Picture This

Our Favorite Reader Photos from the "Gorgeous Landscapes" Assignment

The Editors | Sep 22, 2015

Above Big Sur
"I'd gone to Big Sur to watch the gray whale migration from the cliffs but it was too foggy to even see the water, so I decided to hike up the Baronda Trail to try to get above the fog. This view was the reward," Douglas Croft says about this beautiful shot. "The hillsides were carpeted with lupine and the skies were sparkling blue."
© Douglas Croft

This assignment was simple but it was also highly competitive. Yes, we received many lovely landscape photos in our Picture This! gallery on Shutterbug.com, but we were looking for something extra special. And we got it, with these 10 images from readers offering incredible and unique vistas.

Kona Coast Sunset
Yvonne Baur captured this transcendent image of Hawaii using a Nikon D610 and a Nikkor 24-70mm lens with a Cokin 0.9 Grad ND filter at 32mm, f/8, ISO 125, 1.3 seconds. “This is one of my favorite spots along the Kona Coast, Hawaii,” she says. “The spot primarily works during high surf or high tide. Sometimes big rogue waves crashed on shore right in front of me and I had to grab my camera gear and run. But that was all part of the fun and I finally ended up with this shot.”
© Yvonne Baur

Golden Gate Bridge Engulfed By Early Morning Fog
“An early morning hike up Slacker Ridge in the Marin Headlands pays off as a thick patch of fog engulfs the iconic Golden Gate Bridge,” Richard Lonardo writes about this classic shot.
© Richard Lonardo

Foggy Morning
“Lone oak tree on a foggy morning in South Carolina,” David Kennedy says of this evocative scene.
© David Kennedy

Sunset At Morro Rock
“The light was changing quickly as we were leaving the restaurant. I reached in my bag for the only camera I had with me,” Constance Reid explains on how she captured this stunningly colorful image. The camera she grabbed was the Pentax WG-3 and this photo was shot at ISO 125, 1/320 second at f/3.5.
© Constance Reid

Canola Field
“This year I had the chance to take photos of the canola fields here around my hometown,” Peter Sanne says about this bright, pretty image.
© Peter Sanne

Flow
Doug Friesen’s crisp, black-and-white shot of Niagara Falls may not be a traditional “landscape” photo but it sure is splendid. “Niagara Falls has always been a destination that I wanted to spend time at,” Friesen says about the image. “Traveling western provinces for most of my growing up years, I thought it was time to head east. This brought me to behold the power of the falls. The setup was simple. I handheld the camera high, pointing downwards into the falls for this perspective. Lightroom 6 and Photoshop CS6 were used to process the image and convert to black and white.” He captured the photo with an Olympus E-M1 and a 12-40mm lens at 40mm (80mm equivalent). White balance was auto, aperture was f/5.5, shutter speed was 1/2000 second, and ISO was 200.
© Doug Friesen

Fall Colors And Clearing Storm, Kebler Pass, Colorado
Alan Bogart shot this striking image in the fall of 2014 with a Nikon D800E and a Nikkor 80-200mm f/2.8 lens at 200mm, f/14, 1/250 second, ISO 200. It was processed in Photoshop CS5 and Nik Color Efex Pro 4.
© Alan Bogart

The Road Less Traveled
“The Aurora Borealis or Northern Lights dance across the Canadian prairie on a cold February evening,” Sherry Christensen says. “They were so bright and lively that you could even hear them!”
© Sherry Christensen

Storm Landing
“I made this image at Longboat Key, Florida, during the summer,” Neil Williams writes. “I was traveling for work and stayed at a hotel there. Looking down at the beach behind the hotel from my balcony I noticed the signs of an approaching storm. I grabbed my gear and ran down to the beach. I don’t think I had ever experienced such a graphic approaching storm up close like this. It was quite amazing to see.” Williams shot it with a Nikon D600 on a tripod at f/16, 1.3 seconds, ISO 100. He used Nik Silver Efex Pro 2 for the black-and-white conversion and Adobe Lightroom for further processing.
© Neil Williams

Picture This! – Our Next Assignment
Street Photography
For our next assignment we want you to take to the street and document scenes of life. Capturing powerful street photography images can be tougher than it seems though. First, you have to be bold enough to shoot candid images of people on the street, most times without their permission. Secondly, we’d like to see street photography images that capture an emotion or tell a story; not just random shots of people walking down the street. To paraphrase the great Henri Cartier-Bresson, you’re looking for “the decisive moment.”

The Carabinieri
I shot this image of three members of the Carabinieri, Italy’s national military police, on a street near the popular Trevi Fountain in Rome, Italy. The Carabinieri walk around with so much attitude, there’s no need to ask them to pose: they just always seem to be standing in dramatic positions. I captured this shot with a Pentax K-5 at f/7.1, 1/160 second, ISO 200. I processed it using the Bleach Bypass filter in Nik Color Efex Pro to increase the contrast and bring out detail.
© Dan Havlik

How To Submit Online
1. Go to www.shutterbug.com and register. Scroll down the page and on the right side you will see a box for entering your username and your password. If you have already registered and/or submitted images for the Galleries you can skip this step. Respond to the activation e-mail. Registration is free. You will use your username and password whenever you visit or, with some systems, it will automatically load for you when you visit www.shutterbug.com.

2. Check the assignment and closing dates in the magazine. When the magazine is printed we will create an appropriate gallery for your images. The limit is two images per assignment.

3. Select and prepare your images. We only accept files at a maximum 5MB size, JPEG format. Save the JPEG at a quality level of 10 or higher. Note that file size in your image folder directory will determine upload size, not the “opened” file size, as JPEG compresses at 1:4 at higher quality ratings. If your images do not load it probably means you have exceeded the file size or have not used JPEG format.

4. Click on the Galleries tab on the homepage. In the Category section use the drop-down menu to select the Picture This! assignment. Note that images are simultaneously loaded into the assignment category as well as your own personal gallery. When the Picture This! assignment deadline date has lapsed the assignment gallery will be removed, but your images will still reside in your own gallery.

5. In the Description box add title, camera, lens, exposure information, and your full name. Also add any other comments or anecdotes you think relevant. We reserve the right to edit comments as needed.

6. Click the Save button at the bottom of the page. This uploads the image.

7. You retain copyright on the image.

8. We will choose the images after close of the due date.

9. Please feel free to comment on images submitted by other readers.

Please Note: If the photograph includes a minor or a recognizable individual or group you are guaranteeing that you have a signed model release form, and especially a parental or guardian release form for minors. You should keep a copy of that release in your files. Scan that release and keep it handy. If an image is chosen for publication, failure to provide a form when requested will eliminate the image from consideration. You can find release forms at http://asmp.org/tutorials/model-release-minor-child.html and other resources on the Internet. By uploading images you attest that the model release form is valid, that any depiction of a person is with their consent, that you have a model release form available on request, and that all images you submit have been made by you.

Scorecard
Deadline For Submission: September 1, 2015.
Images will appear in our December 2015 issue.

Our next topic: Extreme Outdoor Photography
Deadline: October 1, 2015
Publication Date: January 2016

Please Note: By submitting you agree to give us the right to show the image(s) on the web and for publication. You give us publication rights in the magazine and on the website(s) of Source Interlink Media.

Want to see images selected for past picture this! Assignments? Go to www.shutterbug.com and click on picture this! In the “more articles…” box on the homepage.

If you have any questions or problems e-mail us at editorial@shutterbug.com with Picture This! in the subject line.