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The Results Are In - Part 23

Publication in the prestigious Black & White Magazine is once again the subject of this tooting of my horn. And, the volume of my horn playing has risen above the normal level because I was published in the magazine twice this year…once in a portfolio competition, and once again in a single image competition.

“The category that my Poeple’s Choice award was featured is the “PATTERN/TEXTURE/ABSTRACT” category”

And, though I am playing at a higher decibel level today, the tune is not as sweet as the recognition I passed on to you on June 10th of this year…that being my recognition as Photographer of the Year in the coveted 17th Annual International Color Awards. If you have not seen that article, please check it out HERE.

February 2025 Black & White Magazine Publication - Single Image Winners

This February issue is to announce the winners of the 2024 Single Image Contest. Two of my images were published in that issue. And, as a bonus for my Italy fans, both of those photos were taken in Italy during our 2023 trip with friends!

Here is cover of the February 2025 issue…

Though it was published in February, it seems to me that based on the cover photo, it would be a great image for an issue to be published around Halloween.

Note that the issue includes winners from the “People’s Choice Winners” category and “Single Image Winners” category. My photos were recognized in both of those categories.

Though I did not have a winner in the “Spotlight Winners” category, I did have a photo receive that recognition back in 2022, complete with a head-shot photo of yours truly. If you missed that article, you can see it HERE.

 

The People’s Choice Award - Feb 2025

So, what is a “People’s Choice Award”? It refers to the public being offered the opportunity to select their own favorite photos. The public can vote on nominated images to help choose winners in different categories. The category that my Poeple’s Choice award was featured is the “PATTERN/TEXTURE/ABSTRACT” category.

Here is the People’s Choice Award winner in that “PATTERN/TEXTURE/ABSTRACT” category, which I titled “Stoned”.

SPECIAL NOTE ABOUT VIEWING THE PHOTOS ON YOUR IPHONE

  • On a Computer when you click on one of my photos, it gives you a full screen view. This means it can go from small to very large to see details. This is not always the case on an iPhone.

  • I noticed something on my iPhone. If you want to see a zoomed in view of any of my photos on an iPhone, rather than tapping on the photo just use your fingers by spreading them apart to zoom in on the photo.

  • Give it a try, especially with the butterfly photos so you can see their eyes and their straw-like proboscis.

I have no idea whether this works on other than iPhones

B&W Magazine People’s Choice Award Winner

 

This photo was taken in bella Bellagio, on the shores of Lake Como. Just recently, I published an article on eating dinner in Bellagio at Mistral Restaurant in the Grand Hotel Serbelloni, which you can see HERE.

To learn more about the wonderful lakeside village of Bellagio, you can see an article from the past that I’ve updated based on our 2023 trip by clicking HERE. You will see just what all of those stones are about!

Single Image Award Winner - Feb 2025

This Single Image Winner was featured in the “ARCHITECTURE/INTERIORS” Category. Being a church, It is obviously “architecture” related. And since it is inside the church, the “interior” term applies, also.

This interior photo was taken during our 2023 trip with friends. We are in Venice. We are in the lengthily named “Basilica Santa Maria Gloriosa dei Frari”, or in short “The Frari”. I place this church in the Don’t Miss category for your Venice visit. You can see the wonderful interior of this beatutiful church in this previous article here…Venice’s Frari…which incidentally features a shot of brother-in-law Craig striking a pose just outside the church’s secondary entrance.

Here is the Single Image Award Winner in the ARCHITECTURE/INTERIORS Category, which I titled “God Ray at the Frari”.

B&W Magazine Single Image Award Winner

August 2025 Black & White Magazine Publication - Portfolio Winners

In the August issue, the photos submitted are submitted as a portfolio of images…that being images that have some relationship to each other in subject. My submittal for this contest consisted of images of butterflies. Yes, they are butterfly photos, and they were not taken in Italy. They were taken in Gainesville, Florida at the Butterfly Rainforest at the Florida Museum of Natural History. This wonderful building is full of those little flutterbys. These photos were taken in March, 2022, during a photo workshop with my dear friend Jackie Kramer, of “Jackie Kramer Fine Art”, also known as “LuvBlooms”.

I will give you both the as-published black and white photos, as well as the color versions.

Here is the magazine cover, which is a good bit less creepy than the Single Image cover.

 

As this was a portfolio competition, there were more than one of my flutterby images published…there were three, and here they are in the Merit Award category, which has no particular subject category. Just below you can see the three images that were recognized.

As promised, here are the color versions of those three photographs.

Don’t you just love their eyes!!! And, since we are on the subject of butterflies, here are just a few more from that same Florida trip.

I Can See You!!!

And finally, since you are a somewhat captive audience, here are photos that I took last week on Bald Head Island, NC…which is a lovely place to be. These were taken with my iPhone.

Thank you dear reader for making it this far into my article where I tooted my horn a bit. You were able to see both God’s places, as well as God’s creatures as they were published in Black & White Magazine during 2025.

I hope you have a blessed day, and until next time, I say…

Ciao for Now,

Steve

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Something Completely Different - Flowers

Index of Articles

Yes, that’s right…something different. Different from Italy. More like Florida. Or I should say, exactly like Florida.

I had the pleasure of joining a group photo workshop in Florida in March of this year. This was the rescheduling of a trip that was cancelled during the Spring of 2020 because…you can guess why, I’m sure.

This trip was led by Jackie Kramer of Luvblooms.com…click on that link to see why I wanted to attend her workshop…she creates beautiful floral photography and I wanted to learn from the best. She was assisted by friends Linda Torbert and Padma Inguva. Though the first part of our workshop focused on floral photography, we later moved on to butterflies, birds, long-exposure beach sunrises and sunsets, and interior photography of churches and other beautiful buildings. Our trek went from Naples to Sarasota to Gainesville and finally St Augustine.

Along the way, I was amazed at Jackie’s energy. But it was her desire to teach us the art of floral photography that most impressed me. We learned how to approach the flower to find just the right background, how to isolate a flower that would otherwise be lost in clutter, how to do ‘shoot throughs’ to get a softer foreground, and so much more.

Jackie’s mission is to support other photographers, and using photography as a medium, to build relationships and enrich others' lives. I was enriched, and I know from her following that thousands of others are, too. And, my life was changed in a way that is too personal to share with you here…in person will have to do…just ask when you see me next.

Today, I will share with you flower photography, and a smattering of butterflies that like to frequent flowers.

Transformations, but with a different subject

Many of you have told me that your favorite articles here at Italy, Our Italy are the ones where I transform a rather blah snapshot taken in Italy into a fine-art photograph. And, I’ve mentioned in numerous articles that doing this puts me in my happy place. Actually two happy places…one in Italy, and then one in my digital darkroom as I perform my transformations. So today, I share photographs of flowers that I have transformed from ‘just snapshots’ into what I hope you will agree are fine-art photographs.

Just below I give you three examples of the transformation of a typical snapshot of a flower…though not in the detail that I cover in my Italy transformations (to see a complete list of transformations of photos from Italy, click here and scroll way down in the right-hand column to “Italy-Photo Transformations”). Today, you get just a before-and-after view.

Transformation Demo

You will see that the basic transformation involves the creation of what I would call a less weighty, or more ethereal look. The addition of texture is used to downplay a distracting background. Where Jackie has a whole line of Lensbaby optics that she uses to create her magic (which she demonstrates here) all my photos were taken with just a macro lens.

[Please click on the first image of each example to see a full-screen view]

This first transformation is a rather simple one involving a [insert the name of the flower here, as I am embarassed to say that I have no idea what it is].

Here I rely on luminance and texture to soften the background, which gives a more pleasing ethereal look, which is exactly what I was looking for. The original photo has inherited a lightness that I just love in floral photography.

 

This next transformation relies heavily on texture, for both the background and the subject, which is called a [you guessed it, I have no idea!].

Here I’m going for moody, rather than lightness.

 

Finally, a bit more complicated transformation, This transformation involves a water lily…yes, it’s called a water lily! Though I know not which variety.

I decided to go beyond just cropping the photo, and I went maybe a bit overboard in my creative transformation. But again, I am no longer satisfied with just a flower snapshot.

Thus ends my transformation demo. The remaining photos just show you the transformation’s resulting image.

The Flower Gallery

[As always, you can click on an image for a larger view]

None of the photos were done in studio…all were as they were found in the Naples Botanical Gardens, Marie Selby Botanical Gardens, Sarasota Jungle Gardens, Butterfly Rainforest at the Florida Museum of Natural History, and the Kanapaha Botanical Gardens.

Thorns!

And there were a few cacti in the Naples Botanical Garden.

Flutterbys

And now, the flutterbys. You will see that some have their probiscus inserted into a flower…or it might be rolled up like a hose. And those eyes!

If you were expecting information on Italy, my apologies…but I’m happy that you made it this far in today’s diversion. Thank you for hanging in there!

Next time you will see birds, with a smattering of other photos taken during our fabulous workshop. And until then, I say…

Ciao for now,

Steve

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