The Results of Our Puerto Rico Cave Shootout Are In!

Last week, we continued our exploration of Puerto Rico with our second shootout challenge. This time, we mixed it up a little bit with a guest photographer, and the results were pretty interesting.

As you saw in the very first Puerto Rico shoutout, Lee and I competed head to head as we attempted to capture a landscape photo of the Las Garzas Waterfall in San Sebastian. Even though neither of our photographs were ever going to win any awards, it was definitely exciting to explore a new part of the island and try to capture the best photograph given the horrible weather conditions.

In this week's episode, we brought in composite photographer and local Puerto Rican resident Josh Rossi. Since I completely destroyed Lee in the last competition, it was only fair that I should go up against the new challenger. As you can see in the video above, our new cave location present a whole host of different challenges and surprises. 

The Final Images

Although Lee and I originally thought this shootout series would be more or less centered around landscape photography, things quickly took a different turn as Josh brought his daughter along for the challenge. Josh's daughter, Nellee, has become quite famous for her Instagram Wonder Woman series and was currently featured in People Magazine for her kid-friendly portrayal of Captain Marvel. After figuring out that Josh was going to use his daughter in his competition image, I decided to mix up things by photographing our tour guide and local caving expert, Robert Moreno, in my own image. 

Here is the before and after image from Josh's shoot with his daughter.

Here is the before and after image from my shoot with Robert. 

As promised, we posted both of these photos anonymously last week asking you our readers which photograph you preferred. At the time of filming the results, my image was declared the winner with over 56 percent of the total votes. In the last day or so, the results have switched with Josh's image taking over 52 percent of the votes. I have a sneaky suspicion that someone, cough cough Josh, might have set up a campaign to sway the votes, but I think both images are pretty good overall. Neither of us are going to win any awards with these photographs, but I think they both show what is possible with a great location and a little bit of preparation and ingenuity. 

If you want to cast your own vote, even now after you know who took which image, feel free to cast your ballot in the poll below. Just remember, "Photo 1" is the image of Belle and "Photo 2" is the image of Robert, the cave guide.

If you enjoy photography and want to learn more about compositing, check out Josh Rossi's educational tutorials at Full Time Photographer. He has a lot of great resources on combining multiple images into a single photograph as well as full tutorials on some of his most well-known work. We also filmed a few other videos with Josh, including one on the business of photography that will soon be released on our YouTube channel, so make sure you subscribe to be notified of that video. 

I have to say thanks for Josh and his daughter for participating in this contest. With both of our images being so closely rated, we might have to do another head-to-head shootout soon, but in the meantime, I think I need a new competitor now that I'm 2-0 in the Puerto Rico Shootout Challenge!