Incinerator Stacks

These are three dormant incinerator stacks are submitted under 'fine art'

because of their symmetry and tonalities. Your ratings and critiques

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 improve my photography.

Thanks! Enjoy! John

The repeating pattern is pretty nice, but the entire picture lacks kick. Maybe it's the tonality, but there doen't seem to be much contrast between the highlights and shadows. There are no hot spots which is good, but the scene is a little dull and does not jump out to the viewer like it could. You should try converting this to "gray-scale" and manipulating the tonality a bit.

In fact, I did exactly what you suggested. This is a NEF (Nikon raw) as a grayscale from the NEF version to jpeg and manipulated entirely as a grayscale image.

 

The image's strength, if it has any at all, is the brightness of the three twisted cowlings at the bottom, not the stacks at the top, which were meant to be washed out.

 

This was a photo taken from the north, and the sunlight never will properly illuminate this except in certain parts of summer evenings and mornings, for a 'bright' view of the entire stacks, but I was working with what I had, not some hypothetical and different photograph that might have been achievable some other part of the season -- say on the longest day for instance.

 

If you look at it carefully, and look at the entire photo, you'll see a full range of blacks to whites. There may not be many of them, but there is a full white on the twisted cowlings and they are just above full black. You can't use the palette of grayscale much more than that. I purposely placed emphasis on just those three bright spots . . . . and you can judge that for better or worse. I could have lightened the entire photograph if I had wanted to, but then it didn't look halfway interesting at all. This way, at least it looked contrasty enough to have been an early film capture -- or at least to approach that.

 

Best to you and thanks for your help.

 

John (Crosley)

"If you look at it carefully, and look at the entire photo, you'll see a full range of blacks to whites."

 

I do see a range of blacks and whites, but still the image seems subdued and a little dull. I'm not an expert by far, just giving you my honest opinion. This shot is very well composed, but maybe you should have tried using different filters to try bringing out some of the tonality that might make this picture stand out. For example, you could have used a light yellow filter(#6) to bring out the contrast. Moreover, a dark yellow filter(#15) would have separated things even further, A green filter even better. A red #25 filter would really have things jumping, so would a polarizing filter.

 

I don't know about your camera, but some Digital cameras have these filters already incorporated. However, you have to be shooting in monochrome mode. Try going back to the same spot and use the filters inside your camera, let me know what you find. Thanks

I don't know that I have 'filters' built into my camera, but I was shooting in NEF (Nikon raw) mode which preserves ALL the file data.

 

I then processed in Adobe Camera Raw 4.5 and used the color sliders, which is very much akin to using filters, as you suggested, and I tried a variety of combinations, although I did not just try to use one channel as you have suggested, which would be the equivalent of using a 'yellow filter' for instance or a 'red filter', etc.

 

This is the result.

 

I was much more interested in where the highlights were placed, not in whether or not the image was 'washed out'. I wanted the brightnesses to be placed at bottom prominently and to be mirrored slightly at top, which is what happened.

 

I do know how to do the things you have specified, with some degree of accuracy, but this just is not the image for that, I think. I have had some considerable success with using various channels for B&W exposures - for instance there is considerable discussion about the use of the 'blue channel' with a PN member under my photo 'Recycling -- Out with the Old, in with the New' (if I got the caption right) in my Black and White, then to Now folder, which many PN members have cited as a seminal discussion on post-processing give and take.

 

You might want to take a look at that to determine my skill level.

 

For me, this is a photo about brightness and dullness, and I was able to achieve both the brightnesses and darknesses I wished, but it never was going to be a stunning photo. I think if it had been a 4 x 5 or an 8 x 10, you'd see the results, or if it could be shown in a platinum print rather than in pixels, you'd get the point.

 

Stunner or just a pedestrian photo, I do get your point, but I have attempted those things and they didn't appear to improve the photo a bit; I tried lots of things and none seemed to improve the photo, alas.

 

But thanks for your continuing help. Perhaps if we were working elbow to elbow you could make a point more clearly so I could see the results better and get an actual RESULT that would please me, for that's what it is all about -- the result.

 

And at the risk of repeating myself, the columns (tubes) from bottom to top were intended to be rendered mostly gray -- to accentuate the brightnesses at top and bottom and how they seem to repeat, though separated by some physical distance.

 

I think your lack of understanding on that point may be our mutual sticking point; this photo was meant to be presented as a mostly black and gray photo with a few points of great brightness.

 

If I had to do it over again, I'd even tone down the columns more and accentuate the bright points at the top more, if it looked good after my post processing. At least I'd experiment to try that.

 

I think your suggestion(s) are very helpful; they stimulate me, and you probably can't imagine how many people read the comments under my photographs who get real pleasure and knowledge from reading them; I get a lot of positive feedback about them because they're very instructive, and your comment(s) have played an important role, whether or not I incorporate in the end your suggestions.

 

Thank you so much.

 

John (Crosley)

 

 

 

 

Further reading in 'theory' of digital captures, shows me that there is no 'color' at all in captures -- only colored filters over each individual spot on a receptor that blocks out all other colors, and then when color hits several receptors, the color is interpolated from the various receptors. In other words, all color is essentially re-created within the sensor's electronics and formulae for interpreting those electronics.

 

It's all just a flow of electrons, and even the color is just one more flow of electrons, but with coding attached to show the presence of color and also intensity of the color.

 

There are no filters inside my camera's processing equipment; they're in Photoshop.

 

I'm advised by experts that shooting JPEGs in grayscale not wise because one looses the ability to make manipulations later in Photoshop through manipulating color channels -- in fact I just read an entire book on it by a photographer named Alsheimer on how to shoot and finish digital in black and white.

 

If you are aware of 'filters' on a Nikon D300, please let me know; it would be a surprise to me. There is sRGB and Adobe RGB and maybe TIFF, and some variants and shooting in grayscale, and even post-processing toning in cyan and sepia, but no filters that I can see. I wouldn't use them anyway, but would instead shoot 'raw' and then post-process in Photoshop for the color channels -- it's well-advised according to my good and reliable source. (it was a very good book).

 

But color or not, this is a study in darks and lights -- grayscale if you will, and from a scene in which little 'color' was visible to the naked eye -- it was either too 'blown' out to the eye or 'washed out' or contrasted away by the bright sky, while this was in shadow.

 

Perhaps visors would have helped (and some color on the building's side.)

 

Yes, it's drab, but it would have been much more drab and less interesting if I'd shown it without dramatic lighting on the cowlings, bottom (and also at top where the pipes curve).

 

That's the whole point of the photo -- a play on light, rather than to show off these pipes/cowlings, although their symmetry does help greatly.

 

This is not designated my best photo ever, or even anywhere near that.

 

I routinely place my workmanlike attempts under critique review for all to see and evaluate. If you could have seen the color capture, you would have probably passed this one over (I'd probably get an 'A' for effort in attempting to rescue it!)

 

Just so you know.

 

John (Crosley)