Photo contests

[Sir Edward]

Hey all, it occurred to me that Christian Fletcher's "Dog Days" photo contest comes around every August. I rarely have anything to submit, because I always forget. But we still have time this year if we wanted to collectively work on some ideas.

The contest rules are pretty simple:  All submissions must have a sword in them somewhere. Some submissions are pictures of swords in scenic surroundings, others are more complex staged scenes or portraits. Last year I submitted my "sword in the stone" photoshop image.

I think it would be cool if we could get a few good submissions posted by forum members.

[Sir Edward]

BTW, here's last year's batch on CF's facebook page:

https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.202747579780056.58928.111994695522012&type=3

And the year before:

https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.113365032051645.20751.111994695522012&type=3

[Frater de Beaumanoir]

Interesting, do you wish our sword photos here, or elsewhere?

[Sir James A]

Very good idea. We should be able to get some good shots at VARF, I hope.

[Sir William]

Oh yes...we should win it this year too, especially if we're all in the shot, swords drawn.

[Sir Edward]

I was thinking we could share some images here and maybe narrow it down to a few really good ones. These days to compete, they all need to be photoshopped to some degree, even if to just control color balance, crop, brighten, etc. But of course we can do removal of stray objects in the background, and artistic effects as well. Depending on the image, it may or may not be a lot of work, so we should limit that to the shots with the best potential.

[Sir William]

Agreed.

[Sir Edward]

Something I might also consider is submitting a couple of my wedding photos to CF's contest this year. I have a few that would be perfect.

[Frater de Beaumanoir]

It's not a full sword shot, but it's one I did about 3.5 years ago for a MYSPACE bio photo.

[Sir Edward]

That's great! Sometimes a good close-up makes for a very artistic shot.

[Sir James A]

I went hiking at Harper's Ferry with my wife this morning, and had 2 great ideas. There's the stone ruins of an old church, and there's also a stone church with stained glass windows and everything. Both are the "historic" district. We could have some pretty good background scenery for some shots of us in armor. We could do solo shots, group shots, and possibly even group shots with our ladies as well. Even if we only submit the solo shots and a group shot or two, might as well take advantage of the opportunity for some good group shots too.

It's about a 15 min drive from my house, and is actually about the same distance as getting to my house for Sir Edward, Sir Brian and Sir William (it's off 340 just over the MD/VA/WV line. It's $6 for parking, but there's some small non-chain places to eat, an ice cream place, etc, so it's a good "general" trip in addition to just the photo ops.

[Sir Edward]

That's a great idea. Stone churches would work very well!

Wooded sites are fairly easy, since there are parks all over the place. But if anyone knows of any particularly cool looking trees, that might be something to consider as well.

This kinda goes hand-in-hand with the portrait thread I started... but we can also think about what sorts of props might be useful. For instance, something that I thought was interesting in "Kingdom of Heaven" was when Saladin finds a cross knocked over, and stands it back up. I can picture a cool shot with one of our knights picking up a cross from the debris in a ruined church.

All kinds of creative things we could do.

[Sir James A]

Remind me tomorrow at our VARF rehearsal, and I'll show you guys the pictures we took at Harper's Ferry today, just for a general idea of the backgrounds.

[Sir William]

Frater, just out of curiosity, is that the Windlass Reynald sword from KoH?  Always liked it, especially that pommel.

[Sir James A]

Remind me tomorrow at our VARF rehearsal, and I'll show you guys the pictures we took at Harper's Ferry today, just for a general idea of the backgrounds.

I guess we didn't take pictures that I thought we did. Here's a photo a bit downhill from the old chapel ruins: https://fbcdn-sphotos-a.akamaihd.net/hphotos-ak-prn1/551262_10150720469682372_504837371_9549317_715376847_n.jpg