Did you know that my day job is teaching high school English? One of my classes this year has a study skills component, so I work with a lot of my students on good habits- using planners, working ahead, and never leaving things until the last minute. I do my best to practice what I preach to them, but sometimes life gets in the way! The start of school, back-to-back trial weekends, and bad weather have been eating up my shooting time like crazy. All this to say: In true procrastinator fashion, my Glow-Up shot was taken the night before my deadline, shot just down the street from my house, and edited just in time to submit!
Why hadn't I done this shot earlier? Well, I tend to shoot a lot of backlit portraits in my client work, so I had been hoping that I would stumble on “the one” for my submission without needing to plan it. However, when it comes to the judge’s specifications, my regular style isn’t quite what they’re looking for! I asked my social media followers to determine which of four portraits I had submitted- all beautiful, but only one really met the brief. Let’s look at why!
Let’s start with Turtle, with the caveat that all of this commentary is hypothetical- I can make a pretty good guess about how these would be judged based on past submissions, but I’m not putting words in anyone’s mouth! But being a better critic of my own work was part of the reason I joined this course, and I like to think I’ve gotten better at it over the last few months.
The above portrait tells a lovely story of a lab at the lake, with the barely-noticeable water droplets indicating that the water isn’t just for decoration! However, the pose makes the dog look three-legged, and he’s neither making eye contact with the camera nor looking distinctly away from it. The light is also harsher than preferred, with slight haze on the bottom right and no catchlights in the dog’s eyes. It has merit, but it’s not a category winner.
Up next, we have Edna the collie! I just adore this girl and had so much fun taking her first professional photos. However, that gorgeous glowing puppy fur is a “fine art” no-no. I tend to love bright, colorful, high-contrast images, so my usual editing style is to push the whites of an image until they’re pure white. For this challenge, however, the judges wanted to see details in the highlights- no blowouts. That big bright spot on her side & back would disqualify her for sure!
To my surprise, the fan favorite was Strider! I thought the baby collie would draw everyone in, but this happy boy’s big whiskers and blinged-out collar won him the most votes. I really love this image- the leaves in the foreground, his winsome expression, and that hint of a head tilt are just too precious. But Strider’s portrait has all the big “faults” from our previous two: slightly missed eye contact, there’s haze on the top of the frame, his side is a bit blown out, and as an extra sin, he’s wearing that gorgeous collar! Although it’s not an official rule, the judges tend to prefer images with no collar or harness visible. That means this handsome border collie is off the table, too.
View a before/after of this image here
Who does that leave us with? Beautiful miss Willow!! She was so excited to get in front of the camera, even if it meant wearing a flower crown. I thought the bright corners might get me into trouble with this image, but felt that they drew the viewer into her face instead of distracting the eye. I did a lot of brightening, color correction, and clean-up until the judge’s voice in my head had nothing else to critique. It was time to submit and find out if I had nailed it (or not. You win or you learn)!
Wednesday rolled around again- the time flies when you shoot & submit at the last second. The real judges loved her big beautiful eyes, and thought that her flower crown tied in nicely with the clover growing up through the grass. They didn’t love the bright corners (as expected) and recommended cropping and cloning them out to be less distracting. Ultimately, that was a small error that didn’t take us out of the running, and we made the shortlist, top 20, and the final cut into top 10 for the third round in a row!! You can find the whole list on the Unleashed blog, but their written feedback was:
Gorgeous warmth and well handled backlight fit the brief perfectly. The balance of light on the front of the dog is excellent with lovely big catchlights in those adorable eyes.
It’s been so rewarding to see the progress I’ve made pay off with these wins! I really struggled to ‘see’ what made separated a nice photo from an award-winning one, but with the past few rounds, I feel like I consistently see what the judges can. With that goal accomplished, I might take the last two rounds for myself and do something a little more fun. Stay tuned!