The May 2023 competition theme was: “Monochrome. The judge was Matthew Mahlstedt
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First Prize
David Terao ~ Lines and Silhouette
This image was taken at the National Portrait Gallery in Washington DC. I saw this man standing at the large picture window overlooking the courtyard and quickly snapped a picture before he moved away. He was probably also intrigued by the strong, diagonal shadow lines, and he was taking a cell phone shot of the courtyard. The original image had some distracting tables, chairs and garbage cans in it. I used Photoshop to remove the items.
Second Prize
Beth Koller Dune Sunrise
This image was taken in Death Valley in December 2022. The weather was erratic. Recent rain had wiped out some roads. When we there we experienced rain, a rainbow, and a sandstorm.
I was trying to improve my wide angle photography and get everything sharp from front to back. I had both a D500 (APS sensor) and a D800 (full frame sensor) and was trying to use whichever captured the scenery and the rapidly changing skies the best-without getting too much sand in either camera. I had to be careful to not get my feet in the image. The two best early morning images were taken almost at the same spot, but at 90 degrees from one another. The skies were initially overcast, but with moody clouds. This permitted capture of great detail in the mountains as well as in the dunes. The image in the other direction was all about the sky and how the light radiated through the clouds as the sun was starting to climb over the distant peaks. I cropped a bit from the left to make sure that the triangle of sand in the lower left directed one into the dunes in the middle of the image and then towards the sky. Both images were good in both color and monochrome.
Third Prize
Bob Catlett – Sunflower and Butterfly
The image was taken in the Sunflower fields on River Road with a Nikon D7200 with a 18-140 lens. The camera was converted to Infrared. ISO 400, 1/640, f11.
Honorable Mention
David Blass – Desolate
This was taken on the Svalbard archipelago in Norway in June 2019. Even with the temperature above freezing and most of the snow melted, you get a feeling like you are at the end of the earth. The shelter had been used for hunting, but is long since abandoned.
Honorable Mention
Lisa Auerbach – Sketching My Gal
I like that this image turned out like I hoped it would. I photographed my granddaughter, then turned the image into a sketch. Marc held the paper as though he were sketching the picture. I’ve seen some photos that have different amounts of both sketch and photograph. The sketch grows from the photograph That is my next project.
Honorable Mention
Larry Gold – Small Leaves on Big Leaves
Honorable Mention
Kate Woodward – Building Facade
I took this photo at the National Gallery East. I was standing in a stairway looking into one of the display rooms. In post processing I rotated the image to look like a building facade. I was particularly interested in the tonal variation and geometric shapes.
Novice
First Prize
Anne Golfer – East Wing
This photo of the East Wing of the National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC, was shot in high sunlight, midday, using an iPhone 13Pro. I was mesmerized by the 2-dimensional appearance of the 3-dimensional building on the right, as well as its shadow on the building on the left. I experimented with the original color photo by using various tones of white, black, and gray, and ultimately decided upon this monochrome version.
Second Prize
Diane Sanders – Bromeliad
I took this photo of the bromeliad during our club outing to the US Botanical Gardens. While I loved the orchid exhibit, the elegance of the bromeliad appealed to me. Its gray-green tones were easily rendered in monochrome. I left the ferns at the bottom of the image to ground it.
Third Prize
Will Rabinovich – Circle of life
This image was taken in Brookside Gardens. I liked the spiraling form of the leaves and I wanted to emphasize that. I used a relatively wide aperture so that the leaves would gradually blur out. Then I converted to black and white, did some global exposure and contrast adjustments, and finished with some masked dodging and burning.
Honorable Mention
Marc Auerbach – Fisheyes
FISHEYES was taken in Rome. I liked the way the fish were aligned and were not hidden under a mountain of ice. We were on a cruise and spent the day in port and came upon this wonderful outdoor market.