Nordhavn

I read above the following comment: "It's nice to know that great photographs can be produced through simple observation, planning and execution without controlled studio environments or the need for a plethora of post-production techniques."

 

Well, I'd like to be sure that you are right on this, but I'm hoping to hear from the photographer himself which post-production manipulations took place here.....

 

That said, I like this picture very much, and see it as a very interesting and clever way to present a metaphor of the fluidity of space and time in the real world vs. the (temporary) permanence of mind of all human beings living in this world.

This excellent photo needs no criticism, but re: the sign shadow....

the image is almost panoramic, in it's ratio and the separate elements; to focus the eye I might crop through the sign just to the right of the name. That also adds the possibility that the shadows of the woman and the sign crisscross - a bit of drama. Not that any change would be better than what you have right here.

"metaphor of the fluidity of space and time in the real world vs. the (temporary) permanence of mind of all human beings living in this world."

 

This concept does appear to my eyes, and it is precisely the reason why this picture fails to impress me: the concept can be reduced to words and therefore leaves us with nothing more than an intellectual approval: the concept steals and hides the emotion.

 

It can be reduced because it was preconceived and constructed not as a photo, but as an idea. Like all easy-communicating ideas, it is common and simplistic.. I can't dig any deeper so all I find in this photo is the pleasing but unsatifying feeling of a very well organised picture with little soul.

 

Cheers

Nice image...Cheers!

An absolutely striking photograph. What an idea for a background! Marvelous eye for an unstaged picture, or great planning. It makes no difference.

 

I can't help it but I need to crop the extreme right side off at the right edge of the sign. But then, mayby that is why I'm not a great photographer--I see an "unnecessary" shadow and want it removed.

 

Love the colors. Congratulations for being chosen.

 

Willie the Cropper

This is a straightforward, well executed, handsome, illustrative photo. I can imagine it at the top of an article in an expensive travel magazine, talking about the quiet pleasures of commuting by train, compared to driving.

 

"Soul" isn't always desirable...it often boils down to faked emotion. Ciprian produced something that would probably sell easily. A nice portfolio piece.

This photo does seem to have some curb appeal, probably in large part due to the colors

and the motion. But even on first glance a few things caused it to fall apart for me rather

quickly.

 

I am not saying that I hate this photo, but I think it's appeal are a few of the elements and

the wonder of what could have been.

 

The one thing that I do enjoy quite a bit is the woman and her shadow and these don't

mirror each other, but create the presence of two. The woman standing erect and static

while the shadow exhibits a lean and a bit of impending motion. But once I start moving

away from these two elements, I feel there are too many intrusions.

 

The first intrusion is the vertical shadow that bisects the blurred train on the left. We have

no sense of what this is and it is such a simple shape that it adds no mystery just a break

in the plane of the red streak. The second thing that I think diminishes the photo is the

awkward and relatively unattractive sign. The name of the stop grounds the photo in

place. I think I would almost prefer just seeing the pole, which might make me wonder

what it is and could also give some context for the shadow on the left. And then there is

the shadow from this sign--just an odd and awkward shape intruding on the space.

 

I think this was a great thing for the photographer to see, however, I wonder if it could

have been simplified. I think the photo in the folder with the blurred train and the person

leaning against the pole presents a much better example of the concept here, even though

I believe this one had the potential to be a more powerful photograph.

I�m new here, but I like the photo.

 

The photograph shows the temporarily-motionless train (stopped as a carriage passes), and an immovable sign (and its shadow) and stationary woman, no element affecting any other.

 

Yet, the woman�s shadow appears to be affected by, and responding to, the train�s passage. It looks to be slightly hunched over, due to the wake, and the lower parts appear to be coat tails blown to the side, revealing what appear to be real legs.

 

Perhaps Nordhavn is not an ordinary town.

I agree with most. Perfect composition, colors are great..nice image and easy to look at. Well done! Congrats on POW

Ciprian, for starters congratulations with your photo being POW. I agree that the simplistic rendering of colours, together with the "backdrop" in motion against the still elegance of the traveller makes this a very good photo. I especially like the simplicity of the composition, but that also create the obvious focus on all minute details of the image.

 

The main attraction for me is the vibrancy of the colours, and the basic limitation thereof to two basic colours. The shadows play another obvious and important part, and here I want to stand still for a while. I am not too disturbed with the sign's shadow, and it is obvious why the woman's shadow is curved (following the shape of the train design) - the non-identifiable shadow on the left distracts a bit, if I have to be critical. Mona mada some good points on why, but I want to add to that: beacause of the striking simplicity of the image, I feel that there should also be balance. And in this instance balance between the number of "shadow creators", and actual shadows. The image leave us with 3 shadows, but only two identifiable reasons.

 

Another element that caught my eye was the nice reflection of some structures on the surface of the speeding train. That ties all of this together with three "concepts" - that of movement (train); permanancy (structures) and the evanescence of mankind (traveller). Well done. Regards. - JH -

I've posted a blurred 'moving train' photo before, (blind man with seeing eye dog' in Amsterdam Centraal Station -- single photo, color folder), and this photo causes me to wonder about the shutter speed chosen, and whether or not there was some post production employed.

 

If this is a ICE train moving at what appears to be a speed enough to blur the lines of the train, a shutter would have had to have been held open long enough for the train to appear as a blur.

 

If the shutter speed were 1/10th of a second, that would be interesting to me, and if it were 1/1000th of a second that also would be interesting to me, both for what they tell me about my questoin.

 

Why?

 

Because I am interested in the rather sharp demarcation between the train coaches (cars) while there is the appearance of some substantial speed in the train cars. Are the train cars moving at substantial speed or is that an illusion from a shutter held open for a relatively long period.

 

If that is a function of a long shutter speed and a slow-moving train, obtainable perhaps by a very small apereture and the train's passing through a covered station or in poor light (to make a small aperture/slow shutter speed possible), that might explain how this capture could have been made naturally (without post-production on the coach junction).

 

But if it's a very fast shutter speed, I'm interested, if no post-processing were done to the photo, how the blur effect occurrd to the train, and it does not appear so strongly to the space between the coaches. Maybe I'm just wrong. I'd like to be told explicitly.

 

This is not a 'doubting thomas' type of post . . . I'm just curious, because as someone who takes train photos of this type from time to time, this is a technical point that is important to me. And, if post-production were used to make the break between coaches (cars) sharp, that should be pointed out, as it appears somewhat anomalous (but then sometimes I look at my own photos and almost disbelieve what I see though I pressed the shutter myself).

 

No matter what, it's a very attractive photo, and I'm envious (not jealous).

Leave the shadow - Photoshop the lady out

 

Kidding! A very strong and nicely composed shot. Subject matter is not interesting to me, but if you view it as abstract, it holds a lot more interest.

 

Keith

I didn't notice the shadow until I read Ciprian's request message, and even then it's not distracting, considering the other shadow, that of the lady, adds to the picture, this one kind of goes along with it. Don't bother with the shadow, Ciprian. Simply fantastic! I am truly amazed!

From another photo in Ciprian's portfolio the lady is definately a placed and dressed model. He is obviously practiced at this type of shot and looking at the uniformity of the trains the neat motion effect could be obtained without the aid of PS. With that amount of shadow and light I woul dnot be surprised if some ND filters were used to drop the shutter speed to a couple of seconds. I don't think the train was moving at great speed otherwise the model would be blown about somewhat. Very nice photo.

Simply clever, a good choice for POW. I, too, wonder about shutter speed & other technical secrets.

ps: someone was asking me (I don't know how rhetorical) why.. quote - "There seems to be a disproportionate number of good Romanian photographers on Photo.net. Wonder why?".

If this shutter speed were 'dropped to a couple of seconds' then the break between the two cars/coaches would not be a sharp demarcation but instead it would be not noticeable, I think, based on my experience. It would be a blur.

 

Similarly, a point I did not make above, my experience is that almost all such train coaches have windows, and it appears that these coaches are no exception, unless they are part of a dining coach or a baggage coach which are windowless in portions -- and if one cannot see the windows, that would indicate great speed, yet the sharp demarcation between the two coaches/cars indicates an almost stopped train.

 

Perhaps the photographer can answer the questions: What was the shutter speed, were there windows on the coach side facing us, what was the train's apparent speed, and if the train had more than slow speed, why is the break between coaches not a blur instead of a fairly sharp demarcation?

 

I am lead to the conclusion that this train should have visible windows showing, that if it had windows, they are a blur, and if they are such a blur, the train was really moving fast, and if it really was moving fast, the demarcation between the coaches is a Photoshop fabrication designed to meet our expectations of how a train should look (when stopped) not when moving at great speed (as this train may have been doing.

 

I did not look to see whether this photo is marked 'manipulated or not' and expect that the photographer, when he has a chance, will tell us directly.

 

Maybe there is another good explanation and my surmises are all wrong . . . I am prepare to be told I am all wet.

 

Re-reading the posts above, I suppose it is possible what appears to be a coach coupling may be a shadow, but it has the apparent distance between the coaches to be a coach coupling point, hence my conclusion that it is a coach coupling point.

 

If it is merely a shadow, then my surmises are wrong, but at the same time, then the shadow is greatly distracting and confusing to me at least, for in that case it would have caused me greatly to misinterpret this photo.

 

Similarly, I was confused by this train and with the sign's name being Nordhavn, supposed it might be in Germany, but with a red train, that also was anomalous, but I have found there is a town of the same name in the UK, and so I cannot state that it is an ICE train, as I did above. (I try to be the first to admit where I have made a wrong surmise).

I certainly think that this blackish vertical line is indeed a shadow, not a separation between coatches. But... I think a lot of people will be surprised before the end of the week, when they'll read what manipulations occurred here...:-)

 

There's a "black hole" in my understanding of light & movement when I look at this POW...:-)

The use of color and the contrast between the still person and the blurred background are what appeal to me in this image. Although the woman's shadow and the shadow on the left add to the effect, the sign (it's shadow) and the reflection on the moving windows detract from the still/blurred contrast by adding uninteresting and distracting static elements to what is otherwise a completely blurred abstract setting. Removing the sign (either pre or post exposure) would also increase the abstractness by making the blurr less identifyable as a moving train. Perhaps someone more skilled in PS would be willing to post such a version.

I am also wondering how a person could be so close to an apparently high moving train without showing signs of being "windblown". If one stands on a platform when an express comes flying through the buffeting is quite severe.

 

I am not being critical of the image as such, in fact I find it pleasing overall.

Do we know how close she is standing to the train? Without knowing the focal length of the lens used, I don't think that we can. A telephoto lens would tend to compress the apparent distance, and a wide angle lens would tend to extend the apparent distance.

 

There are a lot of things to like about this picture, but in my opinion what makes this picture really special is the woman's shadow on the train. That is just icing on an already very nice cake, but it takes this photo way out of the ordinary for me.

After writing the above, I noticed that the lens used was a 80-200 on a Canon 20D. With the crop factor, that means that a substantial degree of telephoto "compression" is going to occur even at the short end of the zoom. At the long end, the compression is going to be much greater. Assuming that the photo was not excessively cropped, I would place the woman at least twenty-five to thirty feet away from the train--but that is just an educated guess.

 

--Lannie

25-30 foot is a big platform - must be at a major station. She does not appear to be on the front edge and one would expect the sign to be set midway on the platform. Given the compression factor I wonder how wide the platform is ?

 

Even at 25 foot there is still some effect.

She cannot be 25 feet away as then her shadow would have to be very long to appear on the side of the train which would mean only the top portion of the figure would be seen in shadow. As it is nearly all the shadow is shown indicating a closer distance of perhaps 6 feet...?

The line on the left hand side is clearly a shadow from an upright and not a break in the carriages.

The middle grey section is clearly a mix of windows and carriage and even displays reflections from the windows.

Maybe 2 second exposure is too long a guess but only one person knows...

When otherwise common views are seen for the first time by someone, they are often misinterpreted/misunderstood.

 

I think that all the writers who find the shadow size too small or intruding or ..., do not understand the physical build and look of ICE trains etc and thus exhibit a desire to make a real world scene be changed in photoshop.

 

This photo shows exactly what it looks like on hundreds of european rail stations. The trains are curved up and down, like a sausage on rails ... etc. The seams between coaches are nearly unperceivable, ...

 

This is what the world looks like over there. Please do not photoshop or think of PSing this because you are unfamiliar with the looks! (And wish - maybe - that the european designs were different.)

 

And as far as the pic goes, it is a great artistic interpretation of the mundane in an otherwise very common place.

Wonderful - and - as photography ought to - a representation of our real world surroundings in Europe today through art.

 

Highest marks!

Turning my attention to the assertions that the 'woman in red' must somenow be be windblown because of train movement, if the train is very rapidly moving, that is not entirely clear.

 

Her hair is short, her clothes are form fitting, and one of her pants legs shows indication of movement in one direction consistent with wind movement, whether caused by the vortices from a fast-moving adjacent train or not is open to question. Indeed, if this is a Photoshop job, there is a question of whether this woman figure indeed is standing there at all or is a manipulation 'cut and paste' done very cleverly, but again, no allegation and certainly no allegations of wrongdoing as there have been no assertions one way or the other, and Photoshopping is not a 'black art' (I just usually don't do it, because I'm neither skilled not does doing it appeal to me).

 

Again, it will be interesting when the photohgrapher weighs in and answers our various questions.

 

Of particular interest, and not explained away by the length of the telephoto lens or the 'crop factor' is the woman's nearness to the train - even given the low angle of the sun, she must be very, very near, given that almost her entire shadow is cast on the train coach (but none appears visible on the platform -- am I myopic, or is that a PS oversight, kind of like occurred in that pioneering movie about videotape manipulation starring, was it, Michael Douglas, in which a culpable figure was 'erased' from videotape but the reflection of the figure was seen on windows in the room, having been overlooked.

 

Again, fun speculation aside, and making mysteries out of molehills, this is a wonderful image.

 

Playing 'photo detective' with this image is fun business, with absolutely no disrespect to the photographer, who has made no assertions, one way or the other about its 'purity' or lack thereof from manipulation, so far as I can tell.

 

I'll read what he says, when and if he weighs in.