood or viewpoint of the picture, rather than the subject itself. Some photographers have followed this approach as well, pondering if the camera isn’t recording the subject too detailed and too accurate, which may impact the overall atmosphere of the image. As a result, several new techniques have been invented, which caused the resulting photo looks more like a creative art work.

We are going to present several role models of this esteemed photography discipline, starting with an internationally recognized Russian photographer N.P. Andreev. The wild Russian land of the early twentieth century is perfectly disposed for being depicted by Pictorial Photography. The romantic mood of Andreev’s pictures is really beautifull and poetic. Some of his masterpieces can be seen in the Sheremei’s Gallery. Phoetica wish you a fabulous browsing and thanks the folks at Sheremei’s Gallery for providing this experience to all of us.

Adventure Gallery

2004-02-11T10:21:42

adventuregallery.net

“Knowing how to shoot a photo is just the beginning,” says Bill Hatcher, renowned rock climber and mountain photographer. If you belong to the large crowd of nature photographers, this is something you may have discovered yourself. You know that a bottomless love for natural world is another necessary prerequisite for producing memorable wildlife photos. Fine art adventure, wildlife, and nature photo website Adventure Gallery gives us another hint: you can’t do much without the Spirit of Adventure. But there is still more to it.

You will need to have an enthusiasm for life in the natural world to make all this potential to work. A lot of it. To reach the most marvelous places, some special skills like rock climbing, sailing, diving the ocean, tracking wild animals or walking around erupting volcano are required to be mastered as well. But no matter which method you pick up, you are bound to meet Beauty on your way. Thanks photography, you can share it with all of us, together with your life enthusiasm that brought you there. In the meanwhile, let’s fuel up with it at the Adventure Gallery website.

Phoetica thanks its folks for providing great inspirations by collecting all those beautiful nature photos, and for their support of nature conservation organizations.

Duck Photo Forum

2004-02-04T17:19:48

I browsed through the Phoetica’s webserver statistics yesterday to find out which search terms my visitors typed to Google, and as a result came to this site. Funny job! And I saw that three times the search terms was “duck photograph forum”. Unfortunately, those visitors didn’t found what they had been looking for, since there was no such forum at my site back then. But this is going to change, because I thereby declare this entry to be the official Phoetica Duck Photo Forum. Actually, this is not the very first forum of this kind, since I have found one at a DPChallenge photo site, which even has a poetic name: Show us your Duck ;) But during my duck-research I stumbled across a good number of very good photos, and I would like to share the best links here.

Duck Photo Galleries

Lot’s of ducks from U.K - those are all English speaking ducks.
Laurence’s Digisciping Gallery - a few ducks from Malaysia and Australia.
Swans, Geese, and Ducks - those come from Estonia, Finland and Norway.

Some nice individual photos:

Tufted Duck - Harlequin Duck - Wood Duck Female - Wood Duck Male

Photo: Duck Forum

Do you know about other duck photos? Post the link in the comments section!