Well it’s June and it’s time once again to submit this months pictures for the camera club photo challenge. This months theme was “color creative”, first responder/patriotic, and very best.

So color creative just means you submit a photo that you’ve modified or edited, beyond just the usual retouching. We get two submissions for this category. So for the first submission I need to go with a photo from the fire dancing portion of the open studio night I went to earlier this year.

I just think that’s an awesome looking edit. The second submission was more tough to pick. I don’t want to use the same subject for all my photos’ but that fire dancing shoot had so much great material. But I like this edit too much, so I broke that rule.

It’s a little more abstract then I usually go. But it’s not bad. Definably a unique edit.

So then we are on to patriotic and first responders. We had a group shoot at one of the local fire stations in Shelby Township last month to support this submission, but that feels to easy. Like everybody is going to submit fire station photos and I don’t want to spend an hour looking at them. So I went with some shots from my reenactment earlier this month.

This shot was taken post air raid. It’s not the typical flag waving image, and I would have loved it the soldier didn’t have his hands on his helmet, but I get a very ‘and the flag was still there’ vibe from the spend casings on the deck.

Tough choice between these next three. The Andrews sisters with the flag, isn’t the strongest composition wise, but it has all the right subject elements. The other one does not scream patriotic to me, it just says soldier. If the flag weren’t in the background it would even be considered. But I love the pose the guy is making and the low angle of the shot gives it a feeling of power. The third one is a little too in your face. But I think it definitely fits the bill for patriotic.

I decided to go with the third image. It really fits the theme better then the second, and I like the composition better then the first.

Then finally it’s very best. I wanted to use something other then another shot from the reenactment, mostly cause I’m already using two of them this month. I thought about a shot from one of studio nights, but I decided to ultimately go with a shot from ComicCon – not my best image, but it’s a fun one.