Last week, the Berkeley Camera Club had its annual banquet (which I was forced to skip due to other commitments). I had been bumped from Basic (lowest level) in most categories up to Advanced (third level) for 2011, so I didn’t expect to win nearly as many awards this year.  To my surprise, four of my photos won annual awards though.

The Creative category has always been my favorite, and also one that I do best in during the monthly competitions.  This year I snagged 1st Place, 2nd Place, and Best of Show (meaning they liked it better than any other Creative at any level).  As a result, I have now been moved up to Masters level (the top level of 4), where the competition is downright scary for 2012!

My image that won 1st Place (Advanced Creative) / Best of Show was titled “Peering Into the Future”.  This was a straight-forward shot of a lit cigarette (it took a week for the smell to leave the studio!) and some photoshoping of a couple of my earlier incense smoke images to form the skull.

The next image was titled “Preparing Breakfast” and received 2nd Place in the Advanced Creative category. This was a composite of two images.  The banana and plate were shot first, then the hand with knife separately.  The banana slices are actually on a skewer, held by a clamp off-stage left.  The banana is held by a clamp on the right.  The skewer and clamp were then removed in Photoshop:

I also did fairly well in the Travel category this year, and have also been moved to Masters level in this category for 2012.  This image won 1st place in the annual Travel Advanced group.  It is an HDR image (composite of 3 exposures of the same scene) from Toledo, Spain, taken during our vacation in Spain in 2008.

Finally, the next photo won Honorable Mention in the Travel Advanced category.  It was titled “Even the cheap seats get a good view of whale pods during whale watching in Jeneau, Alaska.” This was shot during our multi-family vacation to Alaska in 2010 while with a whale watching cruise on a boat outfitted for photographers by having opening windows right at water level.