vanishing point

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vanishing point

Image by paul bica
the last one for this year...
best wishes for 2009 to everyone !!!

Christmas Eve in the Little Village

Image by Stuck in Customs
This location is one my best kept secrets... I thank a new friend for introducing me to this spot! I hope you all enjoy the pictures from this magical little place...

It looks good in Large Size

Crumpled

Image by Hambo
Very small DOF was used to give this flower some depth. This image caught my eye and was converted from RAW because of the detail in the crumples and dimples.

Nice Best Image photos

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Louis Vuitton stealing the limelight at Marina Bay...

Image by williamcho
The Fountain & Laser Display at Marina Bay... Partly hidden on the far right is The ArtScience Museum.

2010 Parker 425 Car #1532

Image by Brian Auer
Parker 425, Best in the Desert, Parker AZ, 2010

Probably my best sequence of images for the whole weekend. Caught this guy at 6 FPS launching off a jump, flying through the air, bottoming-out the suspension on landing, and extending the suspension on rebound. All of the shots here are basically uncropped (except for slight straightening).

These cars have approximately 24 inches of suspension travel... they use every bit of it.

Cool Best Image images

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BEST OF THE MARINE CORPS - May 2006 - Defense Visual Information Center

Image by expertinfantry
US Marine Corps (USMC) Marines assigned to Gun 2, L/Battery, 3rd Battalion, 11th Marine Regiment, fire their M198 155mm Howitzer towards Iraq, in support of Operation IRAQI FREEDOM.

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BEST OF THE MARINE CORPS - May 2006 - Defense Visual Information Center

Image by expertinfantry
A Marine carrying an AN/PRC-77 field radio shouts to a member of his unit as they advance through the platoon assault course.

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Learn More
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Nice Best Image photos

A few nice best image images I found:

Oregon Freshman Steve Prefontaine, 97, Running a personal best time of 8:39.2 in winning the indoor 2-mile event at the 10th annual Oregon Invitational Track and Field meet, Memorial Coliseum, Portland, Jan 31, 1970

Image by The Happy Rower
Steve Prefontaine, 97, Running a personal best time of 8:39.2 in winning the indoor 2-mile event at the 1oth annual Oregon Invitational Track and Field meet, Portland, Saturday evening, Jan 31, 1970. Photo by Gary Lineburg in the I Feb 1970 issue of Track and Field News.

Pre ran this race before a capacity crowd of 9700 in Portland's Memorial Coliseum. Although he had been hit by the flu the past week, Pre said before the race that he was "hoping for around 8:40." With an enthusiastic "hometown" crowd urging him on, the Oregon freshman forged his own pace on the 11-lap banked board track. He passed the mile in 4:21 and came home in 8:39.2, his personal best ever. A closely bunched field finished 8 seconds behind Pre.

"I've had a chest cold all week, said Pre, still panting after his win. "I was in bed last week with a 102-degree temperature and it cut down my training, but maybe I needed the rest." He acknowledged his plan was to forge into the lead immediately and try to break 8:40.

"I like to run in front," he said. "I get in front and I can relax." Pre was never headed, as Ole Oleson of Southern California stayed near for the first several laps, but soon dropped well back. Ex-Oregon distance runner Kenny Moore placed 6th and John Anderson, son of Eugene, Oregon, mayor Les Anderson, placed 10th.

2-mile event finishing times:

1. Pre (Oregon) 8:39.2
2. Spencer Lyman (OR St) 8:47.4
3. Norm Trerise (Vancouver Olympic Club) 8:47.6
4. Steve Savage (Oregon) 8:47.8
5. Seppa Malela (PSU) 8:51.3
6. Kenny Moore (Army) 8:54.5
7. Doug Welbe (Pacific Coast Club) no time
8. Lasse Veren (BYU) no time
9. Ole Oleson (USC) no time
10. John Anderson (Cornell) no time

The above info was derived form an article by Neil Cawood in the Eugene Register Guard, 1 Feb 1970, and the I Feb 1970 issue of Track and Field News

Also, of note--this is one of the very few images of Pre wearing shoes not made by Adidas or Nike. He is wearing Puma shoes.

2010 - HIT ME WITH YOUR BEST SHOT!

Image by mpaulda™
2010 - Hit Me With Your Best Shot !

This is one way of saying THANK YOU as well as giving back to the Flickr community and to all the friends I have made, virtually and in person, throughout the world. Each of you has been too kind and this is the next best thing to a group hug...

"2010 - Hit Me With Your Best Shot" is open to old friends and new on Flickr. There are no restrictions with regard to being able to enter.

We've all taken some great images in 2010. Now you have the task of choosing what you consider your best of the year and posting it here. Yes, right HERE.

** All submissions must be posted no later than 11:59 PM Friday, 31 December - Your time zone or mine.

** You may enter only one photograph per day. This is for those of you who have more than one favourite for the year.

** The Photo Editor of my next book has agreed to choose the three (3) best from the submissions. No No, I will not be the one choosing......Just the One Saying Thanks and Giving the Prizes!!

** The Top Three will be announced Sunday, 02 January 2011 when I roll out of bed at the crack of noon.

I Look Forward to Your Best and a Brilliant 2011 for Everyone!

Prizes

First: 1 year Flickr membership + mp (that's me) print of your choosing
Second: 1 year Flickr membership
Third: mp print of your choosing



Post Your Best Shot of the 2010 Below to be Eligible.
C'mon! Don't be Shy...

Cool Best Image images

A few nice best image images I found:

A Pause In The Rain

Image by Property#1
Best Viewed Large

Yesterday is not ours to recover, but tomorrow is ours to win or to lose.

Lyndon B. Johnson

....and life fades away

Image by UrvishJ
© Urvish Joshi Photography 2005-'11

Photography and Post-Production: Urvish Joshi
Twitter: twitter.com/#!/Cacofuny

The image is copyright protected and any unauthorized use is strictly prohibited. Contact - doc.urvish@gmail.com if interested in the image.

Cool Best Image images

Some cool best image images:

Texas Native Relaxes with Man's Best Friend [Image 1 of 12]

Image by DVIDSHUB
Lance Cpl. Cody Whitis, a Marine Corps dog handler, and an Arlington, Texas, native, and his military working dog, Gracie, catch up on some rest and relaxation aboard Forward Operating Base Geronimo, while waiting for a flight to Camp Dwyer, where they will receive advance training in explosive detection techniques. 2/3 is part of Regimental Combat Team-1, 2nd Marine Division (Forward). As part of counterinsurgency operations, military working dogs are trained to sniff out specific chemicals used in improvised explosives devices and drugs. Whitis, who is assigned to Weapons Company, 2nd Battalion, 3rd Marine Regiment, stated after his tour in the Marine Corps, he plans to continue his college education in hopes of becoming an Emergency Medical Technician. The division, also known as Task Force Leatherneck, is serving as the ground combat element in southwest Afghanistan. The mission of the division is to partner with the Afghan National Security Forces and the Government of the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan to conduct counterinsurgency operations to secure the Afghan people, defeat insurgent forces, and enable ANSF assumption of security responsibilities within its area of operations in order to support the expansion of stability, development and legitimate governance.
2nd Marine Division
Photo by Sgt. Earnest Barnes
Date Taken:04.06.2011f
Location:NAWA DISTRICT, AF
Related Photos: dvidshub.net/r/jc3tmh

Indiana National Guard Rangers compete for Best Ranger slots [Image 1 of 15]

Image by DVIDSHUB
Indiana Army National Guard Ranger, 1st Lt. Robert Tugurian, Headquarters Company commander, 2nd Battalion, 151st Infantry, from Valparaiso, Ind., returns from a land navigation search during a National Guard Best Ranger assessment competition at Fort Benning, Ga., Nov. 17, 2010. The assessment determined who will compete in the Army Best Ranger Competition scheduled to be held there in April. Three of the four Indiana Rangers who competed will be returning to participate, to include Tugurian.
Joint Forces Headquarters Indiana National Guard
Photo by Sgt. William Henry
Location:FORT BENNING, GA, US
Date Taken:11.17.2010
Related Photos: dvidshub.net/r/akdu58

Bugatti HDR from one RAW image

Image by cal_gecko
converted to HDR in Photomatix, then tonemapped, and final adjustments made in Aperture 2.0

My Best Shot 2011 ~ Popcorn Mike

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My Best Shot 2011 ~ Popcorn Mike

Image by Viewminder
I get all nostalgic at the end of a year.

Looking forward to the new year is like holding a brand new journal in your hands...

a blank book.

You wonder about the thoughts and the words that will come to fill the pages.

It's an exhilerating feeling.

Looking back on the year past I try to gain some perspective on what it all meant.

Where did it go right?

Where did it go wrong?

What could I have done better?

What did I do that was so right?

I think we all do that.

For a couple of weeks I've been looking back at the photographs that I've taken in 2011.

I wanted to pick out the one that I thought was my best work.

The one that was photographically the 'decisive moment' for me in the last year.

This is that picture.

It's difficult to seperate yourself from the emotion of a photograph when you're the photographer.

I've captured images that have taken my breath away for a hundred reasons...

broken my heart...

made me laugh...

inspired me to look closer...

shocked me...

or filled me with love...

but this photograph...

it's the one that I kept coming back to when I searched the archives for my best work of the last year.

What surprised me was that I had a difficult time explaining to myself exactly why I felt that way about this image.

'What is it about this one' I asked myself over and over.

For one who smiths words and paragraphs with ease it was a real challenge to look into myself and convey to you in words why I felt that this photograph, of all the ones I've taken in 2011 was the apex of my shuttering on the streets of Chicago.

You're looking at a man I call 'Popcorn Mike.'

The only thing I know about him is his name.

Because I asked him as I was showing him the images that I'd captured of him on the back of my Nikon after I shot him on the street.

I really didn't notice Popcorn Mike as I walked down the street.

Walking with a group of about fifteen photographers on a photowalk I was talking street photography to one of them as we walked down the sidewalk together.

Another photographer who was familiar with my style pointed Mike out after he'd passed him there.

He knew the scene was callin' for the 'Viewminder Treatment.'

Within a couple of seconds I was on him...

up close...

right where I've found the 'sweetspot' to be...

lookin' for that focus point through the viewfinder as I got closer and closer.

Mike was pretty cool about it.

Not only did he have some strange guy firin' off shots about ten inches from his face...

he had an audience as the other photographers stopped to see it all go down...

some of them shooting the scene themselves as I did.

It was like a spontaneous attack of the paparazzi and Mike took it all in stride.

He never stopped eating his popcorn...

like this kinda thing happened to him every day.

That was a beautiful thing.

Beautiful because Mike in those moments just kept being Mike.

The guy just wanted to knock back a bag of cheese popcorn and all of the sudden half a dozen lenses were documenting his little munch session.

He never flinched or reacted physically to the whole thing.

He was all wrapped up in cool.

I don't remember what I said to Mike...

because I usually make some small talk when I'm shootin' someone like that.

Mike just let me in there for a few seconds to do what I do and that was that.

It was all over in less than a minute.

Dude kept munchin' on the kernals even as I showed him the shots.

He just kinda smiled and nodded his approval...

somehow conveying that he dug the pictures but I don't even remember him saying that.

It was really a 'hit and run' shot.

What is it that I love about this photograph?

A couple of things.

First and foremost it really captures everything that I saw in Mike in those few seconds.

That doesn't happen a lot.

It frustrates me to no end when I look at pictures... as good as they might be technically and visually and I realize that although they're satisfactory images...

they just failed to capture what I saw in the moment with my own eyes.

I constantly struggle with that.

When you look at this picture you're not only seeing exactly what I was seeing when I shot Mike...

I've got a feeling that you're 'feeling' what I felt.

I dig when that happens.

It's like frickin' magic.

I'm too close for you to see Mike's body...

but he never tensed up.

You can see that in his shoulders and in his face.

The dude was as chill as chill gets.

Just like he'd have been if you walked up to him and asked him for directions or something.

I like that there's the beginning of a reaction...

that 'crack' of smile that suggests the next moments were pleasant and not a big deal to Mike...

he didn't consider my presence in his personal space too intrusive.

I actually felt welcome.

That's always nice.

I shoot with a wide open aperature even in great light.

And there was some great light when I took this shot.

A wonderful overcast...

'God's softbox' I call it.

I remember the other photographers not diggin' the light that day.

And all I was thinkin' was 'this is the shit'...

it's perfect light.

But you rarely see the sky in my shots.

A lot of them were after architecture shots and stuff like that.

They wanted crisp blue skies.

Those ruin my closeups with their harsh shadows and too much contrast.

I'll take overcast any day.

That light, Mike's mojo and my wide open aperature conspired to produce a depth of field effect that makes you feel like you're right there...

an effect that cannot be obtained using a long lens and cropping a shot to make it look like you were close when you took it.

That makes you 'feel' intimate with Mike when you're looking at his photograph.

Mike's demeanor makes you feel ok with it too.

You don't feel guilty for being there.

I've learned that the best shots make you 'feel' something...

something that doesn't express itself to you in words in your inner dialogue...

but a feeling that makes you struggle as much as I to place words on those emotions.

I discovered that right after I started doing street closeups.

All of the sudden people were sending me messages...

they were concerned about what I was doing...

that I was gonna get my ass kicked because I was getting too close.

I didn't understand it at first.

Why didn't that happen when I cropped shots or used a longer lens?

I don't have the answer for that but I know that the style I've evolved into is powerful at getting the viewer involved emotionally with the subject...

sometimes photographers take it to a deeper level when they look at shots like this and they put themselves in my shoes and relate to the shot that way.

It's cool stuff.

I knew I was on to something and I'm going to keep working to create shots that elicit the emotional response before the intellectual response like that.

I think the shot is dramatic in that it makes you want to know more about Mike.

It does that to me and I was there.

I looked at it later that day and it pulled me in.

Who was Mike?

What's his story?

I may never know.

The viewer knows they'll probably never know.

But the photograph inspires those questions before reason sets in and the viewer accepts that reality.

The photograph moves one to 'fill in the blanks.'

At that point it's no longer a photograph of Popcorn Mike but a 'Rorschach inkblot' test like the good doctor who doesn't judge you gives you when your spouse makes you see him.

Mike becomes whatever your feelings are about strangers... personal space... people on the street... society.

In that way each of us is sure to look at this photograph differently.

I wanna give Mike a hug.

Some people might want to get out the pepper spray.

We're each on our own with that.

I feel like I succeeded in wrapping Mike in that shallow depth of field perfectly in this shot.

I'm constantly looking for that when I'm shooting someone up close.

I'll hold my finger on the preview button and make the aperature open up so I can see the effect through the viewfinder...

I'll adjust the angles to try and get it right on perfectly.

I'm happy with the way I got Mike in there.

His nose is 'soft' and so are his ears.

And there's that lovely bokeh by-product behind him for it.

Someone once called it 'the kiss of Viewminder' in a comment under one of my shots and I'm driven to perfect it.

The style wasn't intentional...

it came about by necessity as I shot people on dark streets without flash at night.

I wanted to capture them as I saw them without modifying the light with flash.

Big aperature captured all the light that I could get and put it right on my sensor where I needed ot to be.

I fell in love with the results and even in the day I shoot the same way.

I like the wrinkles forming on Mike's forehead.

They're thoughtful and they invoke a certain sense of movement.

It's a still shot but there's motion in it.

If you blew up the shot enough you'd see two perfect reflections of me in Mike's eyes.

That always strikes me.

It's kind of personal.

Everything lined up just right to capture all of that in a way that made me happy with the image.

But there was something more pulling me towards this image.

It really conveys Mike's humanity.

At least to me.

Mike's a human being.

The details in the photograph... the pores and the wrinkles... the tiny hairs all prove it.

The evidence of time and toil are apparent.

Popcorn Mike's been on a long journey.

There's one thing that really hits me when I look at the shot.

It makes Mike glow.

I mean he really glows in this shot.

It's warm and vibrant...

the colors and the tones are rich...

more so than I saw with my own eyes in the movement of the moment.

Yeah...

I bumped up the saturation to 'plus two' and pushed the contrast up four... but that's it for post processing.

That and the square crop that's the full width of the original frame.

I like that part of it a lot.

The glowing.

It makes Mike look beautiful to me.

The warmth comes through my screen.

He just looks so alive in this shot.

It'd be great if there was some wonderful story behind this shot that added some interest...

but there's not.

And that's cool.

It's just a spontaneous photograph of a regular guy standing on the street eating popcorn.

Our paths crossed for a minute or two on this crazy journey called life and this photograph is all that remains of that interaction.

It's the one photograph that stands out to me more than all of the others.

It's my best shot.

I really appreciate being able to share it with you.

Have a wonderful and warm new year.

I hope all of your dreams and wishes move towards fruition in 2012.

Be good to each other.

Love and light.

~Viewminder~

Learning to Fly

my best gift on my birthday

Image by bernat...
el meu millor regal d'aniversari
Vinyet (8m) - Esther - Tura (5)

Please, consider to view my most interesting shots acording to flickr and my photos on explore

Safe Creative. If you want to use this image please add in a visible place near the photo: "Photo: Bernat Casero" (link included, please)

take a look at your contacts activity

Best of the U.S. Air Force - Department of Defense Image Collection - September 1998

A few nice best image images I found:

Best of the U.S. Air Force - Department of Defense Image Collection - September 1998

Image by expertinfantry
An air-to-air right side view of an 81st Tactical Fighter Squadron F-4E Phantom II aircraft releasing 18 Mark-82 500-pound bombs over the Bardenas Reales Gunnery Range.

Learn more: www.expertinfantry.com

Field and Tree (Alternate Crop)

Image by Hambo
An alternate crop of this.

Related Images:
Europe
Ireland 2006
Landscapes

The Best Arizona Snowflakes

Image by cobalt123
The moment I was shooting these photos of the silver leaf plant at the Esplendor Resort, I knew that the image chosen needed to be my holiday photo to celebrate Christmas in Arizona.

The Thinker in the Garden of Rodin

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The Thinker in the Garden of Rodin

Image by Stuck in Customs
I spent part of Saturday visiting the Rodin Museum. It features these lavish gardens that have some of his best statues. Here you can see The Thinker in bronze. In the background is Les Invalides.

Footprint

Image by Mrs Magic
My first submission for The Dictionary of Image.

Footprint in the sand at Longniddry Beach, East Lothian.

View On Black

Meditation Chamber

Image by Stuck in Customs
Here are your Your Favorite photos! And here is Page 2 Thanks again for all your nice comments (and the critical ones)!

The photo above looks best Large on Black!

Angkor Wat is filled with hundreds of ancient old tombs, rooms, and chambers of various design. This is taken from inside the quincunx of the main temple, while a monk stood silently just outside the doorway during his morning devotions.