Photo Contest Entry

ahhhh.... here we are with a piece of my photography that i decided to enter into the 28th Annual College Photo Contest that is promoted by Photographer's Forum Magazine and Nikon.
the grand prizes are $1,000 grant plus a Nikon D80 digital SLR camera and lens system.
there will be one grand prize awarded for best color and one for best black&white. there are progressive awards according to 2nd place, 3rd place, 4th place and of course honorable mention. there will be 100 honorable mentions.

i had done this particular photo using available outside light, and had decided i wanted to experiment with over exposure and converting it to black & white hopefully picking up rich variances in the gradients from all the blacks to white.

one of my great challenges was to disassociate myself from the natural connection you feel with your children when photographing them. not just any snap shot would do. i had to find a way to tell a story with my photography, and my son happened to be the available model.

we went to the local walking paths of our park area and i looked for the ways the light was showing on different surfaces and areas. i found this lighting shining on the old stone walls of a historical lock for canal boats and fell in love with the way the vines were clinging in the cracks and the way the shadows were going into a dark gradient where the light wasn't reaching. the leaves around on the ground i decided would add a great texture of gradients. so i just happened to be carrying a white bucket with us (chuckle always be prepared)...and i set it upside down on the ground by the wall...
i then had xavier sit on the bucket and i positioned him the way i wanted him to be kind of in a wondering or thinking pose for a kid by himself on a bucket. i wanted him barefoot to reach a deeper feeling in the photo.

this was a one shot deal i didn't take any other shots of this pose like i do others. i did one and just knew that was it.

when i presented it in my photography class my fellow classmates were very impressed and my instructor liked it so much that she told me she wanted a print of this particualr piece.
i was amazed that it got such a response because my fellow classmates are amazing photographers, and their work just blows me away when i see them.

one girl in my class said that it looks like art that you would see on anyones wall, not just on your wall because it is family.

i was also told that it is very moving. so with all of the individual responses that this photo got i knew i had captured something that can move anybody and not look like just a photo of someones kid.

my instructor told me that i had definitely achieved one of the hardest things of disassociating myself from the subject emotionally in my photography and that i was also successful in my creation using over exposure.

so hopefully if i can earn an honorable mention in the contest, i think i would just cry with
a humble heart .