Please vote for your favorite photo (no more than one vote per image, per IP address) through 9:00 am (EST) December 12th, 2011. The winning photo will be featured on the Webshots homepage as a future POTD in December. (Note: if you don’t see the vote button under each photo, please try FireFox as a browser) After voting, you may need to refresh your browser. (These honorable mention images are not listed in any perticular order.)
O Christmas Tree, O Christmas Tree, Your branches green delight us!
While browsing the DISPLAY PAGE, it was evident that there were several fantastic photos entered! They really put us all in the Christmas mood and we enjoyed viewing them all while listening to our favorite Christmas music!
This week, the Webshots featured photographer of the month Mike Ormistonis our guest judge.
If you haven’t read last week’s pro tip, be sure not to miss his great article about how to take great holiday photos.
He commented on the top 3 photos listed below and the honorable mention selections may be seen by visiting the voting page. Cast your vote by December 12th at 9am (EST) for the people’s choice photo of the day!
#1. “The Guardian” by member ldeiter78 - Guest judge, Mike Ormiston commented “What a warm inviting picture. This has many elements that represent the feeling of Christmas eve, and the camera angle and composition are very professional. It tells a story well.”
Congratulations! Your photo will be featured on the Webshots homepage tomorrow!
#2. “I’m Dreaming of a White Christmas” by member tigerlady96 -
Guest judge, Mike Ormiston commented “A soft simple picture which just says Christmas and gives a good sense of the season.”
#3. “A Longwood Gardens Christmas” by member DANMMYERS - Guest judge, Mike Ormiston commented “Really attractive picture that shows Christmas in a non-traditional way.”
Photo walks, a popular activity among photo-sharing communities, let us all be a part of something no matter where we are in the world. By taking a walk this weekend and sharing the pictures with us, you’re contributing to a global mural of life.
So put on your walking shoes, grab your camera and go for a walk. You’ll be surprised at the photographic opportunities that present themselves. We’d love to see all of your photos as you can submit as many as you like!
Please tag your photos with Weekend Photo Walk 210 and then post your links in the comment section. Your entries won’t be judged—this is just for the fun of it!
Have you ever wanted to make your photos look warm and cozy like the photos found in Christmas cards? American Greetings photographer Mike Ormiston, shares his advice for how to achieve professional results with any camera.
1) First, let’s remember some of the basics you may have heard already. Use a tripod and a cable release if you have one. Your camera timer can take the place of a cable release. Turn off your on-camera flash and disable your anti-vibration function if your camera system has one. You want to prevent any movement during time exposures if at all possible. If you insist on hand-holding at shutter speeds longer than 1/60th, you will almost certainly get some blur. If you are shooting a lot of interior tree shots with standard indoor lights, set your white balance to tungsten (the little light bulb). Or some cameras have an indoor setting. Try this. Your interiors should not look excessively orange if you do this.
2) One technical thing to try is to use limited depth-of-field. This means that you open your f/stop to the largest opening (which is also the smallest f#). Most consumer lenses have maximum f openings of f/2.8, but fixed (prime) lenses, such as some 50mm types will open to f/1.4. The result will be to get less things in sharp focus and have more things out of focus. This means that you have to decide what the in-focus part of the picture will be (more later). Limited depth-of-field can render less important parts of a picture soft and dream-like.
3) Take advantage of circles of confusion (bokeh). These are the circles or aperture-shapes that are really out-of-focus light sources (like Christmas tree lights). Using limited depth-of-field with many of these pin-point lights not in focus will result in this pleasing effect. Make sure your focused subject is not the same distance from the camera as the lights. The more distance between the two and the more wide open your lens is, the more bokeh you will get. One other interesting variation of this is to shoot through a tree or lights.
4) Decide what you really want to take a picture of and make that object the center of interest. One way to do this is to focus on that object using limited depth-of-field as described earlier. Another way is to make sure the important object appears separate from its surroundings by having the surrounding objects differ in either brightness or color, or both. Move your camera until you get good separation and see the object easily. This is part of doing good composition. Positioning the important object in the center of your picture is sometimes appropriate, but it can also be visually exciting to move the center-of-interest off to a side or corner somewhat.
5) A nice benefit of having the camera on a tripod is the ability to see everything and move things. I know you love all the decorations in your home, but you don’t have to put all those items into one picture. Be selective. Once you have found your important center-of-interest, simplify what’s around it, even if it means cropping tighter or even temporarily removing some distracting things from the background. Simple is usually better, and the pros do a lot of simplifying, which often means taking things out. 
6) Don’t be afraid to do some styling. Improve the set by cleaning and tidying up the elements of the picture before you shoot, looking for obvious imperfections. Also watch for things in the picture that feel visually “itchy,” and move items slightly if necessary. Doing these proactive things makes you more in control of the picture-taking process, and more professional. If you download your pictures to a computer to view or edit them, you’ll be able to have one last look and fix any last-minute things.
7) If you have an opportunity, such as a tree in front of a picture window, try shooting from the outside of the building. This probably means waiting until dusk, where the outdoor light balances in intensity with the lights inside the house. You will get a cool, bluish white balance on the outdoor part of the picture while the interior looks neutral or slightly warm, using the tungsten white balance setting mentioned earlier. If there’s snow on the window sill and ice crystals on the window panes, all the better. Be patient and shoot at different times to get the best result.
Mike is a part-time teacher of photography at Cuyahoga Community College and a full-time professional photographer who has worked for American Greetings for 35 years. He creates many of the images found on greeting cards and also contributes to Pro Shots on Webshots. In his spare time, Mike enjoys travelling and photographing scenic images of nature and wildlife.