Bikers to the Death!!!

Motorcyclists have a high accident and death rate. These two

motorcyclists (of color) apparently mock the danger of motorcycling

as they prepare to take off for a holiday ride recently. Your

critiques and ratings are invited and most welcome. (If you rate

harshly or very critically, please submit a helpful and constructive

comment/Please share your superior photographic knowledge to help

advance my photography) Thanks! Enjoy! John

Hi John,

where I think that the face of the rightmost biker is utterly interesting, I also have to say that the shallow DOF is quite disturbing.

It's somehow interesting to see this, because I also like to take these kind of pictures, with a focused foreground and a blurred-as-possible background... but something makes it not work as it should.

Maybe it's just the quality of the bo-keh and with a Leica it would have had another look.

The composition, otherwise, is terrific.

You have an interesting take on this photo. I personally thought the rightmost biker's face was rather uninteresting (but then I saw him without the mask and he was expressionless, and the same for the leftmost biker -- two absolutely bland characters). The masks helped make them.

However, I don't recognize the word bo-keh, maybe I'm blocked up this morning. Maybe you can enlighten me -- I'll probably be embarrassed when you do. (That's not a motorcyclist's helmet on the man, left, but an Oakland Raider's emblem which seemed out of place and accounted for my throwing it so much out of focus).

Similarly, this is a 200 mm with a D70 APS-sized sensor -- effectively a double portrait with a 300 mm effective focal length at a very wide aperture -- and I threw it as much out of focus as I could to make the Oakland Raiders emblem on top of the other helmet, which I felt detracted, obscure and unrecognizable as a football emblem -- it took away from the theme of motorcycling which otherwise was obvious, and brought in the theme of football, causing confusion.

I have a theme of double portraits throughout my portfolio, and it's in my Presentation in the making -- 'Photographers, Be Aware of Your Background', scattered here and there.

I posted another one, this one top and bottom, later this morning, which you might also see, this one with an ultra wide angle lens, indoors.

In preparing my presentation, I became aware of how I was putting together previous 'double portraits', and became more conscious of how to frame and pose them, and these are the first results -- I'm rather pleased. (It was a learning experience for me, creating the presentation and learning from it).

And if this photo is disturbing to you, it was meant to be; this is NOT a feelgood photo.

;-))

Thanks for the comment.

John

What I was referring to: the way Nikkor lenses treat out of focus area is bad. I have the same problem with wide angles. Edges are quite hard. The symbol on the helmet of the left guy becomes a white blot, which attracts too much attention without giving enough information to hold it.

Take care: I like what you tried to do, I don't like the result. This is more a fault of the equipment than of your skills. I also use Nikkors and I completely dislike how they behave when not in focus.

Coming to the guys: I believe that their expression, without mask, is meaningless. Otherwise they wouldn't be wearing that mask, since it's not carneval.

Don't take my critiques too seriously: I just point out minor issues in a photograph that I like, although it's not a feel-good one.

I'd seen the word 'bo-keh' used a number of time before -- thanks for the explanation -- there was no place to go for an explanation, and I'm probably assumed to know the answer, being a photographer with a few 'views' and some experience. I find there's no such thing as a 'stupid question' and am pleased by your answer.

I'm not sure, exactly, how any manufacturer's lens -- more than another -- can treat an out-of-focus area any differently than another except through the use of different number of elements in the aperture blades -- say nine blades as opposed to five blades or six for 'softness' as opposed to 'hardness' in rendering point light sources that are out of focus (bo-keh).

I know Nikon makes a portrait lens that through mechanisms allows one to manipulate the amount of out-of-focus area (actually more than one now) and I have one such lens, but I cannot fathom how, other than through aperture blades, or possibly through focal length change (here, remember this is effectively a 300 mm portrait) one is going to compare a Nikon and a Leica.

As a matter of fact, unless one is using a rare (or does it even exist) Leica Reflex camera, does Leica even make a 300 mm lens. A. It makes a 250 and a 400 mm, but they're so rare that they're for specialty use only -- landscapes and tripod use only -- certainly not for street use.

I venture that if I'd used my 80~200 f 2.8 or my 70~200 f 2.8 V.R. lenses at a lesser focal length equivalent and placed the subjects closer together that the second (leftmost) subject would have a different out-of-focus look entirely.

I understand your critique; I just can't understand using the laws of optiques as I understand them how it arises. Perhaps you can enlighten me, as my mind is open. I have Leicas also, although I seldom shoot with them as I dislike rangefinder focusing and dislike using full sunlight shooting so I can make maximum use of depth of field to avoid focusing at all.

I'm open to any observations or links.

Best wishes. Your comments are always welcome and very helpful.

John

Bruno, as to the 'eye' of the main subject, I had hoped for more 'expression' maybe through a glare or some squinting, but instead just got a wide-eyed openness. Maybe I was just more aware of it, since it echoed the look of the guy before he and his pal put on their masks, and the masks are 'the photo' but I'm hyperaware' and I'd put some expression in the 'eye' if I could.

John

This one really 'pops' doesn't it? It had all the elements for standing out and showing off its contrast, and I didn't waste it.

Often when photos are somewhat more 'washed out', I'll post them as such as it's natural, but this was quite different, and the DOF just added to the effect, making the rightmost guy really stand out, didn't it?

Thanks for the comment.

John

Here the 'contrast' caught by the special 'ED', excellent glass of my lens made for one kind of 'contrast' -- the kind of 'contrast' that contrasts one color or shade with an adjacent color/shade and is the result of a 'sharp' lens and good optics.

There is another kind of 'contrast' which adds to the effect and helps make this rightmost subject really 'pop'; that is the contrast between a really 'sharp' in-focus 'subject' compared to a nearly identical and more distant out-of-focus 'twin' standing nearly next to him, all very blurry. That kind of contrast emphasizes the subject's sharpness, as illustrated by looking even at the texture on the rightmost mask's textile surfaces which are apparent if one views the photo 'large', or if one looks at the blood vessels in the rightmost motorcyclist's near eye.

I've been studying how to successfully do 'double portraits' after some initial success in that genre, and today's two postings, shows some success in intentionally creating such photos with lessons learned from creating my presentation 'Photographers, Be Aware of Your Background' and the double portraits contained therein. At least I taught MYSELF something.

John

It's a ways from being finished, if it's ever going to be finished . . . I wish I had something like all the comments in my portfolio in somebody else's portfolio to refer to when I first joined Photo.net for the explanations, critiques and comments; including both photo comment and critiques then portfolio comments and critiques, and now the folder comments/critique.

I still wish other photographer were as open about what they did and how they did it as I am, so I could learn from them. I try to put forth what I have learned, partly so I can organize what I have done so I can replicate it at will rather than 'happen upon it' by instinct as I have so often (I have good instincts, I think, Thank God!) I'm very interested in the how, and how to of various other photographers, but they don't write about it, and so I'm in the dark. Some of them I know write e-mails to each other, and others write foreign languages and thus are handicapped, and I think -- among other things -- photographers in general (with many exceptions) about their 'art' are not particularly articulate.

I have tried to emulate the popular photo magazines -- particular the writers of magazines such as Peterson's Photographic and Shutterbug (allied) and other such, because they cater to the inquisitive photographer, and why else would someone be browsing the images than to enjoy them, and part of the enjoyment is to learn how the image was made or what makes it successful, which is how these comments and critiques are devoted to, I hope.

My 'presentation' 'Photographers, Be Aware of Your Background' taught me how to pose these two guys I passed on the way to my car from a brief stop at Santa Cruz's Boardwalk (1/2 hour) on July 4th.

And for the curious, I DID ask them to pose, and took about six photos, first of one motorcyclist (not successful) and then posed the two as a double portrait with various positioning similar to this, and this was the most successful, chosen by all who have viewed the four double portrait sample files.

I'm grateful for all my viewers, and I hope by these comments and the presentation(s) I'm developing, to give back to the community and contribute to it, rather than just make PN a showplace for my work.

I just wish other, more popular photographers would do the same more often, so I could go to their sites and learn about their photograpic processes. (Although photos should stand on their four corners, except in photos attached to journalism articles or as illustrations, the 'how' and 'how to' interests me greatly and PN is a vast repository of talent, nascent, developing and developed.

(For instance, how about if John Peri wrote extensively how he procured his models (not just the few paragraphs he has written) and how he poses them more than just the little bit he has written -- and how they react in detail, photo by photo. It would be helpful to the next person who has to deal with beautiful amateur models posing erotically for the first time, in semi-nude, nude and non-nude poses, wouldn't it. The same for some great scenic/landscape photographeers, portrait photographers, etc.

Worth thinking about I suggest, and maybe comparing commments among photographers; I'd appreciate an e-mail if someone has wonderful comment like mine that I might not have seen.

John (Crosley)