It's all systems go!

So the course has started and the sound of clicking shutters can be heard across the land.

Having read through the course material, I made a start on the first activity, commenting on 5 interesting photos on Flickr. It's hard work! There are so many fantastic photos on there I ended up choosing a dozen, wrote about each and then whittled it down to 5. The pictures I chose and the comments that go with them are as follows...

http://www.flickr.com/photos/satorarepo/2444661503/
Sol de vila (Curved in temptation) by Sator Arepo
Wow. This picture was quite rightly sat on the Explore homepage. The colours grabbed my attention and the distorted perspective kept me there. The blue of the sky is fairly even which is what makes the picture stand out, the sun is cleverly hid behind a leaf preventing the picture being wshed out. In doing so, we can clearly see the veins in the leaves and this has allowed the detail to be retained in the branch.
My eyes have been around every corner of this image and I can't see how this could be improved.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/estradasbiz/2436953532/
olhar by Igor Alecsander
This is sharp, well focussed and brilliantly done. The skin tone has a pale brownish cast to give a hint of sepia while the retention of the colours in the eyes really make this shot vivid and stand out.
I am being picky here, but I'd clone out the loose hair above the left eye.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/pianomom/2439150536/
When Ducks Attack by CrzysChick
A well captioned picture and good timing. The depth of field in this shot leaves the duck itself in focus while everything else is blurred. Strong greens boost the overall effect of the image.
this could be improved by cropping out about half of the foreground between the bottom of the frame and the duck, giving a panoramic effect, emphasising the direction of the other ducks. I'd also clone out the person in pink and straighten the horion.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/jamesdale10/2436374868/
Nawaful, Iraq by James Gordon
A rundown, dirty, dilapadted shanty that hasn't been cared for, probably shot at too, yet despite this, the child peers through and manages a smile. This certainly tells a thousand words. Technically the photo is superb, the childs face is nicely in focus leaving the frame in the foreground out of focus.
I wouldn't change anything about this picture.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/pairadocs/2447788308/
Birdhouse in Your Soul by pairadocs
This shot oozes quality. The textures of the wall and telegraph pole, the low angled perspective, the monotone effect and comedy too.
I'd lose the mess of cabling at the top and crop across the bottom corner of the sign, making a more dramatic picture with the telegraph pole running from corner to corner.

Acivity 1.7.1

In this activity, we were asked to take 3 photos of bottles showing light, colour and perspective. My initial attempts saw me placing a Martini bottle on a chair next to the window which wasn't really working at all, so as the sun was high in the sky, I headed outside to use the garden table as a makeshift studio and came up with 4 photos that I really liked.

The brief was to take no more than 20 minutes on this task, however I decided that taking a photo of one bottle on it's own with a noisy backdrop wasn't going to be up to much, so I took some bottles out of the glass recycling bin, washed them and filled one bottle, Absolut Vodka, with water to get the light bending through it. As you can probably guess, this took a lot longer than 20 minutes.

Had I been paying attention at the time, I'd have noticed that the horizontal line across the bottom of the bottle was actually at 45 degrees, so I used the Straighten (and Crop) tool in Elements to get the result you see here. No other editing was done to this picture.

Going for the perspective here, I tried shooting this from below but the enclosed yard didn't help. One way I had a garage, another the house! So I went for the top-down approach and focussed on the figure. It wasn't until after I took this shoot that I noticed the blue hues in the bottle, reflecting from the Absolut Vodka lettering I assume.

Colour. I used several green wine bottles in this task to add colour to a clear bottle. I like the end result, especially the label showing through the bottom of the bottle.

Now this is my favourite of all these and a contender for my ECA panel at the end of course. It has already received very positive comments on Flickr and OpenStudio....

I can't really see a way of improving this. B/W draws attention to the
reflections and adds interest and intrigue as to what the colours are. Sort of
picture you would see in an advertisement. (Spike on OpenStudio)

Andy this is absolutely superb great focus nothing distracting the image is strong clear and punchy, the lighting enhances the writing on the bottle and gives the picture a very moody feel (Shadysheepie on Flickr)

Using the Convert to Black & White function in Elements, I increased the red channel and increased the contrast. My first attempt turned the lettering white which meant the A blended into the highlight.