gunung kawi rice paddies, bali, indonesia

Unbelievable! I have a picture from the exact same spot. Mine lacks the punch and feeling you have been able to capture. The reflections on the rice fields are just awesome. Great work!

...fantastica! Ciao.

Ok. : )

See here: http://www.photo.net/photodb/photo?photo_id=3409005

Except my camera, time of the day, and picture sucked. :)

I noticed you are going to MIT. I went to MIT aslo.

Jeff, you really did it with this one - I'm still looking to get a good grasp of these kinds of techniques. It's these kind of pictures that rekindled my enthusiasm for photography and imagery. Thank you.

Great image. I love the colours and the almost oil like texture of it.

So often people have asked me if the colors in my pictures are "real" or if the lighting was manipulated in PS. Or even more irksome when they point out there is a tilt to the picture. Like you, it's not about reproducing the scene photon for photon but about capturing the feeling. Our memories are imperfect as it is, what we remember most vividly are feelings and impressions, not that this leaf or that flower was a particular shade of ochre. And that is why so many people take such mediocre vacation photos. They figure that they have to take in all of a scene so that they can capture the grandeur of the moment. Unless one has access to a holodeck this is a pointless pursuit.

to everyone, thanks so much. it pushes me even harder to improve [more than the normal obsessiveness]. Yann, to be a little more exact, all of the parts exist but the whole scene never did, except in my head :) Richard - i'm glad to hear your sentiments about this i trust that many feel the same and moreover i trust that it will be taken for granted twenty years from now as valid as anything else.. of course people still prefer vinyl over cds, so who knows.. Xing, interesting, almost exactly the same placement. my light was not so different, originally. it's a little odd to me that by your comment you seemed to think that my picture was enjoyable but you rated it about three standard deviations below the mean... i guess i will just never fully understand how these things work [please do let me know though!]. anyway, thanks everyone - hopefully the next one will be better and not so overphotoshopped! I've included a small crop because several people have written interested in how this might have started, and several others might have prefered the original. I doubt it though!

PS was needed. Extraordinary art you did in PS.

I am still a begineer and i hope some day can di these thing with a good camera and some PS experience. I am pretty purist but I think some times we should use the technology we have, in this case PS made it.

It is a wonderful photo-art!

Great done 7/7!

I think stunning pretty much sums it up. But I do have a few more specific comments:

 

1. The choice of a square format. While the clouds and sky are pretty, I think they distract from, rather than add to the composition, and a landscape format would suffice. Here's why: The starting point for viewing this image is the foreground; they eye is drawn to the mid-range of the photo by the wonderful, diagonal, converging lines. from the mid-range of the photo one can explore the tree-line, but then I think the eye is drawn back down to the darker bits on the left, where once again, the strong converging diagonal lines bring one's eye back tot he tre-line/horizon. The sky is left out of this circuit, and therefore does not add to the compostion.

2. It looks overall too dark for me.

3. It needs more of a subject at the very center of the composition. There is not enough there for the eye to rest on, to explore.

 

There is a LOT of beauty in this photo. I encourage viewers to look at it "larger."

 

-Brendon

As I said thru email Jeff, this is an amazing shot, and I love how it made me feel. The drama and mystery are intense. Absolutely not documentary, but obviously not an attempt at that either. I only have a problem with 'Over Photoshoping' when one tries to pass off a somewhat documentary photo with substantial alteration, and then try to suggest that the image is 'how they saw it thru the viewfinder, and how the camera captured it.' It reality, even images that are unaltered rarely look as they did when one was standing in that spot, so they are already representations. I mean come on, Ansel Adams dodged and burned like crazy in order to 'create' his 'vision' of a scene, and this isn't so much different. Again, great photo art, thanks for posting it, I have been inspired to attempt something of this nature with an appropriate image, and can only hope that I have half the success.

 

Best Regards,

 

rjm

Lovely

thanks for the extensive critique- everything you've brought up has been on my mind.. allow brief responses:

1 - part of me agrees - but in numerous recrops, they all lost something i got from keeping such an expansive sky -

2 - it does for me also on one monitor, but it looks great on my other, better one.. when i place the photo on an entirely black background everything seems almost too bright for me. so i think this might be right, but i'm waiting for a print to really see how it looks.

3 - i had some in there.. i'm still open to finding the right thing.. but everything i added completely changes the feel of the photo, it's placidity, etc.. i have something in mind but i haven't found the right source material for it yet. i'll post if i do :)

best, thanks again - jeff

Well done. Congrats!

So much has been said here by others who know more than I, but I can say, having studied art, that the colors and darkness have the feel of a fine art painting. I'm curious to know what features of PS you use to do this??? Are they plugins?

This lovely picture is very much like paintings of Zdenek Burian. Are you familiar with his work? Great job!

thanks all for the comments- dl, no i don't use any plugins per say, it is just careful light work and color work, leveling, the usual suspects - i don't have a 'turn into photopainting' filter :) it's all slow handwork. marketa - no i hadn't seen the link, thanks for that! very informative...

I love this foto it is excellent work !I like all your works and i think that PS is wery useful:D

Almost like painting!!the lighting and colours are amazing!

Good stuff, Jeff. Your expression is a form of self reflection I can connect with and appreciate. Shopped to death, yes, but purposeful and no random act.

Preciosa foto, encuadre y luz perfectos. Enhorabuena. JAB

Encuadre y luz perfecto. Muy bonita, me gusta mucho. Enhorabuena. JAB

beauty picture, jitka

Jeff,

Wonderfull Photograph and wonderful Editing too... And Great Composition.

EXCELLENT!!!Best regards.