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very nice, i like it! long time no see, jeroen!

incredible! while i see why some ppl dont like the centered bldg, i'm a fan of "shoot it as i see it no photoshopping it out" school of thought, and find this picture fantastic as is, because of the framing

i wish i could. for sake of simplicity, i carried only one lens, 28mm (normally i'd take the 50 along but i wanted to go light: one body, one lens, film. last year i had 2 bodies, 2 lenses, and even more film which was a bit annoying in the close crowded spaces).

well, the title says it all really, the Maserati 4200 GT Spyder, a 2 seater convertible italian exotic with a body by (i believe?) pininfarini or guigario. runs 6 figure $$$ i think, or pretty close to it.

composition-wise, i'd try to place the handle of the cup lower into the corner, making a diagonal. lighting is awesome tho!

i dunno, even film will have moire if you downsample the image to web use dimensions (been there done that). that said, this is the most unique take on the ubiquitous WTC shots i've seen! Well done, pity you can't do it anymore.

is that what looks to be the inlet (compressor) side of a turbocharger? If so, that is *HUGE*.... can't even begin to imagine the turbo lag until it gets going! or, given it's position down low right about where the crank would be (and viewing the rear of the engine), could this be a supercharger or sorts, driven directly off the crank like a flywheel, a low speed high volume thing?

very nice, esp. since it's in b/w where the tonality is enhanced. 02 camry, SE trim level if i'm not mistaken. nice car, got one m'self.

those are real mountains? man it looks like a steak knife under a microscope!

oh yeah! definitely a rockin' good concert, no doubt about it. Great angle, nice idea to distill the image down to the basics tenets of the event by boosting contrast up the wazoo. Could do double duty as an album cover, or promotional material or a T-shirt even! Ditto the other comments about lots of energy.

it's the colour that makes this shot, in my opinion. for starters, great composition using verticals on the thirds and diagonals cutting across them, and then this colour scheme, which is slightly odd, but at the same time, conveys some sort of tension, like the copper glow is from all the smoke from a nearby fire meeting low angle sunlight (we get a lot of that 'round here). All said, my favourite picture in the folder!

I like the cropping you show a LOT, it's fantastic and well captured. As for the solarization, i'm not sure. Maybe try to get this shortly before dawn or after dusk, giving the nice purple sky to contrast against the street lamp which would, at that time, still be lit?

as to what it is, this is the new chemistry building at UCR. Looking up from the "basement" level at the steel (?) beams coming out from one side along with the steel support wires. One corner of the building, instead of just a 90deg corner, is cut in, so there's three smaller 90deg corner, the glass column forming the middle corner. steel beams/wires go from one brick end to the other brick end at 90degrees. I tried to get the lower set of beams to line up (and thus hide) the higher set of beam to a certain degree.

 

Seven, yes, I was going for the verticals and shadows, the horizontal lines are just there for company :)

 

As for balancing the composition, trying to do so, i'd lose the shadows from the beams, the item which attracted my attention in the first place. I tried other angles, they seemed more cluttered and weak compared to the strong lines from this viewpoint. I suppose with more time I could explore other options and focal lengths...

OK, so maybe camera isn't quite level (hard to do that with a wide unless using a tripod; this was handheld). Otherwise, is the composition ok? anything I can do to make it better? Taken on one of the few "blue" and clear skies in southern california.

interesting idea wes; in fact, i was waiting to make sure no one was in the centre (ppl were walking up and down the steps)--never occurred to me to make them part of the picture

the tele had its own monster of a tripod, weighed a good 30 pounds or so... however, there was still quite a bit of "slop" in the drive system, and i was utterly new at the game (i had bought my slr earlier that year, and then out of nowhere, i manage to get permission to borrow the school's telescope; not having much of an idea regarding these things (and not having much of net access back then either), i guesstimated and shot). Exposure was likely a derivative of the sunny 16 rule, so your guess of 1/500 is as good as mine! Maybe this winter I can get permission to borrow it again, if skies permit :)

 

either way, i'm pretty proud at the result: my first attempt as teleastrophotography... the only substitute for know-how and skill is pure luck and sheer film burn rate. I shot an entire roll on that night (one roll might not sound much to some, but to a student, it's not an inconsequential amount!)

i have no idea, honestly. as soon as i saw this, i rushed in the house (fortunately, i had brought camera and lenses and tripod to a family bbq we were visiting cousins), set up outside in the middle of road, and shot frame after frame after frame, trying all sorts of aperture/speed combos, on 50 and 200mm lenses. i think i blew thru an entire roll's worth and ended up with 2 decent shots. My fav is this, the closeup, but i included the wider view to show what it looked like (the real life version was just gorgeous, esp thru binoculars).

hmm good idea. i'll have to take someone along with me to assist in said endeavors since this was taken at an outdoor market thingy. this stall was stitching names etc onto baseball caps. or maybe i could get there earlier next time, get some twilight to do the fill.... thanks for idea, i just might try it again!

hmm. was the camera on a tripod? that might account for some of the blur. and as for focus, at I dont both to check thru the viewfinder for focus (i'll check the composition, see what's visible in the frame), and then just turn the lens ring all the way to infinity and be done with it. every few exposures, i check to see anyway to make sure it hasn't moved (tape looses stickiness out in the cold, and camera bodies/lens will get cold!)

 

if you weren't using a tripod, i highly recommend one; if not, lying the camera back flat on its back is always a sure bet in terms of stability. if you want to lean it against something, to to lean it near vertical or horizontal, so it will be stable and not tend to slip up.

 

another idea that occurred to me is that you can use a white cardboard piece, curve it around your lantern to use as a reflector, then you can walk around lighting up what you wish. as long as your lantern/reflector jig is ALWAYS facing away from the camera, you can walk in front of it and not have to worry about your body being visible in the picture (longer exposures work best). for experiments' sake you can practice with dirt cheap fast film, which for me happens to be fuji superia xtra 800, from walmart in 4pack of 24exp. have fun, lemme know if i can be of more assistance. I used to do more of this outoorsy nite photos, but the awful weather here is never clear :(

ah if i could! I was visiting houston, happen to go into the engineering building, saw this, and snapped it. but yes, sure would make a doozy of a whatchamacallit to have in the living room. i'm not sure if you can tell, but this thing is pretty large, 4 feet across i'd wager.

wonderful backlighting, the translucent flag is gorgeous, with the sun shining through from behind the field of stars. i'd try to have framed this witht eh pole further to the right.

what perspective is this that manages to make the us flag fly lower than the others when normally all others would be the same height or lower?

was this shot wide open? on one hand i'd like less depth so that the background is more blurred, but then it seems the depth is downright shallow yet i can't make out the plane of focus: his shirt maybe? anyhow, awesome lighting. as far as composition, maybe move to your left a bit, so that the lamp behind him doesn't look like his helmet! maybe a stop slower on the shutter, to capture the fluid movement?

a few things:

 

the first thing that strikes me is that perhaps the lens was not focussed at infinity (the larger than pinpoint stars are the clue). if you can set the camera and lens to manual focus, do so, and then use a piece of tape, or rubberband over cloth around the lens to make sure it stays locked at infinity and not drift or move out if it gets bumped.

 

second: WOW that's a clear night!

 

as for lighting up foreground, skip the flash for now. use a flashlight and "paint" what you want to illuminate. wrap a single layer of tissue around the lens of the flashlight to make it slightly more diffuse. you can try the flash as well, same trick to put a diffuser on it, and stand well back before popping it. also increase exposure time to a few seconds so that any dust/pollen in the air is not "flashed" into the picture. you might need to try slower film speed to get longer exposure without stopping down too much (diffraction). hope taht helps.

Actually, I found it exactly as pictured! While I was wandering around the back shop/prep area of a dealership awaiting our car, I saw this across the street. I got as close to it as I could, up against the dealer's fence, zoomed in as far as it'd go, and snapped one or two. I think the camera had trouble focussing or maybe I used digital zoom, which really softens up things. But you're right, this is definitely worth another shot, and I'll go for it tomorrow since I have to drive down that way anyhow. I guess someone with a sense of humour took the doors from the many dealers in that immediate area and set them up. Hopefully it's still there :) Thanks for the feedback :)