aaronloutsch

... what a can of worms I seem to have opened here!

If it matters, although I asked the initial question that brought all this about, I didn't see anything Leslie said as being even remotely dishonest, assuming everything is taken in context. In every case I have seen it, questions of "real" color revolve around use of photoshop or other digital means to falsify reality, and I took Leslie's initial answer to mean only that - this is the actual color of the flower at the time it was shot and was not altered in PS. Changing the film you use, or the color of the lighting, or adding pigment to the liquid running down your drain just before you shoot it: these are all part of setting up the shot - defining your creative vision - and unless you're specifically presenting something as documentary, they come with the territory. I don't see the dye here as anything negative, I was just curious because I had done something like it in grade school, and this flower looked unlike any I had seen.

Leslie, after looking at the other shot you have of the same flower, I must say that this particular one is vastly better at capturing the intensity of the colors there, is much more dynamic to my eye at least, and ends up being much more striking overall. Pretty it is intended to be, and pretty it is.

Thanks Leslie.

 

There are two things I think may not have come across correctly in my original comment and I want to nip any confusion in the bud before they blow up. First, the "rank amateur" comment was clumsily worded at best - I definitely regard you as accomplished, and meant only that I was a total amateur and that it was nice to be able to honestly learn from people more accomplished than me instead of just sitting in awe while they remain silent.

 

Also, the dye-job question wasn't intended to detract in any way from the quality of the photo, but more to better understand how the nature of the subject was interacting with the lighting and the camera. Personally, it doesn't bother me one way or another, but I was curious having not seen anything like it in my family's shops.

 

Anyway, thanks again for the quick response.

Leslie, I read through your description above, and from someone who is admittedly a rank amateur, it's always nice to see some humanity and willingness to share in those chosen to have their photos put up here for a week. This is indeed a very nice macro, as flower shots go, and definitely satisfies the "just pretty" goal you were looking for.

 

I'm a bit curious about the color of the flower itself though. I trust that you didn't alter colors in PS or anything like that, but both my mother and brother are in the floral business and I must say I have never seen a spider mum with colors like that. In fact, I have rarely, if ever, seen a flower anywhere with that shade of blue.

 

So it makes me wonder - was this one dyed? I know you can dye many flowers systemically by freshly cutting their stems and putting them in water with food coloring. And that you can selectively dye parts of the blooms by putting only part of the stem in the food coloring. Is that what happened with this one, or is it, so far as you know, this color out of the ground?

 

-A

... and has linked to it in his "technical details" field up top. For anyone who hasn't seen it or much of Tony's work, go take a look; it explains the circumstance, the framing, etc. When you're done there, check out some of his other folders - he's done a number of explanation shots that show the setup of some of his work and they are incredibly valuable learning tools for anyone interested.

 

As for this particular shot, I'm with the rest of the crowd - awestruck, for the most part, and wondering what took so long to get it up here as POW. Whenever I show someone photo.net and try to explain why I visit it, this shot and its accompanying explanation are ALWAYS on the tour. In my opinion, this is likely one of the best photos on the entire site, and as convincing as you can get if you're trying to show someone that there really are some good, accessable, photographers here.

 

Thanks Tony, for the great shot, for the explanation, and for participating so thoroughly here. You're an asset to the site.

 

-A

When I first saw this, I was sure it was manipulated somehow, and after reading the details, I was pleased to see that it was relatively less than I expected. It's clearly an architecture shot, but to find anything like this in an actual building wouldn't make any sense.

 

Photoshop or not (I am by no means anti-photoshop, so long as it's good), it's a solid visual image, and one I like quite a bit. The diagonals leading center to the corners, the varying thicknesses of the vertical lines due to the perspective, the convergence of even the black sectional separators - all of it leads to the center of the image in a way that very much pleases my logic and math infused mind. It's so symmetric in fact, that it looks like an artificial scene from a sci-fi film.

 

Nice work.

I've been looking at your images, wondering why more people don't use kites to do their work, and it dawns on me...

 

hey, maybe the idea is somewhat original!

 

As I've said before, it's quite the take on a subject I've pondered many a time. Your other shots are, however, unique in the least. I love the kite perspective, and I love the selection of shots you show in your online portfolio.

 

Nice work, and congrats on POW. Hopefully, it won't be as ugly as it has been in the past.

 

-A

Good ol' anchor coral. One of the toughest and prettiest hard corals I've ever owned. I ended up selling mine when I cleared out my tank, but it was always one of my favorites.

 

From a species documentation point of view, this is pretty decent. It doesn't show the structure of the base but the detail in the polyps is nice.

 

If you're just going for something with a nice texture, you may want to crop out the top left corner where you have a little blackness.

 

Otherwise, a pretty nice shot, and a really nice specimen. How you are enjoying your tank...

The number of times I have flown back into SFO and wished I could figure out a way to get a cool shot of those salt ponds beneath me would be uncountable. It's great to see that someone has figured it out.

 

It's a naturally interesting place, given the colors, but you've captured a great perspective on it, and done a good job presenting it. The faux-digital frame here really adds to the shot in my mind, and points out the potential this has to make a real impact on someone's (hopefully a gallery's) wall.

 

Nice job.

This is a nice shot. The light is pretty, and the sky is really cool. A couple minor things in my mind would make it better, but none of them is huge.

 

First, I would agree with the previous comment that the sun on the left side is distracting. It casts a nice light on the vehicles, but it's so bright that my eye keeps getting drawn back to it without much to see there. The scene would be nice enough without it in the actual frame.

 

Second, the street seems pretty dark - assumedly because you had to compensate for the sun in the frame. I would like to see slightly more detail in the cars and road. Not too much though, because the focus should still be on the nice light reflecting off their top halves and the sky, but a little more would be good.

 

Lastly, I can't tell whether I would like it or not, but I'm curious to see what this would look like with a bit of blur/motion evident in the cars. It would obviously indicate that you're on the highway, but I'm not sure if it would help the shot at all. Just a thought as to what may be worth investigating.

 

Hope that helps a bit.

Definitely one of the best shots I've seen on photo.net and I've looked around quite a bit. I know the lighting is typical of the rest of your work, and as usual it's impressive. I also really like the elevated positioning of the model - it lends more of a message to the photo than if it were centered vertically. In fact, the only thing that holds me back from truly loving this shot is the pose. And not the majority of it, just the right hand. I like the pose in general, but the hand curving back around the left side of the head strikes me as a bit unnatural. It's really a minor complaint though - the shot overall is stunning.

 

Nice work.

Obviously, the legible graffiti is the center of the frame, and arguably the starting point for one's eye, but there's a lot more here that I like. From the smiley to the woman with the carriage, to the patterns on the steps and the plaza, there's a lot.

 

I like the contrast of the raw language with the assumed innocene of the children walking/riding on it, and the fact that the only english phrase legible in the scene is a vulgar one. The positioning of the woman is good, too - just entering the frame, emphasizing the fact that she will be walking right over those words.

 

For something that seems so mundane, I really like what you've done with this scene. Contrary to my usual comments, I don't see anything here that I wish were slightly different or improved. Nice job.

I wholeheartedly agree with the "eye of the storm" comment - and the idea that the white lines provide an anchor for the man in the middle. In fact, that's the first thing I thought of when I saw this, and hey, someone's already written it. Really nice composition.

SA -

 

Given your comment, and the timing of it, I'm guessing there was a misunderstanding about the previous comments. My, and I assume others, comment about the "distracting" cloth swatch was not referring to the floral print covering part of the model. In fact, I rather like that component. We're not just looking to see more T&A here. As mentioned in the notes of this shot, the original version had a blotch of gray cloth at the very top of the frame that didn't really fit with the rest of the elements and has since been cropped out (or was it colored in? I don't remember the original that well). As it stands now, my one complaint is gone, and I really, really like this resulting shot.

 

Contrary to your assessment, the fact that it's not very revealing and that it's in color (and what bright colors they are - the red-haired model is an excellent choice) make this photo both novel and interesting to me, much more so than a lot of the in-your-face nudes I have seen elsewhere on here. I don't want to see any more of her, I like this the way it is.

 

To the owner of this pic - nice job on the update. This version to me seems a lot stronger.

I like the tight framing on the shot pretty well, and that's a really pretty color on the snake. There's something about the lighting though - for me it's almost to my taste, but still a little too harsh. The shadows are a little too long, and the highlights on the snake are a little too bright. The off-camera setup is definitely a good idea, and creates a striking image, but I'm wishing you had held it just a tad higher to shorten the shadows a bit and a tad further back to soften up the highlights a little.

On the whole though, this is pretty nice, and probably much better than I could do... :)

A really pretty shot. I normally love landscapes with a polarizer but here it almost makes the sky *too* rich for me. Almost. As it is though, I really like the layers of light and dark colors - the creek, the lighter grass, darker mountain, lighter sky, etc.

The only thing that kind of throws me here is the placement of the two trees. For me, they're almost but not quite in harmony with the rest of the scene - I've got to imagine that there's another angle that would have suited my eye a bit better.

On the whole though, a really nice shot.

I like the perspective from the floor, but the chandeliers make me uncomfortable. It makes me feel as if this picture was meant to be centered, but isn't quite. If it was meant to be off center, it may work better if it was done even more decisively. On the whole though, I like this.

I haven't been in this hobby/profession/obsession very long, so take this for what it's worth, but on the whole, this is nice. I like the tonal range in it, and the framing is good as well - I like the fact that both the base and the tips are out of frame and the lines of the plant are more abstracted. To a certain extent, however, the subject begs to be centered, and the fact that it is a little off to the left throws my eye off a bit. If it were either cropped or recomposed such that the base of the plant was either centered or definitively off ot the side so that the lines from the leaves were bursting from bottom center or in a fan from the bottom corner, I feel it would work a bit better. Here's an alternative version with a bit of the right cropped. It's not totally centered, but close, and for me at least, it seems more pleasing.

... but I've got to say , this is one of the most powerful images I have seen on this site. Thanks for such a moving portrait of humanity.

The line formed by the staircase is nice, and I like the lighting... but I'm not too sure about the tree/arrangement on the lower left. I do think that that space needs something, and what's there is framed well, but the particular arrangement seems to me to be a bit too "noisy" if you will. The rest of the shot is smooth and relaxing, but something about that arrangement is disquieting to me. On the whole though, a very nice image.

Nice pose, good color combination. I like the hair, with the purple cloth, with the patterned blanket/cloth and the pale skin. In all, one of the better color nudes I have seen on this site. I would have to agree though, that the gray cloth swatch at the top is both unnecessary and distracting. On the whole though, much better than I could do, and from what I have seen, better than most on here as well. Nice job.

It's a cool spider, but as you know, the focus, DOF, etc. could definitely use a bit of work.