new -- color & b&w 'Love in Grays'

This Ukrainian couple. in their mid to late '70s. has been married for 50+ years

and still is very much in love. Your ratings, critiques and observations are

invited and most welcome. If you rate harshly, very critically, or wish to make

a remark, please submit a helpful and constructive comment, please share

your photographic knowledge to help improve my photography. Thank!

Enjoy! john

Beautiful doble portrait!

Tones, detail, contrast are all spot on but the emotion aces it. Love the look on the woman's face, so proud! Great shot.

Very good!

'love the subject - gives hope. Graytones detail are superb.

I got my hair cut $2 fpr a superb job and $.45 for a wash, and after, photographed and walked past an older block building where this guy, a double amputee was, looking quite handsome with an exceptional face, so I engaged him, thinking I'd like a photo of him in his wheelchair, but the wheelchair was surrounded by cardboard boxes, so I decided to get closer up.

In order to win him over, I took a photo, worked it up in my camera and was surprised at the result with shadow/sidelight how it looked in grayscale, so I decided to stick around.   He liked it, and we talked.   I took a photo or two, his wife, two years elder, came by, and he talked her into having her photo taken with him for me with my urging.

Here he is almost lunging for the kiss.  I have another with movement artifacts, which are mostly not seen much here, but form a sort of vector which keeps this comosition from being quite so 'static' as it might be, plus it's got a good diagonal with his face's angle.

Movement, angle, and his just unfulfilled 'almost smooch' give this photo a little 'pregnancy' which is good for viewing, I think.

There's the circumstances; the processing just kept getting better and better in camera then in Photoshop.  The light (shadow and sidelighting) was a winner.

I invite you to look at the histogram; I doubt you'll find it on any book on conventional processing as it's far from 'filled out' in the main.  But it 'looks good' which is the main guide for me, and frankly all that counts from my point of view.  

A goal of filling the histogram may be good for sharp looking photos, but stopping short of that can yield interesting effects, which may be how those plug-ins get interesting effects you may not be able to duplicate except by 'mistake' sometimes. 

I'm saving this effect for another time.  I'm learning more and more about Photoshop, and for the future my posts should keep looking better.

Thanks for the vote in favor of this post, Sergio.   Best wishes.

john

John (Crosley)

I'm a proven Photoshop 'idiot' at least until lately as I've been tutoring myself my own way -- no layers, everything 'destructive' and one chance at 'getting it right' or 'start over'.

Why did I start out that way?  When Photoshop introduced 'layers', it didn't have the filters for layers I used, so why bother, and now I can manipulate well enough I don't need to go back and readjust, or just follow my nose and maybe discover something I hadn't visualized and 'follow the photo' and 'the processing' to its natural conclusion, keeping in mind, if it looks good and makes a good photo, it doesn't matter what I THOUGHT I was going to do with it, so long as it's good.

I'm an experimenter.

I'm thankful for your technical comment, but far more grateful for your comment on the emotion -- I pride myself on being able to 'work with people' who moments before were strangers and have them thank me with great big firm handshakes that crush my hand sometimes when I'm finished after only a few minutes -- and give me great thanks.  

(I'm convinced it boosts their ego to see themselves portrayed well -- just like 'movie stars' or 'celebrities' I think.')   Think if someone skilled like Annie Liebowitz made house calls by wandering around and sharing (No I don't compare myself to her, but I am better than snapshooters and cameraphone users and do know how to compose AND process 'on the spot', which pleases patient subjects.  Most patient subjects recognize and appreciate a good photo well taken, and that's a great reward, as is your comment.

It's a boost all around.

Thank you for the compliment.  The reward is photos no one else I think will ever get.

Whether good or bad, I'm not always certain, but I do make friends from time to time, and get stopped by people sometimes years later 'remember me?", they'll say, and sometimes I even do in a city of between 3 and 5 million.

It's a great reward.

Thanks, Scott.

john

John (Crosley)

Thank you for the compliment.

john

John (Crosley)

It's an interesting subject, the kiss that has not yet made it.

The grayscale was a 'work of art' that I almost happened on by trial and error, but now I can replicate, so now it's in my Photoshop quiver (or in camera processing quiver).

I like it very much, and will work on getting other effects that are not usual, but appealing . . . (I don't use plug-ins . . . can't afford 'em).

Bless you for a kind comment.

john

John (Crosley)

Scott Tyrell - .....emotion aces it. Great shot.

Love.

:--))

When I read your comment at first, I didn't recognize Scott Tyrell's name as the commenter above, so googled him which led me to his portfolio, which was wonderful and wonderfully abstract.

There's little comparison between his abstractions he does so well and much of my work which so often depends on facial or other nuances of human behavior often taken with micro fractions of a second to capture them.

I capture quite a few shots when I can, and the in-focus ones I try to sort for the best to work up, but sometimes there's only one or two good ones of a bunch because of low light, subject movement, etc.  Here there's subject movement, which I used a Photoshop 'tool' or action to minimize, but still kept because it gave this man's thrust toward his wife's cheek for the kiss some dynamism, which I value highly.

I'm glad you like this photo, Drew, as it's a little different.  If you look a the histogram, and judge it by 'standard means', you'll probably label it a 'reject', but it isn't at all; it's the ideal way to get this tonality and these subtle shades of gray, a lesson I have learned and will now be able to replicte.  Gol ahead, copy it and examine it with a histogram and you'll see, then you can share this 'trick' that usually is of the sort found in 'actions' and plug-ins and not in standard 'how to' books.

It was a great discovery for me, the PhotoShop idiot who's becoming now more conversant with Photoshop (but still does NOT use layers and doesn't even want to know how).

I do all right on my own with destructive editing, I think.  I can eyeball what I want without going back and tinkering.  If something's 'off' I can usually restart and get where I want quickly whereas with 'layers' you're supposed to label each step so you can recognize it for re-editing--a big time water. I'd rather start anew.

Drew,  Thanks for the comment, and pardon my delayed response; I hadn't checked comments for a while.

john 

John (Crosley)