1st place in 2009 Claude Moore Park Photo Expo, Youth 12 and under category

We just found out this evening that my daughter Sarah’s picture of a Lotus blossom won 1st place in the Claude Moore Park 2009 Photo Expo for the Youth 12 and under category!  Needless to say, she was very excited and I was very proud of her.

I submitted two photos.   One for the “Roots & Buds” category and one for the “winged wonders.”  While they were selected to be shown in the expo, I didn’t win any ribbons.   Oh well.

The Photo Expo is this coming Saturday,  September 26th, from 10 am to 4 pm if you are interested in attending.  It’s a free event.

My two photos are shown below.

Lotus on Canvas by Tim Pennington

Gyro Falcon by Tim Pennington

I recently came across a small patch of beautiful lavender flowers.   Unfortunately the patch was too small for anything except perhaps a macro shot, which wasn’t in the cards with the wind conditions that day and the fact that I didn’t have my tripod with me.  I know, I should never leave home without it.

So, working with what I had, I decided try one of the “rule breaking” techniques I learned about from a talk Joseph Rossbach gave to our photo club recently.   Using a small aperture to create a long (1/4 of a second) shutter speed, I deliberately moved the camera while taking the image.  In this first picture, the motion was a rotation with a little zooming of the lens at the same time.  In the 2nd image, the motion was more of an arch shape.

Whether this work is up to individual taste.  Personally, I think this type of photography is really cool, perhaps just because it’s such a contrast to the normal  “keep things still” mindset.   I really like how the circular lines in the 1st image tend to draw your eye to the lavender flower at rotation center that is still in focus.

At the same time, these images are a challenge as they force both the viewer and photographer to consider shapes and lines more than the technical details of the shot.

What is your opinion?  Do these images work for you or are they just a waste of pixels?  I’d love to hear your comments.

Three of the shots are going to be hung at the Loudoun County Photography Club’s photo Expo at Virginia Campus of the George Washington University.

Feel free to leave your comments here.  Or you can see more images from the Kenilworth trip and leave comments on my flickr page.