Hearthbroken

The good thing about different tastes is that most of us will find something of their liking on PT...

For me, this is a wonderful interpretation of the trigger word. Almost looks as if you treated this assignment as a conceptual one. However, having said that, I feel uncomfortable with a couple of aspects here. Your choice of DOF is quite good, but the placement of the ring seems too close to the RH side. I would have placed it in the vacant area in the RH bottom corner. Also, the in focus last sentence gives this too much of a deliberate setup look. Why? Well, "I'll always love you" seems too "nice" for a parting shot comment in a "Dear John" letter...

Ha! I had come up virtually this exact same setup, but opted for some other ideas. Unlike Peter, I like the placement of the ring. It seems to me the bottom left would be too cramped and make it too unbalanced. I also don't mind the parting words. I think it is very realistic (maybe cultural differences?). Well done PT.

I like the picture very much. Initially, I thought like Peter, that the ring should have been moved into the bottom right-hand corner. But now I don't think so. I think that doing it would have given it too much of a triangular feel. I much prefer the ring next to the name.

 

Like Tom, I have no problems with the text. I can barely read the line above that says "better for both of us", which gives the sense that she's just as heartbroken over the loss of the relationship as he is.

 

The only thing that bugs me is the ring. A circular ring would have worked, but a toe ring? It kind of draws away from the seriousness, the authenticity.

ahhh ... nice interpretation pt.

 

i have no problem with the ring placement or the content of the text and am *very* happy with the dof

 

the ring is a bit problematic for me tho' -would have preferred to see an engagement ring as this implies a broken engagement more than a broken marriage or relationship to me. but ...i suspect that our clever pt is adding one more broken aspect to this shot with the ring ...so is good here as fits our theme but would not suit a stock shot.

 

further suggestions? possibly a bit of colour on the ring alone might contrast nicely with the b/w and add emphasis. some nice reflections on the paper from light through a gemstone might look good too or maybe just a flash of light on the gemstone ... just thoughts.

Maybe, I don't quite understand the story, but you, please, help me. Is she leaving their home (hearth and home, "hearthbroken"?) returning him the ring given away? Is she going to another man (Dear John letter)? If so, then why is she promising her man love forever? Or, maybe, her man was "doing her wrong" and she's leaving him because couldn't stand anymore? Does she feel guilty? Or miserable? Or angry? Here the message is more clear (http://www.photo.net/photodb/photo?photo_id=705514&size=lg). I agree with Peter about the position of the ring. The high quality of the photo should be mentioned, too. Regards. Blago

Blago, have a look here. Make sure to also check out the do-it-yourself Dear John letter link at the bottom of that page... :)

Another completely different angle on this theme can be found here.

Terrific photo PT! I agree with the others about the writing, it is very well done and the focus is well placed. I like the line 'better for both of us', it helps us all make sense of photo and its meaning. Very well done, nice job.

This picture would be well nigh perfect, if it were not for that ring. It's clearly not a broken wedding band. Melissa identifies it as a toe ring, which is even worse than I had thought. It does eliminate any possibility of the image eliciting any great feelings of shared grief. Personally, I feel more confusion than anything else when viewing this picture.

Boy, what they said!!!! Outstanding...

All, thanks for the comment. PT is flattered by the praise for technical execution. This PT just got a new macro lens and this was the first attempt at using it.

 

In case someone is interested, I'll describe how this shot came about. Since the lens was brand new it took 80+ attempts to get it right; fortunately it was digital.

 

Original idea was to compose this with a ring and a key. Trouble with that was that the ring reflects side-light (more on that later) and so I either got the ring overexposed (highlights) or the key too dark. Also, since with key & ring in the composition I had DOF troubles, in the sense that I could not get a decent DOF effect on the text combined with decent sharpness or lack thereof on ring and key. And finally, because of being furhter from the text, the text became pretty much unreadable in a thumbnail version of the shot.

 

So, PT decided to drop the key and go for a composition with ring only. I still had readability problems with the text, which was originally done with a ballpoint. Decided to re-do the text with a felt tip pen and that helped.

 

Final problem was the reflections on the ring. This was shot in natural daylight coming in through a window, composition set up on a small table in front of a window on a sunny day. Table was positioned just on the border of the sunlight because we did not want harsh shadows. Original attempts were done with back to the window, compostion in front. The problem was that the harsh sunlight reflected badly on the ring, resulting in blow-outs.

 

Solution was to turn the composition 90 degreed (so the sunlight came in from the top left of the shot, rather than from the bottom of the shot. This way the bad relections are now in what is in this shot the back of the ring, so they're not visible. The little reflections/highlights we now have on the ring are from other windows at the shadow side of the house. Actually opened the shades to get the 2 bright spots on the ring. Since there was no direct sunlight coming in from those windows we got nice highlights without blow-outs.

 

Whole thing, including getting used to the DOF settings of the new lens took about 3 hours, including uploading into a PC and taking a look at intermediary results.

 

Final shot was one of 5 - by that time PT was fairly confident of the end result. The only difference was the focus point and the f stop. Ended up auto-focussing on the closest top edge of the ring. Since DOF is so shallow with the macro lens, it turned out that though the ring is further from the lens than the 'always' part of the text, because the ring has a heigth, the actual distance to the lense of top ring and 's' in always is about the same.

 

Post processing was a bit of curves. This was needed because metering was done manually on the hot spots of the ring to avoid blowouts. This resulted in the paper being a bit too dark so we bumped that up with curves. Changed the whole thing into a duotone, et voila!

 

Regarding the ring... I guess we have cultural differences here. This one actually is worn on a finger, though not as a wedding band. I ended up using this one because it has a sense of broken-ness, and because I liked the texture of the ring.

 

Regarding the text. PT actually wrote a Dear John letter (starting indeed with 'Dear John') and took it from there. The idea was indeed a relationship that went sour, in which both parties are equally hearthbroken. This PT has once been at the receiving end of such a letter, where one breaks up even though there's plenty of love. Some of you may find the text unnatural - it was pretty real-life for this PT. Could also be a cultural difference!

 

Hope this (long winded explanation) may help some of you with your macro shots.

Sorry PT that I didn't get to leave a comment yet. I really like this one and the care you took over the execution shows. I find the actual handwriting is very elegant and adds to the shot (felt pen maybe, but I had visions of something more classic seeing that the toning gives this a classic look). I think I might have placed the ring differently and also turned it so the break is further round to the right (back), but having looked at for some time I feel that as it is gives it a slightly unsettled feeling that goes well with the story. I like the simplicity - there's enough in it (you were right to eliminate the key).

 

Good work PT.

 

PS So I'm not the only one who shoots 100 shots for one upload? Wish all mine were this good ...

Thanks Peter for the Dear John links - PT is not only fun but educational too!

Came across another image in the PN database today, and it instantly reminded me of this particular PT effort...

In comparison, I think you did a pretty good job on this one.