The two photos I have chosen were both shot in favorite places we have visited many time over the years. The first is one I took of the Bass harbor Head lighthouse on Mt. Desert Island, Maine in 2005. The camera I used was a 6.1 megapixel Pentax istDL with a pentax 18-55 kit lens. I did minor post processing in the Photoscape program. It won Best in Class, Best in Show and People's Choice awards in our annual Country Fair Arts & Crafts competition. The second photo was taken on the island of kauai in the early 1990's using my 35mm Pentax with a Pentax 28-80 zoom lens. The Church was located in a small clearing in the midst of a sugar cane field along a red dirt road leading to Polihale State Park. The church and cane fields have now given way to extensive fields of genetically modified corn although a similar church has been recreated along Highway 50 on the west side of the island.

This challenge is "Pick your best photos". What I want you to do is to pick out some of your very best photos and post them one or two maximum at a time. I would like you to say something about each picture including why you like the picture and if you wish you can add your settings, filters, etc. to help us understand what you did. Positive critiquing and/or feedback is greatly appreciated. I have been with the UHH for many years and have watched how the original Hoggers have grown in their photography and editing akilla. Also as of the last year or so we have had many new photographers join in and it has been a wonderful complement to the challenges! So pick out some of your best pictures (that is the hardest part) and start posting them to the challenge . Don't forget that Digital Art is photos, abstracts, HDR, etc. Whatever you enjoy doing in photography. Remember it is a good idea to just post one at a time (2 if you wish) so you can comment and we can reply to each picture. And most important...lets have some fun.

The attached is one of my favorite and best photos of birds in flight. I had been practicing panning and deleting a lot of photos. But this one is one of about 6 photos taken in burst mode. I happened to take the photo to the TexNep photography meeting to be critiqued by a couple of professional nature photographers and I got a very good critique which encouraged me to continue photographing birds in flight and nature in general.

Cheers!
Clicker

This is going to a hard challenge as I have so many favorites. I am going to start with this one.

Taken last winter. I was driving around the farm looking for wildlife to photograph. I pulled up by the river and across the river I spotted a couple of deer, it was snowing and hard to get a good photo from that distance. After about 30 photo's they left.

I like this photo the best out of all the others. And worked it a little to darken areas to bring out the deer more.

Edited in Smart Photo Editor.
Canon SX50
Manual f5/56, 1/320, ISO 250.

This is a challenge I hesitate to submit to, partly because my "Best" are not usually my favorites, and partly because I have long ago stopped trying to follow the rules I learned in the classes I took: using a tripod, using manual settings, using an interchangeable lens camera, etc., and started working toward what looks/feels "best" to me. I have no pretensions of being a professional photographer - I am probably what is referred to as an IWAC (Idiot with a camera!) But I love photography and if one photo in 100 gives me that "Wow" moment then I have succeeded in what I set out to do.

This is one of my favorites. I don't shoot landscapes as much as I should but when the Super Moon came in Nov of last year I gave it a go and zipped down to the water as quickly as I could. I wanted to get the moon just coming up from the horizon but as luck would have it there was a heavy atmosphere over the water so it didn't appear until it was above that line. I was standing in the dune and the teleconverter allowed me to get a bit closer and beyond the shore. If I had shot with a wider lens the moon wouldn't have looked as large.The sun was setting behind me and shining on to the moon. Please use the download.
Info:
Canon 7dmk2
100-400Lmk2 +1.4 III
@247mm
ISO 200
AV
1/15 sec
F/16
EC -1/3
PP with DPP
Tripod w Nest Gimbal Head