YOUR PHOTO THREAD 20130507a: Your Favorite Photographs Of All Time

[Tom Mann]

It's time to kick off our shoes and remove the constraints of previous weeks where each week had a specific theme (eg, landscapes, portraits, etc.) Instead, this week, post any photos you have taken over the years that are your all-time favorites. So the number doesn't get out of hand, please limit yourself to no more than a couple of images per day. Also, please give a bit of an explanation of why the photo you posted is one of your favorites. Is it because ...

• It is a shot of of someone who has passed away,
• Doing your favorite activity,
• It was one of the earliest photos you ever took,
• A wonderful family event including vacations,
• You happened to be in the right place at the right time,
• It was the first image you ever were paid to take or ever won a prize,
• The technical aspects are perfect,
• You braved the elements and came home with a winner,
• The humor value,
• The over-the-top value,
• It gives you a feeling of peace,
• Makes you feel like you were "there" again,
• etc.

As in the past several weeks, discussions of the images, as well as on-topic comments will be in this thread this week, but pls follow the other general guidelines for the NO WORDS threads (eg, no nude images, YOU (or a family member) must be the photographer, etc.).

Here's a couple of my favorite shots to kick off the thread.

1. My father teaching design to students in NYC during World War II (... I guess it must run in the family)​

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2. In the right place at the right time - 1993 in Lithuania. This is one of the first units of the newly formed Lithuanian army proudly on parade, immediately after the end of the Soviet occupation. I shot this with a tiny (for the time) Olympus XA on Fuji 1600 press film. Had this taken place a month or two earlier, there would likely have been bloodshed.​

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Have fun!

Tom

 

[Paul]

My late Grand Father at work going about his business, a big man and ex Grenadier Guard.
This photo was taken in the early 60's before i was born.

I have no camera details or even who captured the image, i just have the original image and treasure it dearly.

 

[Tom Mann]

Pix like that are definitely to be treasured. With priceless pix like that, I make sure copies are spread around to other family members.

Cheers,

Tom

 

[Tom Mann]

PS - I know I'm preaching to the choir, but before you send it to relatives electronically, be sure to put everything you know about the photo into the caption and other IPTC fields so no one ever says, "I wonder who that old guy was." :-(


T

 

[Paul]

I might just do that Tom.
I was thinking of rescanning it and have our members do a makeover there are a few blemishes and wrinkles on the image, be nice to see what members come up with?

 

[Tom Mann]

Hi Paul - As per our discussion, I moved the discussion about fixing up that great photo of your grandfather to its own thread:
http://www.photoshopgurus.com/forum/photography/45316-pauls-grandfather-photo-retouched.html

Tom

 

[Tom Mann]

Here's a photo that I like for a completely different reason. This is one of only two or three photos I have of myself doing something I absolutely love to do: ski. I have lots of shots of me standing still at various spots on mountains with family, friends, customers, other instructors, etc., but none of me actually in motion that is (a) reasonably sharp, and (b) where I am larger than a pin-point.

The problem is that until the advent of decent quality, small digital cameras, say, in the last 10 or so years, the only cameras that could function reliably with low temperatures, condensation, rugged use and capture high speed action were usually full sized, high end film SLRs. These were only owned by a small fraction of photographers and rarely ever seen on the mountain. In addition, photographers who had the right equipment and who were good at shooting non-skiing action pix often weren't good at shooting skiing because they weren't good skiers, so they could only shoot when they were at a dead stop. At normal skiing speeds, this gave them only a second to get a few shots of you as you zoomed by. Then you had to stop, wait for them to secure their gear, put their skis, outer gloves, etc. back on, play leapfrog down the mountain and try to get another couple of shots. Even with walkie-talkies to coordinate between the two of you and someone else to control traffic, this got old very fast.

Back around 2000, another instructor and I were killing time doing laps, waiting for the next lineup to begin, when he announced that he just got a brand-new camera that could take videos and he would like to try it out. So, we ski along in formation and he grabs a minute or two of video. This is one of the frames from that movie, taken just as we are starting down a low intermediate trail. Ahh... the wonders of modern technology finally saved the day.

Tom