Something a little different this week. The challenge theme is to reveal the basis for your personal choice of a single image. The intent is to peek at the logic behind the 'submission-decision curtain'.

I believe any of us that participate here are capable of presenting worthy images and the themes have been broad enough to encompass some surprising interpretations. How each person interprets each challenge theme is as intriguing as the images themselves. I’d like to explore/reveal the rational behind the final submissions. Reasonably lengthy discussion is welcome.

YOU choose any weekly theme topic from the past 12 months that has memorably challenged you to pick a specific image among many possibilities.

Submit the TWO or THREE final images that you chose from for that entry and explain how/why you made the final choice. In some cases there may be subtle variations on the same theme; others may be a choice among totally different points of view.

Give the rational for your decision to select and submit that one single image.

The examples below are from the recent event #571 - Wood
The second two: certainly 'of wood' and both 'made'.
The fourth is a comparison of the same function (lock/latch) 'made from' metal and wood.
The first - an easy choice. Adds the human factor...even though I consider it the least 'good' image.

The challenge will close on Tuesday, 8 March, 2022 @ 24:00 GMT. Selection for the next challenge will happen ASAP.

Simple Rules: (some changes here to suit this theme)

1. Post two or three photos (max1024x1024).
2. The photo must portray an interpretation of the theme.
3. Post your pictures in this thread and explain what motivated you to select one of them for submission and why you feel it best represents the weekly theme.
4. The challenge is interactive. Anyone is welcome to participate.
5. The judge will pick someone to choose the next weekly challenge.
6. This submissions for this challenge run for 7 days.
7. Any Pentax camera can be used.
8. Pictures can be from any time frame, not just within the week of the current theme.
9. In case the winner of a challenge is unable to run the next challenge, the judge will coordinate an alternate.

[ramseybuckeye]

This is different and that's good! But if I misunderstood, let me know. The process of picking a photo for these challenges can be very different week to week, depending on the subject and how much time I think I may have to go shoot something new, and if I'm going to get to somewhere suitable. I like to do a new photo if possible, it usually isn't or maybe something recent will work. I'm choosing this challenge: #537 Roads less taken June 11-18. I knew during that period I was not going anywhere to find such a road. There are plenty of roads like that in Holly Shelter Game Lands, and an entrance is only 3 miles away. But in June the roads are closed to vehicles, and at that time it would have been a hike of over five miles to get to a road I think would be suitable. And it's pretty hot that time of year, I would want to start 90 minutes before sunrise to avoid heat and get decent light, and then there's the bugs. This year maybe as I have a decent bicycle now. So I went to the archives of my Flickr photos, since it's easy to search and did a search for road.

Here's three candidates:
This first one from 1 September 2018 is a hilly gravel road in Holmes County, Ohio with an Amish Buggy driving away. It was under consideration because of the hills and the curve in the road. I did not use it because I know the photo should have been better. I shot it because of the ills and the buggy but at 300mm (55-300PLM) if I would have zoomed out to where I could have shown some sky I think it could have been a good picture. It was one of those where you jump out of your car and hurry a shot because you are in the road. In hindsight I think a few more seconds would have been all I needed.


The photo below was taken in 10 March 2019 in Todd County, Kentucky while on a visit to my son's family in Clarksville, Tennessee. We were staying in a Hotel, I got up early and went out shooting til my wife was up and around. I found this lonely road and really liked the barn at the curve in the road and the trees along it, and the spilled corn on the sides of the road were a nice splash of color, and of course a nice morning sky. I have a couple other views beside this one, but since this one has been uploaded to Flickr it's the easiest to display here. I like this photo the best of these three.


The following one was the most recent to the date of the challenge, taken 11 January 2021 in Holly Shelter Game Lands. This is a very lightly traveled road, I have walked 4 or 5 miles down it without seeing a car on a couple of occasions. It's mostly swamp, pocosin, or wetlands along this stretch of road. Where there are a little places of walkable dry land there are carnivorous plants like venus flytraps and yellow pitcher plants. I've seen alligators, bald eagle, herons, turkey vultures, hawks, many american robins, and a lot of yellow-rumped warblers along it and about five miles behind where I took this, driving out in the dark I saw a bobcat running, his markings beautifully illuminated by my headlights. So it's a pretty cool area to go to, but often I'll see very little wildlife. But I chose this picture to consider because it is a little traveled road, and the straight and flatness makes it look somewhat bleak, and I happened to catch a great mackerel sky that day. Of course a little water doesn't hurt, as the dead tree trunks in the swamp are kind of grim and go with the loneliness. I ended up choosing this one as I thought it fit the theme the best, and it was the newest.

[pacerr]

A good start, eh?

[noelcmn]

I like the idea, and it would be good to have a list of the challenges from the last 12 months. Here it is. I have left out the host and winner, though that may be helpful to some. Obviously, as host, you do not get to enjoy any competition

No Description/Theme/Challenge
526 Transportation in B/W
527 Window light
528 Hand or bare feet
529 Three
530 A sea of ….
531 Eating
532 By the Water
533 Duelling Subjects
534 Reflections on Water
535 Hiding the Sun
536 Photographers
537 Roads less taken
538 Rainway Stations
539 Drops
540 Silhouette or very high contrast
541 Those who came before …
542 Trees and deadwood
543 Looking up
544 Zoo
555 Balance in landscape
556 Man and machine
557 Square aspect Ratio
558 The Dominant color
559 Water in Motion
560 Low Key
561 Winter
562 Statues and Monuments
563 Opportune Moments
564 Metal
565 Speed
566 Leading Lines
567 Lights
568 Seeing Red
569 Still Life with keys
570 Woodland Scenes
571 Things made of wood
572 A l'il different

Somewhere along the way, a host got the numbers mixed up, instead of putting #545, they put #554. And the next host just picked up from there! BTW, I also suffer bouts of numerical dyslexia .

A question on the Judging exercise- will it be on the image itself, or on the rationale behind the choice, which from my own experience, often is more what I like (subjective), rather than the quality/appeal of an image. Sometimes even the composition may be the dominant influence. Which usually never wins .

[noelcmn]

My usual criteria for choice is Flickr, the number of likes and views. There were a few contenders, such as this one which I like for its minimalist repetition


And this one, for the bokeh.


In the end, I chose the portrait of this cutie, that not only stole my heart with her short visit to my home and our church (in the company of her uncle) but I liked the tight crop that brought out her shyness and features. I also have a developing interest in portraits, so this was just up my street!

[pacerr]

A question on the Judging exercise- will it be on the image itself, or on the rationale behind the choice, which from my own experience, often is more what I like (subjective), rather than the quality/appeal of an image. Sometimes even the composition may be the dominant influence. Which usually never wins

Ahh, therein lies the question. How about 'all of the above'? The themes have been so broadly defined as to defy a true competition and defending a 'winner' as other than a subjective personal opinion of a random 'judge' is a fool's quest.

Yet somehow we seem to achieve common consensus in passing the responsibility for presenting an interesting challenge from week to week. I've not seen the sort of petty, ego-stroking squabbles and biases I've seen on some other sites.

I take pleasure in personally seizing the prerogative of 'judging' every event and comparing my choice with that of the published 'winner'. Fortunately they don't often coincide so I have the opportunity to learn from other's opinions.

I'm never sure what the criteria for my personal selections is going to be until it's made but I do try to base it on a rational and defensible explanation.

I'm not sure how this 'different' puzzle will play out but each presentation will definitely have its individual effect -- we'll see when it's over.

* Thanks for the list, Noel.

[Yaki]

This thread will be a Challenge for my English

[glinda]

I’m not quite sure what you are looking for with this one , Pacerr .
Three images of similar theme ?

[pacerr]

I’m not quite sure what you are looking for

I was afraid of that.

I've no doubt we've all occasionally pondered over which one of two or three images would best represent our solution to a given challenge topic.

Some choices might be, i.e.:
1) Best technical photograph - nailed both the focus AND the exposure for a change.
2) Best composition even if it wasn't technically 'perfect'
3) Best matched your personal interpretation of the challenge theme
4) Had an image that satisfied more than one recent topic but didn't want to resubmit it
5) Simply couldn't decide how to interpret the challenge wording
6) Really just wanted to brag on more than one excellent image

In the above example (Wood) I chose to focus on the human factor of MAKING something of wood to satisfy the theme rather than a display of things MADE of wood. But my real favorite is the image of two locks, one made of wood, the other of metal, that serve the same function and represents a transition in human tools. That seemed a little too abstract for the challenge however.

On another day the choices may have been as diverse as a forest vs. a child's swing in an old oak tree branch. Just considering the topic RED opens Pandora's box . . .

What I've tried to accomplish here is to give y'all an opportunity to explain how you choose to pick one submission from among many worthy images.

I could, and have, simply visited many of y'alls on-line albums to enjoy your images but that doesn't reveal your decision-making process if/when I choose your submission from my own biases.

Short answer: YOU pick the challenge theme and tell why you picked the ONE image of many you have to choose from. This is about WHY you choose an image, not how well you process it.

[ [ Change just one word in #571 and you could easily throw this wood duck into the stew pot too:] ]

[glinda]

Ok , now I got it ,, thanks , pacerr.

[glinda]

Well , I wasn’t going to post , but out trying to break up frozen snow/ice , I borrowed my dad’s hoe thing …. And I broke up a little ice ,,, then all of a sudden…. broke dads hoe /breaker too…
Don’t tell ….
So then I took the steps to try to best show off my handiwork, with various pics … had the 100/4 macro on the k100d super
; started off wide , then closer…

[cg57]

This was my entry for the woodland challenge #570


I considered the following two entries first:
These photos are more recent and show were my photography is today, but were monotone, in addition, I didn't feel number one represented the "woodland" theme properly.

1)


and 2)
and


I remembered my entry choice. I was learning pano, began shooting raw, and trying to process "livier" work...

In retrospect, had I dug around a bit deeper I would have found this version, which isn't as "brightly processed".


Learning what photos to choose and why is important. I've learned from this Weekly Challenge, already.

[Yaki]

This thread is hard but hard is fun so at last I decided to begin writing.
Choosing the theme was may be the easiest thing. A asked my memory which participation is brighter in my memory and it was the Water in Motion theme.
In this period I was not able to go out and take new picture that will suite the theme and I started to remember when and where I was taking pictures of water in motion.
First I remembered photographing sea waves on my summer vacation and especially one that is my top favorite picture for the last year.

I love this picture because with it I achieved three personal goals:
To make beautiful sea picture of my wife and I really think I succeed;
To test the tracking focus of K3 III - which was very successful too
and to make my own interpretation of the classic Renesas theme of Aphrodite born from the sea foam.
I was almost ready to post this picture when I realized that the water in it is more like frozen than moving. Then I remembered that in the early autumn I took some nice pictures of the river water with intention to catch its movement and to see if I can do it by hand rather then using a tripod. It was also a test for K3 III shake reduction. When I was looking at those pictures I choose two of them that on my opinion represent the theme better then others.
this one

where all the photo is water is in motion and I liked yellow leaves shining touched by the sunlight.
And in the end I submitted this picture

because It contains water in motion, the same shining yellow leaves but it has more light in it and more still object - like stones which emphasize the movement of water, and green leaves in the foreground give extra contrast and depth to the picture. And one more thing I like in that picture. The moving water itself looks like it is drawn by artist's brush in comparison with the photo natural look of stones and leaves. And The Artist that painted it is the light itself. Here is a cropped example

Finding this unexpected effect made my final decision.

[Kerrowdown]

My approach is perhaps a little different, not overly complicated... but I think a time efficient way to go about the task.

So I'll use as my example, the Weekly Challenge #370 "Woodland Scenes", which I had the privilege to set and therefore not compete. I multiple keyword images in my personal Lightroom Catalogue, even if this means, that some of more abstract images that remind me visually of other things... as part of my "out of the box" thinking process.

So in this case the keywords, tree, wood, woodland locations, woodland names etc. This almost instantly forms a selection of compliant images that match search criteria. From that, I can select half a dozen or so images, that I perceive best match the subject/theme I'm looking for or in this case best match the Weekly Challenge, like these shown below.













From there it's a straight forward task of selecting which IMHO is my best or favourite image... so in this case it would have been this one.

[pacerr]

Well, my great-granny warned me about being too cerebral about photography. Only six people took the 'l'il different' challenge but I was impressed by the thought that went into to each explanation and learned from each.

I was surprised that five of the submissions were what I considered variations on a similar theme with the deciding factor also being my choice of the many excellent alternatives. [ Ramsey, Cindy, glinda, Yaki and Kerrow... ]

Noel offered the obvious topical differences with the red entries - three entirely different options. Each a tough choice representative of the task. Thanks again for the list.

glinda had the photo-journalistic challenge of trying to tell a story from a limited opportunity to capture a fleeting moment in time. Reminded me of combat photography where you have to play the cards you're dealt.

The rest dealt with tweaking one of a few images to best reflect their interpretation of the task and the logic and post-processing was enlightening.

In every case, I was pleased to see the also-ran images and the logic used in the final choice. No doubt it reflects the same rational used by others that didn't participate.

[ The difference between a pro and an amature is the size of the waste basket. ]

As I've said before, I consider this a challenge, not a contest, so everyone's a winner.

However, I'd like to see where Yaki takes us next so I'll pass the hammer to him.