Oops, overslept

Oh no! I fell asleep and missed my own deadline. Just for funsies, here are the photos I had wanted to submit:

Bboys preparing to battle

Divebombing targets for chirpchirps

Challenge # 2 Bird's Eye View Voting Time

And it's voting time once again here at the sluts farm. Er, SnapSluts farm. Righto. Lots of awesome photos, but you can only choose one! I tried to find a prettier poll this time. It's still kind of meh. Happy voting!!

BWAHAHAHAAAAHhhhh...

That's the title of this photo for this challenge. Make of it what you will. Sorry about the grainy-ness. My camera doesn't do high ISO shots well.



Bird 1: "Lookit that boss!"
Bird 2: "Yeah, we really got 'im this time... nyahhhh..."
Bird 3: "Shut up! You want the whole world to know? Bird brains."

*rim shot*

No?

pit pit pit on a fence

Hello Y'all,

it is also my first photo on this blog. Sunday, I went picking some apples in an orchard, and along the way, I was thinking where would I rest if I were a nice little bird. Well I found my answer. On a fence!

Paul's "Bird's Eye Views"

I tried a few attempts to submit a photo from within a grocery store's freezer unit, where my camera was perched upon a bag of Birds Eye frozen food. But I couldn't arrange the photo well enough to look interesting.

I also tried to take photos of birds' eyes in nature and came to the realization that nature photography takes ... skill. So, I went to a pet store instead. My first candidate is from that visit:





And I did try to use some perspective tricks to take some photos that would appear to have been taken from the height and vantage of a flying bird, which led me to include my dog once again in my second candidate:





Here are the rest of the photos I took this weekend as I was thinking about this challenge: Paul's Snapsluts Challenge 2 Photos

Pigeon's Eye View

I see more Pigeons than any other kind of bird. Especially because they sit/poop on my balcony a lot. The first pic is from the roof ledge of my building where the birds sit, and the second is one of the views of from my balcony. It's really hard to hold the camera still for a long exposure like this (about 3 seconds), so the fountain is a little blurry.

Melee

I saw a family feeding some birds and I thought that would be appropriate for this weeks challenge.

cheers,

Trip to Minneapolis

Luckily for my participation in this week's challenge, I got to travel to Minneapolis for a couple days to do recruiting for my company. They put me up in a swanky hotel downtown where I had some lovely "birds-eye" views from the 14th floor.



This one is actually a panorama taken from the elevator lobby (my room faced the other side). I stitched it together using the new Microsoft ICE, but I didn't do any other modification. I made a daytime panorama too, but it doesn't capture the view nearly as well as the one at dusk.



My hotel room had a great view of the neon guitar from the Hard Rock Cafe Minneapolis. I slowed the exposure way down to get the cars to blur, but I didn't have a tripod so I had to hold my breath and press the camera lens against my hotel window to keep it steady.

Bird's eye view... from the overpass railing

Voila...

Vertigo on 10th Street

I also missed the first challenge because I was too slow to upload photos. So this week I decided to take advantage of a small break in the clouds and snap a few bird's eye shots from my apartment. I shoot everything with a Nikon D80 and my lens is a Nikkor 18-135mm zoom.

I may go back out and shoot tomorrow but with VSO and other events, not to mention the nasty weather...this might be it for the weekend.

Bird's Eye View of my Viewfinder

I wasn't able to enter the first challenge, so I may as well start off the second.  This week I bought a medium format film camera.  Unfortunately I can't photograph something, get the film developed, scan it and edit it in time, but I wanted to use it somehow, so I did the next best thing.

My new camera has a waist level viewfinder, which means it points straight up.  These photos were taken with my digital camera pointed straight down at the viewfinder, which means you're seeing the image of whatever's in front of the camera, the camera body itself, and whatever the camera/tripod is sitting on.

Challenge # 2 - Bird's Eye View

Deadline: Monday Sept 29th, At the end of the day when we feel like it o'clock, EST

Restrictions: Photos must be taken after this post goes up. No takin' photos of your grandma's cooter. Or anyone's, for that matter.

Bonus points: None... FOR NOW. But we'll think of something good once we put our thinking beards on.

This is up to you to interpret. You could take the photo as though you were a real bird, you could take photos of the tops of things, you could take a photo of a bird's eye (beware of pecks). You could even take it as though you are a bird being eaten by another bird who is being chased by a boeing 747 that's piloted by chicken shawarma! It's totally up to you!


Remember: even if you don't submit, you can still vote and comment (in a positive, constructive manner) on others' photos!

The winner of Challenge # 1: Hats is...

*sound of envelope opening...*

*fumbling with the paper...*




*readjusts to hold it right side up...*



Bruno!! Congratulations!

And here are his photos as a refresher:

Challenge # 1 Hats Voting Time

Hi all, it's votin' time around here at the SnapSluts blog because I arbitrarily decided that end of day is 10:30pm Eastern. However, if you get some last minute post in, I'll change this incredibly ugly poll to include your submission as well.



For now, we're going to use this poll and see how it does. If it's too ugly or doesn't work well, we can change it. (Really I am so sorry for its ugliness) Please remember to comment and constructively critique other members' photos - you know, so we can tell you're not randomly clicking a radio button. Votes are due by the end of Tuesday, Sept. 23rd. AKA after Jam Cellar.

Apparently I only take photos at Eastern Market

The first one is "Beautiful at Eastern Market." The second is "Hats of the Lonely." Taken with my teeny Canon Powershot SD750. Cropping done on Photoshop. I didn't want to make that lady uncomfortable by making her sit there while I got all up in her grill.

I'm Arty!

I dumped a bunch of vintage hats out on the floor of my bedroom and grabbed the Ikea globe lamp. This is what came out:




I did a little bit of photoshop just to make them look a little more crisp and amp up the green.

Larger images here, if you like: http://flickr.com/photos/vlg/2880205903/ and http://flickr.com/photos/vlg/2881039176/

Reflections of the blind

I promised to set the low bar, did I not, friends?  ;)

In this first one I am tipping my "hat" to you all in the reflection. 

The second one I post here to publicly announce that I was too shy to take photos of people in public, and had to resort to holding my camera at arms' length as I walked and snapped away blindly.  Still, some interesting things came of it, and my shyness may have saved me from freaking out some unsuspecting metro-riders.

Fun with Hats

I got together with some friends and a bunch of hats and here are the results :)

Vogue:


Hat Lady:

Beau's hat!

He was calm for about 2 min... enough time to take those.
cheers,
Bruno

Response #1 from Paul (2 shots)

Okay, anybody who knows me won't be surprised by this, my first candidate for this challenge. I took advantage of a drugged up puppy, home from the hospital, to play with this idea.



That's my first submission for the Hats challenge.

And here's my second: I was in Silver Spring on Saturday to pick up my new glasses, after which I kept tripping over things and bumping into people. However, I knew that the new Living Ruff store was having its grand opening event and went to capture some good stuff. Was hoping for firefighters and police... or funny animals in funny hats... but no such luck. I did get a good high vantage point for a shot of several capped men very seriously perusing a chess game. Thinking caps? Too obvious.

MG Submission to Hats

So, it looks like I will be breaking the ice...



I call this my "fun hat" ;)



Some of you might debate that this is not a hat by definition, but I checked wikipedia and it looks like it does qualify. Comments are always welcome!

Challenge #1 - Hats

Deadline: Monday Sept 22nd, end of day
Restrictions: Only photos taken as of now, no previous work. Previous work can be submitted for funsies, but is not eligible to win (since one of our goals is to be inspired to take more photos).
Bonus points: None

People asked us to make the first challenge fairly simple and non intimidating, so we chose something that you can do in the comfort of your own home. Sombreros, fezes, berets, tuques...bring it!

GUIDELINES

Here's how SnapSluts works:

We will post the challenges on Wednesdays. You'll have until the following Monday, end of day, to reply with one or (max) two photo submissions. Voting for the best photo will be enabled on Tuesdays. Wednesdays we'll annnounce the winner. [UPDATE] The winner chooses the next challenge!

Some challenges will have restrictions (e.g. no PhotoShop, only B&W, etc.), some will have bonus points, and some will have longer or shorter deadlines depending on the challenge. We welcome suggestions, so please email us all your brilliant ideas.

FAQ/FYI

- Can I comment on the submitted photos? Yes! We encourage you to comment both on your submissions and on other people's. If you don't want critique, I suggest you mention it when submitting your photo.
- Can I post more than 2 photos per challenge? Nope, hehe.
- Can I post photos that are unrelated to the challenges? No. If you want to share your miscellaneous photos, or your other attempts at a challenge, please email us the URL of your photo webpage (Flickr, blog, etc) and we'll post it on the right.
- Can I submit a photo I took last year in Aruba? No. Unless otherwise stated, all photos should be taken after we post the challenge (or unless you offer to fly us to Aruba).
- I don't have any fancy photography skills yet, and some of the contributors are professionals. Should I be worried? No! Everyone has a fair chance at each challenge and I suspect that various skills will be rewarded (creativity, etc.). To top it all off, I myself (Ann) will set the low bar while others set the high bar, so you have nothing to worry about!
- Call I post pictures of my naked grandmother? God no! No adult content please, or we'll be shut down.
- How will you be transmitting important information? We'll be posting everything you need to know on the blog itself since not everyone uses FaceBook. Set up the RSS feed if you don't want to miss anything.

This is a new project, so changes to the format are bound to occur. Please be patient with us and send us your comments by email so that the blog can be reserved for challenge content.

And now, let the games begin!

Just thought I would throw this one on here...

I was in LA last week, and saw this thing between 2 trees and by pure coincidence I had my macro lens with me. It was HUGE.

And Blog said: "Let there be SnapSluts."

We choose a theme. We take pictures. We share and compare. Someone wins. Repeat.

Basically this is a project to get us to use our cameras more, and to have fun doing it. If you've been invited it's because we know you like to take photos and will have fun being competitive without taking it too seriously.

Some of us have fancy cameras, some of us don't, and that's ok. The goal is to be creative, push ourselves, get some friendly feedback and take lots and lots of pictures! We'll choose a theme, set a deadline, submit one or two photos each, and then all vote for a winner (just to keep things interesting).

Submissions to the blog are by invitation only, so if you're interested let us know and we'll sign you up!