Monday, July 25, 2011

That's It, Voting is Now Closed!!

What a blazing contest! Thanks everyone!! The entries are superb, the commenting and community building are stellar...what more could we ask for??

Oh, right.

The results.

I have a final group to score and judge, so I'm going to commit to posting results some time on Wednesday. If I hit a snag and need a little more time, I'll let you know.

For those new to my contests, I will announce the placements of First through Fifth and the Readers' Choice Award winner. I will also name a number of honorable mentions. Finally, I will list this contest's inductees into the Forties Club. Those are the entries that scored at least 40 out of 45 in my scoring system (flip back to the contest announcement if you have no idea what's I'm talking about).

Now, while we're waiting, can anyone guess what the contest photo really is??

39 comments:

Anonymous said...

Not a clue, but I'll take a whack at it -

Someone's reaching toward an overflowing sink drain?

Anonymous said...

No, but good guess!

I'll give you this hint. Most of what is depicted in the photo (color, images, etc.) is real and un-photoshopped. The "eye" has been augmented, though.

Ellis Bergstresser said...

It made me think of a darkroom for processing photos - a photograph of the inside of a darkroom over a pan of liquid for processing images.

Which might seem more plausible if anyone still used actual film...

Four Dinners said...

It's a squirrel throwing a nut at someone and the nut explodes into a ball of flame and the....oh shut up Dinners...leave the voddy alone and go to bed....

nite mate...

ps...they bite their nails...;-)

Michele Zugnoni said...

Hmm . . . I see a hand hovering over a body of water, reaching for the sun. Perhaps red filter was used, too?

Aniket Thakkar said...

It must have something to do with Aine. Always does. :)

Umm.. Aine's hand reaching towards a barbecue fire?

Anonymous said...

More fine guesses! But sadly, no. :)

Mikki is the warmest so far. Ellis is right in the sense that the light is indeed red. No filter was on the camera. But that doesn't necessarily mean that the light was natural....

Precie said...

You mean it's not a flaming banana jelly bean? Impossible.

Um, 1) you are about to catch a frisbee?

2) you managed to catch a photo of a bat flying through your floodlit yard after dark?

3) oh, it's the ceiling light/fan over your bed, just at the moment Aine switched it on?

Sarah Hina said...

Your hand, red lightbulb (or red paper covering the light?), with a candle burning/giving off smoke.

I dunno. I'm just blowing smoke here. :) I bet Cat will have a good guess.

Erratic Thoughts said...

hmm...I feel its a hand kept on a glass and we are looking from other side of the glass...and a torch/bulb is used with a red paper wrapped on it to give the red light or it might be a red bulb light...and why do I have a feeling that there is steam/sand involved?

Okay I think I should just stop guessing!this is getting weird...

Anonymous said...

Oh man. You guys are getting colder. Colllllllder. It's not that highly staged.

Another hint: how is (my) hand interacting with the color? What might cause that?

Michele Zugnoni said...

Okay, okay. Here's another guess, o' master photographer and awesomely awesome contest runner dude. You did something with sunlight, playing with it to create a silhouette effect. Someone (maybe this famous Aine I keep reading about) reached toward the sun as that celestial body lowered over a body of water around dusk or dawn. Any closer?

Erratic Thoughts said...

haha...this is so much fun...Jason you are such an awesome host :):)

I guess this might be your hand placed in red colored water!

C. Sonberg Larson said...

Okay Upon close inspection, "the eye" looks like a dried flower. That's all I have right now.

I agree with Erratic Thoughts--this is fun!

SzélsőFa said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
SzélsőFa said...

fist of all i would like to thank you for hosting the contest and i hope you received my votes. it was not easy, as per usual, to select five of the so many clever, sometimes poetic entries!

as for the photo, without reading other commments: i think it's your hand reaching towards a sink.
either that, or you are reaching for the moon (or sun, for that matter) and its solar or lunar eclipse. that might explain the splash-like rim along the round object.
the photo was put into negative and then had the colors changed. your hand was removed a couple of millimeters from its original position towards the bottom left corner of the photo.

SzélsőFa said...

now after having read all the comments, and having fun doing so :))) i understand that there isn't much doctoring to the photo. this surprises me :)
well, well, the strangest things on this photo are
1. the scratch-like spot at the top of your middle finger. i guess it was movement-induced.
2. the flame-like elements around that round something.
the colors might be connected to the temperature of the original objects, but i can be totally wrong here :)
uhm, kind of unrelated, but my third guess is a hand and a keyhole on a light-colored door :)

JaneyV said...

It looks to me like your hand is sticking out of water. The bath maybe? I have no idea what the eye is but my guess is that the photo is a negative that has then been filtered through red. My guess about the eye is that it actually is the light source in your bathroom but that it's not in that position really. The photoshopping bit is that it was moved into place.

my word verification is unomen. I wonder if that's absolutely no hint at all?

Catherine Vibert said...

I'm thinking hand in front of your infrared camera a la up at your cabin with someone holding a light up.

Precie said...

You were jello-wrestling? Again? ;)

Anonymous said...

Oh yes, I can see many brains are grinding away on this. Awesome!!

Szelsofa's point #1 is correct about movement. It's a long exposure (and therefore dim light).

Erratic Thoughts is also correct.

And JaneyV is sooooo close!

Precie, I wish.

Wendy said...

I was thinking something with a flashlight. But then when I go back and look I talk myself out of it. But I keep going back to that, so something with a flashlight is my guess!

Bethany Swafford said...

OK. I'll take a shot.
I say its someone's hand coming up out of a bucket of red paint.
What can I say? I'm not a photographer!
Bethany

Old Kitty said...

The pic was taken in a sauna?

Thanks for hosting such a fun contest btw!!

Take care
x

Wendy said...

Flashlight in the bathtub behind the shower curtain??

Unknown said...

It looks like a negative exposure to me, it's the first thing I thought when I saw the photo. Sort of like when light shine through you're hand, making a red imprint, except the opposite happens with the negative, the hand becomes dark imprint. And the other flash, well, I guess that could be the same thing, a negative of the reflection of the flash, and since it needs water to reflect from, water somehow is in the background.

I'll leave it to the better informed than myself...making me think too hard, lol.

Dottie :)

Anonymous said...

We have a winner!!

Old Kitty got it. The picture was taken in a hot tub. Bravo!

My hand is partially submerged in the water, which is being lit by an underwater light set to red. The "eye" is one of the side lights at the top, which is also set to red. I wasn't thrilled with the raw photo of that part, so I smeared the edges to give it more of a flaming look. Other than that, an art effect to give it some more darkness and depth, and a bump on the brightness and contrast, the photo is in its original form.

Thankfully, I refrained from dropping the camera in the water.

Thanks again, everyone, for making this a super fun contest!

Joni said...

Hot tub party at Jason's!

Precie said...

Lol, Joni!

John--I'm having trouble "seeing" the hot tub in that. Can you maybe post a pic of the daylight/unaffected version?

And thank you for all this.

Bill Lapham said...

Wait...you mean that's not Mary Kate's hand reaching toward the windshield to stop a solar flare from crispy crittering her and Jane? Dammit, man. I thought I had it...

Anonymous said...

Joni, ha!!!! You're on!

Precie, you're looking down at the water at a slanted angle. I was sitting there one night, and the photo idea hit me.

Bill, you were close, man. Close.

Michael Morse said...

Would have sworn it was an alien's vision of a fly ball. I like the alien in the hot tub better though.

Unknown said...

Wow. And all this while I thought it was some sort of graphic art picked off the internet! lol

Anonymous said...

Michael, some would say you're right.

Damyanti, except for a few rare instances, all images on this site are my photos. :)

Unknown said...

Remarkable photographer along with amazing writer and contest organizer :) *bows and runs to hide under her study table*

Precie said...

I see it now. Inspiration is everywhere. :)

Margaret said...

Old Kitty, well done for nailing it!

Jason, well done for taking such an original, out-of-the-ordinary photo! It made an amazing prompt pic.

MG Ainsworth said...

A hand desperately reaching for the surface of the pond after jumping in to avoid the flaming banana jelly bean army that is in pursuit. Sorry - can't see anything except a flaming banana jellybean :-)

Unknown said...

A sauna? Yikes.

Anyway, thanks for hosting another great contest. This one was really fun.