Smiley, by Pol

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Click image above to see this photo in Pol's gallery.

Pol entered this photo in a recent forum salon contest themed 'yellow'. Taken a couple of years ago, Pol explains how the photo came to be: "It was just a sort of grab shot I snatched as we were driving through the houses just off Camber Sands. It was just one of those quick photo opportunities that wasn't planned and had to be grabbed spontaneously and quickly.

"We'd been parked at the beach and I hadn't got around to putting the camera away yet when noticed the 'Smiley Ball' through a gap in the houses. Luckily the camera had a 300mm prime lens attached so I just grabbed a shot as best and as quickly as I could whilst we were waiting at the junction with the main road. The shot was grabbed through the open window of the passenger side and what you see is approximately 75% of the full frame.

"It's a very nice lens, Pentax 300mm f/4 and the shot was hand-held with the camper-van engine running - so the Pentax K20D anti-shake system served me very well too. I've no idea why it was there or who'd left it but it turned out to be a large air-filled plastic ball tied to a fence post on the boundary of a nearby farm just off the main road."

Pol grabbed a great transient opportunity and to great effect. The universal 'smiley' looks a bit late middle aged with a happy but wrinkly face and the yellow contrasts beautifully with the deep blue of the sky.

We are always on the look out for great pictures posted to the user-galleries here on DPNow. POTDs are selected from the gallery and featured every week day. The gallery facility here is completely free; all you need to do is register as a user on our discussion forum and you will automatically receive storage space good for around 125 pictures uploaded at web resolution. You can also easily use your gallery space to show your photos on the DPNow discussion forum and enter regular competitions like the DPNow Salon.

The DPNow Golden Gallery

Our ultimate accolade, the DPNow Golden Gallery, is reserved for what we feel are the very finest images. We invite anyone to submit their pictures for inclusion in the Golden Gallery. Why not have a look at the Golden Gallery submission form? But do remember that we are looking for the very best images and we only accept what we consider are of such quality. All submissions are acknowledged.

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The copyright of all images uploaded to the DPNow gallery or forum remains the property of the owner. The Write Technology Ltd. makes no claim on ownership or copyright of any uploaded images. Such images will form part of DPNow web pages and these are copyrighted, but this is only for your protection. We only reserve the right to feature selected photos in editorial articles, like Picture of the Day. We try to contact the owner to inform him or her of their selection, but in the case that we don't receive a response, we may feature the image anyway.

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DPNow.com Picture of the Day, Tuesday, 7th August 2012

DPNow DPNow.com Picture of the Day, Tuesday, 7th August 2012
H/URL] [I]Click on the picture to find out more about the photographer and how the picture was take... (more)

Pol Re: DPNow.com Picture of the Day, Tuesday, 7th August 2012
Thanks for choosing my "late middle aged with a happy but wrinkly face" as POTD. 'Late middle-a... (more)

Kev Re: DPNow.com Picture of the Day, Tuesday, 7th August 2012
Well done Pol:) You know i like smileys!... (more)

Pol Re: DPNow.com Picture of the Day, Tuesday, 7th August 2012
Thanks. :) Yours is a youthful, smooth smiley and mine's an old wrinkly one but a smile is ... (more)

Kev Re: DPNow.com Picture of the Day, Tuesday, 7th August 2012
They are infectious you know Pol! :):):):)... (more)