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Ed Knepley | all galleries >> Galleries >> Competition Winners > Virginia Bluebells
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April 2004

Virginia Bluebells

6/10/04 - Selected as a TOP 10 Print for 2003/4 competition year at MWCC. To demonstrate the subjectiveness of judging, there were 54 1st prize winners from the 2003-4 competition year (& nearly the same number of 2nd's and 3rd's - plus numerous honorable mentions, etc.) eligible for the TOP 10 awards. Here is a 2nd place Novice winner chosen ahead of almost 50 1st place winners. The photos that won 1st on the night this image took 2nd didn't make the top 10. I'll bet that the judge is a Freeman Patterson fan. Beauty is in the eye of the beholder.

2nd place - Color Print -5/20/04 - Theme: Flowers - Manassas Warrenton Camera Club
Focus on far bluebells & then shoot through the near - ala Freeman Patterson.


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Guest 13-Apr-2006 16:51
Mystical, love the soft colors. Thanks for explaining how you did it.
Ed Knepley24-Jun-2004 15:31
Lisa,

The basic technique is - find a subject that's on the far side of some foliage or blossoms so that you can shoot the subject *through* the intervening "stuff" and have the "stuff" appear all blurry while the subject is in sharp focus.

Once you've found a likely candidate - aperture wide open so that the "stuff" will be way out of focus - almost a transparent blur; focus on the far subject (you may need to use manual focus to avoid focusing on the nearer "stuff"); shoot.

In the case of the bluebells, I shot through bluebells. The near ones were actuall touching the lens. I have a couple of other shots done the same way in my June PAD. It took me months to figure it out. Amazing since it's so simple once you get the hang of it. Good luck.

Ed
Guest 24-Jun-2004 07:51
ok, how did you do it?
melindac21-Jun-2004 00:16
I LOVE this image!