Well, I guess there is enough time gone for everybody to submit to the Project 52 from last week to do the judging. There were some very good entries this time, and there was some argument about the theme 'B&W'. From Robs clarification, I understand that the final photos should be B&W, and I hope this interpretation of his post is the right one. In the end I am no native speaker, so it's quite easy to misinterpret English.....

So here are my verdicts.

Runner up:
Ceericks, with the black and white keys and a black and white hand. If only the photo was converted, I would have considered this one a first place. It's a magnificent photo, with an ever actual theme, and I like the movement in it. It's very well executed, and the only reason I did not give it a higher place is the feeling it doesn't fit the theme....well....not completely. But it's a great shot!




Third place:
Jan, with the coffee machine. I like the low-key character of the photo, I like the sharp edges and the reflections of the light in the flat sides, contrasting to the reflections in the central ring. Well done. I will visit you soon and have a cup of coffee from this machine (which statement is only mend to let the others know that I know Jan quite well - we're together in the church board of the church we're visiting - and that I want to avoid the appearance of prejudice...)




Second place:
Steve, with the façade of the building. Although the total photo is quite dark and whites are almost (!) lacking, I like the photo very much. The composition, the abstract character, it adds to the total feeling. The play of lines is great, and I keep looking to this photo. And that is what photography is about, isn't it?




And then the first place goes to:
[Trumpet sounds]Dave[/Trumpet sounds], with his great photo of that female duck. Dave, I know you don't like B&W too much, but this one just does it for me. Composition is great, it's very sharp, again it's low-key, and the conversion is top notch. As soon as you submitted it, I knew it would be very hard for others to exceed your try. Very well done, and I think this first place is well deserved. For you the difficult task to judge the next Project 52!




Thank you all for your submissions, it was a great Project 52-week, and I hope to see you in the next Project!!

[daacon]

Wow thanks Rense I am humbled. Congrats to all the other entries and other winners !

[JanVan]

Dave congratulations! In my opinion it's a great shot with the fine detailed feathers and the vertical line of the beak.
Steve, nice pattern indeed
Dan, a great treasure
Ceericks, do like the moving fingers.
NaClH2O, nice to see the pattern of the wood itself and also the pattern of the sawing blade.
Rense, thanks for judging. You can now join the competition again.

Just wondering, do you people edit your photo's a lot? I'm not a computerman myself and just use the crop-function of GIMP. I'm curious.....

Have a good week!

[stevebrot]

Beautiful shot Dave. A well-deserved win!

Steve

[stevebrot]

Wondering, do you people edit your photo's a lot? I'm not a computerman myself and just use the crop-function of GIMP. I'm curious.....

Good question!

My understanding of the project rules is that we are to avoid excessive image manipulation. For this week's pic, I approached the post-processing from the standpoint of B&W photography. Here is the original source image for the building face picture:



If I were shooting this with B&W film, I would have used a yellow or red filter. So the post-processing followed that intent with the application of a "virtual" yellow filter in Lightroom.



The result is that all the blue was darkened somewhat with the reflections of the white tile strips remaining bright. This type of functionality is available in most photo software, not just Lightroom. I was tempted to mess with the curves a bit to send the sky to true black, but in the interest in minimal PP...

[Ash]

Well deserved Dave.
Congrats.
It really is a beautifully balanced shot.

[xs400]

Excellent shot Dave. Nice work.

[NaClH2O]

Excellent shot Dave, I had one of those "bingo!" moments when I first saw it. Excellent conversion.

NaCl(I need to keep practicing)H2O

[DanLoc78]

Dave, knew yours was the gold standard when you posted it. awesome shot.

[mithrandir]

Congratulations to the winners. I really enjoyed the submissions. Thanks for all the judging work Rense.

[daacon]

Thanks for all the Kudo's everyone - like a lot of wildlife photography a lot of it is right time right place. That little lady swam right up to me fortunate indeed

[ceericks]

Great pics everyone and thanks Rense for the runner up vote.
I was definetely taking the B&W subject approach. I forgot all about
Rob's statement about final pic should be B&W conversion.

Once again, congrats to the winners.

Corey