Click... (no digital trick...)

great composition, I really inspires me, but how could you get the bright slide? did you had a small light box below it?

Well, the slide is lit from below. I cut several slide mounts appropriate and glued them together arranging the rest of the mounts around. Placing this above a fitting rectangular hole on the underground and using a small halogen lamp from underneath did the trick.

Great photo. You've got a real talent for still-lifes.

I am glad I came to see your work.

 

You have not only a talent for creating a photo but the ability to capture it.

 

I am glad I made the journey to look at your work.

 

I must ask the question, what are you doing on a site like this?

 

 

 

Mike Sea

great job. Very inventive. It would make a great commercial shot. You should market it to a client sometime. The cover of an anual report or something...bravo.

Good creative and original shot, and the color is very well used. Great job!

Great idea! I love your work.

Smart ! :-) A great picture to advertise for your work, too... Maybe I'd just suggest to brighten up slightly all the frame around the main slide. I'm not ignoring the fact that you are here creating a greater contrast than you would with my suggestion, but somehow, it would be overall fresher imo, while the contrast you are looking for should remain reasonably high... For commercial appeal, a tad brighter around the "winner" might be a tad better... Regards.

This is a smart photo but I think I'm going to have to put my comment under the "less deserving POW selected from a good portfolio" category. Actually a spectacular portfolio.

I dig it. The surrounding slide mounts are dull and gray, and then this color image punches right out.

 

Two things: I think the slide image could have been more recognizable, because at first glance it's hard to tell what it is. The striking color mostly makes up for this, though, I think.

 

Second, I was thinking a better prop other than the shutter release could have been. But I think you did a great job picking a light-colored prop so as to not detract from the main image with a distracting line.

 

ROck on.

 

Chistian's portfolio is very good. This one? Another controversial POW, since technical and compositional excellence is easy in these type of shots and idea is not extraordinarily original.

Great composition for a still life shot,

First of all, congratulations for this POW, which you certainly deserved. And side comment, I would think that your picture "Newton Laws" was even more deserving, or at least equally. Then one word about the composition - I see it as flawless.

Besides that, I would like to develop a bit on the originality of this image. As someone wrote above, this kind of image has indeed been seen before, and has often been used by commercial photographers and photo libraries to advertise their own services. BUT... Christian didn't use Photoshop - that's the difference.

Just to make things clear, I am not at all against using Photoshop, but the value of this image can't be separated from the difficulty of its (purely photographic) execution. Here is my point: there are 2 ways to achieve such an image strictly on camera.

1) Using 2 exposures, one for the color slide, and the other one for the rest of the image - which involves masking on the subject.2) 1 exposure only - which seems to be what Christian did... (Please can we have a confirmation on this ?)

The difficulty in the execution of this image is to brighten up the surroundings without affecting at all the color slide - if we are in case #2 - and it is the masking if we use a double exposure. All this may seem easy, but it isn't. This picture therefre deserves appreciation for "Cleverness", despite the fact that the idea isn't very new.

I thought this was worth mentioning because I have noticed that the difficulties of commercial studio photography - especially for still life images - are not always easily appreciated by those who are not well versed in this field. Christian Holst has an excellent portfolio in this speciality, and I feel it certainly deserved a bit more attention than it got so far. I'm therefore quite enthusiastic about this week's selection. May it lead more people to gain interest in such images. Thanks to the Elves !

Thanks a lot, Marc. You made perfectly clear what my opinion about photography is.

 

"The picture is created within the camera"

 

Surely, those effects can easily be achived by digital manipulation, but I prefer to work genuine. It is a real pitty that those efforts won't be rewarded (normally) nowadays, cause everyone will think "ah....photoshopped".

Usually I take the photos according to my understanding of photography and to my own pleasure, not to win at contests or sell.

 

For this one I cut the picture neighbouring slide mounts appropriate and glued them together in such a manner that a "light channel" was created. Underneath the grey background I placed a small dimmable halogen lamp. This setup I put into a "light box" with white walls to achieve the soft lighting effect, especially on the shutter release...

 

 

Maybe I will create a folder with digital alterations, someday....

I just spent a few hours yesterday purging about 70 slides, so I can relate to the selection committe's comment about keepers. Simple image, but only in appearance, which is why I think it works so well. Nice image.

We see so many photo's that not many stand out as truly inspiring. This photo is one of those that are inspiring. Thanks for sharing.

Hm. The compasition works well here but Im not sure what Im seeing in the frame. A flower? . Interesting.

Wow. One of the things that I can honestly say frustrates me the most is that in this wonderful day and age of photography and computers, is that there is a lot of effort being used to make photos that aren't real. When one like this comes along, I must say that it is very refreshing to see someone out there still trying to use the original media of our hobby/profession. I think that this photo captures the essence of a debate that I have been having with others in person about "Photoshopping".

 

Although retouching of photographs has taken place for a very long time, I personally feel that "Photoshopping" the hell out of a photo is not photography; this is not to say that it does not take skill and/or artistic vision. Far from it. I, for one, do not feel that I have anywhere near the Photoshop skills that I have seen other display on this site.

 

But I do have this to say about it: while I do admire the artistic visions in "Photoshopping" _it is not photography_. It is composite art.

 

What I see here is a beautiful example of photography, one that I enjoy looking at, one that inspires me as a photographer. It helps rekindle my faith in pure photography as an art form.

 

If I have offended anyone, please forgive me. These are my opinions, and my opinions only.

 

Excellent photograph, and I am truly enamoured by the composition of this photograph. I look forward to seeing the rest of your portfolio.

 

-J

I love this shot, whether it be digital or totally in camera (as it is said to be). I don't really think thats important. Its more about having a vision and then finding the tools to actualize that vision. If ones vision is beyond the realm of pure in camera photography then digital becomes an obivious option. One still has to have the vision.

 

To say I am better than you because I just use my camera is silly. I enjoy this image, as an image. The camera, film, lens, digital manipulation. . . they are all just brushes and paint. But I would dare challenge Christian to embrace the digital world, with his fantastic creative vision, I wonder what he could create with so many new brushes and colors of paint to choose from.

Since when simple photos based on an idea beaten to death and not even well composed are recognized as strong photographs???

 

It does not even, even based on a good arrangement, geometrically (i.e. compositionally), the fact that the slide is lit from below cannot be its saving feature - so what if you lit it, not cut and pasted in PS - the result is simply not inventive.

 

The author is a good producer of pictures of only ornamental value - not humanistic, or philosophical, or make-believe, or ... - and other images in his folder are of better quality.

Compositionally and thematically I love this picture. There is one thing that bothers me though - the slide mounts are grey. Perhaps these ones really are grey, but all the slide mounts I've dealt with are white (or white on one side, black on the other) and this strikes me as an underexposed photo. Kind of like when I forget to dial in exposure compensation in my winter landscapes. Looking at the rest of your portfolio, I know that this is not an exposure error (your other photos are all exposed perfectly) - you intended for this to appear this way, probably to make the backlit slide standout better. To my eyes though, it just makes the background distracting. I think (could be wrong here) that the back illuminated slide would still stand out against a lighter background just because of it's colour and saturation. I'd be curious if you had any other exposures where the background mounts were exposed a bit brighter. BTW - I'm really glad I looked through the rest of your portfolio, truly awesome and inspiring work there.

Very creative, and very well executed. I love the lighting and the contrast of colors. But I really think that cable release is way out of context, though, which gives the work a contrived feel. Maybe a loupe...but then, that suggests it might have been more coherent yet if the empty slide mounts were mounted slides instead, still with just the one illuminated. Easy for me to say after the fact, I know.

Great shot! I wish I had imagination like yours...

A photographer's photo. From a photographer for photographers about photography.

 

For the rest of the world it's probably just a nice eye candy.

i like this shot very much, not surprising since it is a POW. i wonder how it would look if all the other slides had shots in them that are dull looking and just as grey. then only the one is illuminated...sort of like, thats it, thats the one, the perfect shot.

i still very much enjoy this picture and am happy to see its not just some simple photoshoped image.