Grace Queens by Chris Davies

5 questions about this photo:

Q1. What equipment did you use?
Nikon D5000

Q2. What settings did you have on your camera?
Shutter 1/1600, Exposure: F/5.0, FL 166mm (70-300 NikonAF-S VR)

Q3. What software did you use during the post-production?
Lightroom

Q4. What is the subject of the photo?
Swans

Q5. How did you come up with the idea of this shot?
The idea came when I was processing. Not when I took the photo. The more over exposure I added the more this effect developed.

Extra Q: Please share an interesting or funny fact that happened while working on this photograph.
The shot was taken with dozens of swans very close to me looking for food and was a little unnerving (viz a viz Hitchcock's "The Birds").

Untitled by Luisa Möhle

5 questions about this photo:

Q1. What equipment did you use?
I used a Canon EOS 40D together with my Canon EF 50mm f/1.4 and a reflector.

Q2. What settings did you have on your camera?
ISO 100, f/2.0, 1/125 sec with an Av-mode.

Q3. What software did you use during the post-production?
I only use Photoshop Lightroom to edit my pictures.

Q4. Who is the model?
It's Jan, who I photographed before: grenzbild.de/galerie/jan

Q5. How did you come up with the idea of this shot?
I found pictures of the location on the internet and we chose to go there. The rest developed during the shoot.

Extra Q: Please share an interesting or funny fact that happened while working on this photograph.
Just before he was going to undress, some people including a child approached. They were going mushrooming and we had to wait a while, because we didn't want to frighten or rather surprise them with a naked man in the moor.

Towards Stanage Edge by Mark Helliwell

5 questions about this photo:

Q1. What equipment did you use?
Nikon D300, 18-200 Nikkor lens at 18mm, Lee 0.9 GND filter

Q2. What settings did you have on your camera?
ISO 100, f/11, 1/10 sec

Q3. What software did you use during the post-production?
Processed in Nikon Capture NX2.2.4

Q4. What is the location?
Stanage Edge, Peak District, England

Q5. How did you come up with the idea of this shot?
Foreground interest is key on such landscapes, and the small pool of water in the rock caught my eye.

3 Wishes by Alison Crea

5 questions about this photo:

Q1. What equipment did you use?
Canon 7D with 24-105mmL lens, off camera speedlite to one side, large white reflector the other side.

Q2. What settings did you have on your camera?
Manual mode, ISO 100, f8, wireless flash to side.

Q3. What software did you use during the post-production?
Photoshop using Nik Silver Efex Pro.

Q4. Who are the models?
My teenage son and daughter.

Q5. How did you come up with the idea of this shot?
I took the photo for a competition that required shooting incense smoke and the first idea that came to mind was a genie coming out of a lamp. The competition required the photo to be black and white so the lighting had to be dramatic.

Extra Q: Please share an interesting or funny fact that happened while working on this photograph.
I took about 50 shots to get the appropriate expression on my sons face. He thought the whole idea was silly so he kept making funny faces.

Untitled by Robert Lunetta

5 questions about this photo:

Q1. What equipment did you use?
Nikon D200 with a 50mm 1:1.8 D lens reversed on extension tubes. Flash was from the built in flash with a homemade softbox diffuser.

Q2. What settings did you have on your camera?
ISO 200, shutter speed 1/160 sec.

Q3. What software did you use during the post-production?
Photoshop 6.0. For the most part this image was straight form the camera, there was just minor tweaks to contrast and color balance, and I had to clone out some dust specks which is an unfortunate evil of using a reversed lens.

Q4. What is the subject of the photo?
A dragonfly

Q5. How did you come up with the idea of this shot?
I had been photographing these guys on their perches but there is usually very little backdrop to bounce the flash back, so the background would inevitably be dark. I created a simple background in photoshop to give the flash something to reflect off of. In order to take this shot I had to hold the background at arms length and shoot with one hand. Anyone who does this type of work, especially with reverse lens because everything is manual, knows how difficult this can be.

Extra Q: Please share an interesting or funny fact that happened while working on this photograph.
My advice would be to take tons of shots, out of approximately 50 shots maybe 5 to 10 will be useable, and experiment with different backgrounds as well. If you don't know how to make one, pull a leaf of a tree or find something on the ground. I have even used a discarded beer box for a background.

Autumn Spectrum by Mr. Dale

5 questions about this photo:

Q1. What equipment did you use?
Panasonic Lumix DMC-GF1 with the Olympus M-Zuiko 9-18mm for Micro Four Thirds.

Q2. What settings did you have on your camera?
1/20 sec handheld f/5 at 11mm, ISO 100, RAW, auto white balance.

Q3. What software did you use during the post-production?
Downloaded into iPhoto then processed in Lightroom 3, added a pinch of contrast and post-crop vignetting.

Q4. What is the subject of the photo?
An arrow pointing left made from a spectrum of maple leaves in autumn.

Q5. How did you come up with the idea of this shot?
I had seen a spectrum made out of other vegetation, I needed a picture for 10/10/10 and it was just so nice and pretty outside with the trees full of colors.

Extra Q: Please share an interesting or funny fact that happened while working on this photograph.
We had to make sure our dogs didn't trample on the leaves. They were very curious to see what we were doing.

Guardian of the haunted villa by Roman Sołowiej

5 questions about this photo:

Q1. What equipment did you use?
I used Nikon D700 with Samyang 14 mm f/2.8 IF ED UMC (cheap but good Korean manual lens) and Benro tripod.

Q2. What settings did you have on your camera?
I took 9 exposures for HDR photo at ISO 200 and aperture f/11.

Q3. What software did you use during the post-production?
To create HDR photo I used Photomatix for tone mapping and Photoshop for post processing.

Q4. What is the location and who is the model?
Location is abandoned "haunted" villa in Gdańsk, Poland. Model is my friend Andre Govia who was cut from his self-portrait (www.flickr.com/photos/andregovia/4796696675/) and pasted into my final HDR image during post production.

Q5. How did you come up with the idea of this shot?
Nothing special, I like pictures of abandoned and forgotten places. An HDR technique shows more details than a human eye normally sees, so that's the main reason it is often used in such kind of photos. At first I had a feeling that there is something missing in the picture and I thought it was nice to put any person there. So I asked for permission to use the picture of Andre. The title came to my mind during the processing of the image.