Stanmer House Fence

A hand held night shot - 1/8sec, f3/5. ISO800, with 8 degrees of

left tilt on the lens (Mir 26B). The idea being to highlight the

fence and brick path. There are a couple of lens flares - how can I

avoid these when shooting toward bright lights at night? Is it

something that's avoidable or not? They don't really bother me and

seem to sit ok with the image anyway. Any comments on this, and

image a a whole, much appreciated. Would plain BW be better than my

sepia tone?

About all I can suggest with lens flare when pointing the lens into the light is use your hand as a shade block and make sure the lens is very clean as anything on the lens surface will flare. I do like that you have placed the sharp zone off to the left and running down that chain fence. I would be inclines to crop tighter on the left and loose the car ?

Sepia works fine here but I would be interested to see this in straight up B&W for comparison sake.

Thanks Gord. I also thought about cropping the car but I liked the little bit of tree line and the balance between each side of the paved area at bottom of picture. I think this is one I'd be better off repeating when a car isn't coming along, and I'll give shading the lens a go. I've got some more rubber pond liner here - think I'll fabricate a "stretch fit" lens hood.

 

 

here's straight BW version...

and in my camera, I just realised I took another shot. I've only had to do a very small crop on the left to remove a car. Also, this one seems to have focus sharper on left and I think it might be a bit better....

My two pennies would be; it looks best in sepia and I like it a lot more without the car in your second shot.

and I thank you for giving them to me :) Cheers.

 

Hi Pete, I think that Gordon's help was the right one, the crope make's it much better concentrared. the sepia IMO is better here and also in the other version. I think that the crop will go well in your next upload of the place as well. Nice night atmospher.

Well Pnina and Fred and Gord...I'm thinking more and more about the car, and more and more I'm thinking it should stay. My initial thought when it was mention that perhaps it was out of place was that it did look a bit wrong and distracting - old building, old looking image, and modern car. BUT, when I took the photo I took it knowing that the car was coming into view. Fred mentioned "film noir" and wondering who the car was waiting for....and the funny thing is, the car stopped alongside me and inside were a couple of uniformed and "fluorescent vested" security guards who just looked at me for a few seconds before slowly moving off. I think they wondered why I was snooping around there in the dark, as the house now contains some very expensive apartments and conference facilities. So there was indeed an air of "film noir" about it all! Fred, thanks for your comments on this picture - much appreciated.

I need to sleep on this now though....I like the picture without car and with car each for different reasons and now I'm in a quandry!

Pete, I think this is a very nice image. The old/new dichotomy created with the selective focus is very effective. I often find selective focus created by tilt to look too gimmicky given the preponderance of non-tilt images. It can look like it was done only to say 'ha! look what I can do'. But, I really like it here and feel it is serving a useful purpose in the scene. The sepia is lovely as well and goes with the whole feeling of the composition for me.

 

I like the crop without the car very much. But, I can see the merits of the inclusion of the vehicle and it does give the scene an entirely different feeling. If you keep the left hand edge, I might consider cloning out the sky. I find that the composition pulls me directly into the scene and then across to either side to see both the car and the old building. But, the patch of brighter sky really disrupts this balance for me and I find myself drifting up and out of the scene rather than focusing on the car and the night-scene.

Interesting that Ian suggests cropping out that bit of sky, when I was cropping your image originally, I had thought that if this was my shot I would loose that bit of sky to keep the border dark. I am conscious that I tend to have altogether too many opinions so resisted the urge.

 

I do understand Fred's thoughts on this as well. I think what you are seeing here are two very different approaches to your image. Fred is seeing this as a story and as such, the car is important, it raises questions and sets events in motions. Without it you have only a building and a fence and very little in the way of plot for a film noir. When I comment on this image I am coming from a completely different place. I am looking at this purely from a compositional perspective, I am giving no consideration to this image as a story. I see the car as a distracting element much too close to the edge of the frame and pulling my eye away from what I see as the strong points of the composition. To my way of thinking both ways of looking at your photo are equally valid and important and in the end only you can decide which is most important or whether you can combine both or a completely other point of view into this one. The nice thing is that, in the end, you have been given lots of ideas to mull about with your own notions.

Gordon, I agree with you about the nature of the difference with and without the car. The fact that Fred's portraits are always so narrative, and that often that narrative quality is their strongest feature, makes this difference in approach so interesting.

 

This is where I would work up both versions and sit undecided for a week or two. I must admit though, I think my heart leans to the no-car.

Ian and Gord, many thanks for further thoughts on this. I understand exactly where you are coming from re the patch of sky. In my "Stanmer House Fence second shot", this area is slightly smaller as I did a small crop on left to remove another car headlight. I thought the lighter area of sky at the top left sort of complemented the similarly sized darker bottom right corner, but I may be wrong and the sky is perhaps no more than a distraction. What does bother me a bit though is that the cloning is adding foliage that isn't actually there - I know this might not be such a big issue, but wonder if an alternative would be just to darken this area? Do you think that might work? I need to have a look to see if it's something I can do in PhotoStudio as I don't have PhotoShop!

 

Ian, what I'm trying to do with the tilt lens is to use it just for "artistic" reasons to create a certain mood and feeling and to produce images that could perhaps have been made with a view camera. Hopefully that is coming across. I do see a lot of pictures where there doesn't seem to have been any reason to use the tilt and it has actually detracted from what would otherwise be an ok photograph. But I also see many examples of where the tilt has been used to excellent effect on architectural and landscape photographs. Also, this Keith Carter guy http://www.keithcarterphotographs.com/ has some fantastic photographs where the tilt has been used to create something special. the images that don't really appeal to me are the ones that make towns look like model villages. I know it's interesting how this works, but I like proper model villages better! I'd like to do more portrait type shots using the tilt as these can work really well and I don't see many when looking through the postings on various forums. If you see something I have done where you think perhaps my use of tilt is wrong then I really would be grateful if you would tap me on the shoulder and say so. I can imagine it is quite easy to fall into the trap of using the same technique on everything in sight...

 

Thanks again to you all.

 

Pete

1. Sure, you could just darken that area. I think that would be just as effective.

 

2. "The images that don't really appeal to me are the ones that make towns look like model villages." I think that was the number one thing that came to my mind about mis-using the technique too.

 

I'll have a look at Keith Carter's site too. Thanks for the link.

Interesting debate. I think that Ian's crop has merit, even if to get the sky cropped, I would have cropped it even farther, in order to make an imaginative line from the lamp to the car...I still think I like the composition as suggested by Gordon. IMO works best .