Congratulations Dave Koch, April 2025 PFRE Photographer of the Month! The theme this month was "Primary Bedroom".Dave Koch - Entry 1056 Peter Wingfield - Entry 1051 Paul-Dan Dragoman - Entry 1053Here's what Dave has to say:Thank you so much — this real ...
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The PFRE jury has voted Ethan Tweedie of the Big Island of HI the PFRE photographer for June. Ethan's winning photograph is on the right. Click on it for a full size image. Ethan is another second time winner.
Here are the voting results:
Here are Ethan's comments on how he created this image:
I can’t express enough what an honor it is to be recognized by my peers and win this contest for a second time, it is truly rewarding!
This particular shot wasn’t really planned as I was looking to just get a shot of the chairs as more of a vignette with the dinning room in the background, but when I saw the angle looking towards the ocean it just clicked with me. However I do get excited sometimes only to realize how difficult it will be to light etc. and have to reconsider the shot. This was one of the cases, but I decided to proceed anyway.
Knowing that when exposed for the bright sky the interior and covered lanai would be just about pitch black it was obvious I would have to add a lot of light inside and out. Honestly, these types of shots are daunting to me because so many things need to get lit. I started out by putting a monolight on a stand with no modifiers under the covered lanai at full power. The second monolight on a stand was placed deep in the living room on the far right corner with an umbrella facing towards the covered lanai. The third monolight was placed off camera in the center of the living room facing the dinning room with a 60-inch umbrella to bring up the overall light inside. The fourth monolight was placed just camera right outside facing the pocket door opening and dining room also with an umbrella.
To start, I took a series of bracketed shots light to dark, then I took the monolight that was camera right off its stand and went ahead and hand carried it pointing at the roof line, outside chairs, façade, patio flooring and grass by triggering lights and camera which was on a remote.
Once all of the shots were taken it was just a matter of taking all of the images and hand blending them in post to achieve the dynamic range necessary for the outside and inside exposure.
Lastly, I want to thank Larry for hosting the PFRE Blog and contest to give me an arena to compete and share so that all may benefit and improve their
photography .
I'll be leaving all the photos in the PFRE Photographer of The Month Flickr group for the rest of the month and putting the names on the photos. There's a lot to be learned from these photos and the comments on them. Thanks for everyone's participation!
Well done, Ethan! You obviously put a lot of work and care into that image and certainly worthy of winning this month's contest ... congrats!!
Great work, Ethan! Also, I appreciate your detailed description of how you set up the shot and made this image. After reading your description, I went to You Tube, hoping that you might have shared a tutorial showing some of your image setup techniques. Have you thought about making such a video? I'm sure many PFRE photographers would greatly benefit from your knowledge and your easy-to-understand descriptions.
Great shot. It's so inviting. You can feel the luxury through your well executed image.
Thank you Tony, Deb and Jason!
Deb, I am just beginning to learn video, will let you know if I do learning video like that!
Ethan
Great image! Congrats!!
yeah ethan! nice work. this was the stand out image of the group. congrats!
Congrats Ethan, great shot!!