Photography competition

[mikey101]

Here's the story.. I was goofin around in our photo studio with my buddy, i needed a good roll of film displaying a single subject. I tried to mix things up a bit so I told him to start running into the wall as hard as he could, haha. The pictures turned out decent except for one that looked really good. I worked on it in the dark room for quite a while until i got it exactly the way I wanted and turned it in for our administration critique. My photo teacher told me it wasn't show worthy so I discarded it and thought nothing of it for a little while. This semester rolls around and a photography competition pops up at an art gallery somewhere in denver. I decided to enter it just for kicks to see what would happen then completely forgot I ever did.

A few days ago my photo teacher asked me to see her in her class during first period. Turns out she attended the artists reception which i had no idea about (didn't even think they would display my picture). Not only did they display it, but I took first place in photography! They also gave me $50 for it, woo hoo! Needless to say my teacher listens to me when i present stupid ideas to her now, heh.

for the photo buffs, i used tmax 400iso film to take the picture, then used a #4 filter at 35 seconds to make the print in the dark room. Let me know what you think..

http://members.lycos.co.uk/mikemey01/DSCN0881.JPG
he's not crying, he's not upset, he's just hitting his head against the wall :)

[Steelrat]

I love that photo.

[Blennidae]

Congratulations, it is a pretty cool pic. I hope the teacher learns that just because she doesn't happen to like something, doesn't mean its not good.

[Muzikman]

That is very interesting.

what kinda film was it? (not speed, but brand), what kinda camera were you shooting (35mm?)? what lens, etc, give us photo buffs some specifics:)

[mikey101]

the shots were taken with tmax ultrafine black&white film using a very old 35mm pentax k1000 SLR. the lens is a 80-200mm 4.5 vivitar zoom.

[Muzikman]

Wow, you got very good gray scale for using T-Max film. Usually it's very high contrast. It is a good pic, I think it would make a cool album cover:)

[RingOfScale]

Hmmm ... can you scan a different copy of it that was maybe made without a filter? It looks awsome, but I'm just wondering what it would have looked like w/ the contrast increasing filter. I think its pretty much perfect like that, nothings wrong w/ it, I just wanna see what it naturally was like.

[Muzikman]

I think part of the creative process of taking a photo is the darkroom work, but it would be interesting to see what the negative looks like.

[Bluestrike_2]

Muz, you are right about that one. Sadly, it's something missing today in the digital world.

There is no more spending hours in a darkroom, just having fun with the creative process. Digital has obviously replaced all of these tools, but there is something more gratifying sitting in there with a dodger compared to a mouse click....

All in all, an outstanding image....

[mikey101]

i couldn't agree more that half of the photo making process should be done in the dark room. I think I have more fun messin around in there with the filters, solarizing, using different styles of paper, toning, double exposures etc.. than I do actually taking the pictures! I'll bring my negatives home monday, can you just scan those in? I do need to work on another roll of portraits so it'll be a few days before i can make more prints of the pic, but i'll work on it.

Thanks for the complements on the picture, lets see some more black and white photography! It'll be the AO-Critique!

[RingOfScale]

I have some stuff i'd love to show ... including some awsome paintball stuff ( i took 6 rolls at SCP for a photo journalism project ... actually only 1 roll are action shots tho )

Sadly i dont have a scanner ...

[RogueFactoryKid]

Who likes my devil picture of myself? I tried making it black and white but paint just gave me an all black screen.
http://www.mrpl.org/cgi-bin/discus/board-profile.cgi?action=display_picture&picture=cockerboy-public&timenow=1109568570

[Vex]

That's a cool photo! I'm glad that your buddy was willing to harm himself for your artistic development! :D
My friend runs a photo forum, and oddly enough, it's called thephotoforum.com!
http://www.thephotoforum.com/

[Ghetto]

I think part of the creative process of taking a photo is the darkroom work, but it would be interesting to see what the negative looks like.
I agree I'm in my 5th week of a beginners B/W photography class the dark room work is amazing. I never knew how much you could manipulate a photo once its taken. I'm shooting a Canon Ae-1 I got off ebay, its old but I love it.

[Echo419]

Thats an awesome picture dude... u shoulda slapped ur teacher... that definitly could be an album cover...