lucas_griego

Damn!

Knew I should have gone to school! ;-)

Very cool.

Andreas,

Your invested work shows. Overall it's a fairly nice shot. For a critique/comments it'd have to be as follows:

1) The light 'creep' or 'bleed' over the top part of the bottle could be corrected. I am not sure it was intentional. It might work for a very soft presentation though. Sometimes the way fragrance shots are done is similar - but I'd want to see it fairly consistantly throughout the subject.

2) The reflection of the bottle is a bit strong. It might not be bad if the entire reflection showed.. but when it's cropped off like it is - it seems a bit odd. Your eye never get's the rest of the image it expects. So it seems fairly abrupt.

I am not sure what it's shot on but you might try dulling the surface to get a softer reflection (Is this shot on a Perspex surface?). The hard reflection seems to be working in the opposite direction of the general feel of the shot which is soft and feminine.

3)You might try a version popping the shape of the bottle out of the background just a bit more. Slightly more blue behind the bottle to contrast just a bit - back up the bottle with a cut-to-shape piece of white or reflective material.... or black cards on either side might work. Casting a very slight black 'reflection' on either side of the bottle. Though this will involve some work either pre or post shot to get rid of possible reflections of the black bounces. And as well maybe the harder edge might not jive with the soft feel anyhow.

Over all the shot is nice - minor things in terms of photography. Major things in terms of 'commercial' photography. An Art Director might say some similar things if it was for an ad.

I like it. I am always glad to see people posting this kind of work. It's not easy and takes a real patience. Your effort shows.

Was this for a client or a personal project?

Hool,

Too funny here man..

Couldn't stop laughing at this one!!!!!

And some of the comments only make it funnier...

'Was it set up?'

No.. most laundromats have bearded guys with their mouths pressed against the glass at the end of several open washer/dryer doors! It's a standard feature!! ;-)

Or...

Mark Smith's comment as the face coming across as not 'appropriate'..

ha ha ha.. this made me laugh as much as the original shot - 'APPROPRIATE?!?!?'

I'd like to see this shot with some hot lookin' tramp and her 900cc's of silicon pressed up against the glass!!!! But err.. maybe that's a personal preference!!!

ha ha ha.. what's appropriate??!?!

GREAT SHOT!!!! TOO !@#!@# FUNNY!!!

Thomas,

For motion shots and capturing a mood - this is as good as they come. The colors are intense and saturated. Parts in motion have the 'right' amount of blur and the faces are still there enough to have a very human element. I'd love to have a shot like this in my book.

Kudos to you. ;-)

Great tonal range here.

Really picking up the subtleties on the surfaces here.. well done.

Would like just a bit more breathing space on the left hand side crop. Maybe just a personal thing... other than that...

Found it exceptional. ;-)

Robert,

Really nice job here.

The kind of a shot that is piss easy to blow.

In fact I probably would have.

The DOF is working.. the composition works.

Definitely capturing a moment... funny how an image like this.. very simple.. but showing a secret little door into a brief second in your world and time and theirs can still stoke me!

Inspiring man. ;-)

THAT GORILLA IS YOUR BRO?!?!?!

I guess you know how high to jump.. and when! ;-)

Seriously though,

I think the shot is radical. Intimidating, Spooky, Menacing..

umm there are a lot of words like that you could use. In a way it reminds me of the Mexican masked wrestlers.. ha ha... long before the WWF or whatever it is these days.

Shot's cool man. Very cool.

Ha ha.. Ken your too funny man!

You live in the one of the most interesting and exotic places on earth!!!! I'd give up Hong Kong for Bangkok any day.. if I could just figure out how to make a living there! ;-) Though I'd have to empathize with you regarding the whole love/hate thing... that's HK in a nutshell for me!

Ha ha..

Marry, A very effective solution to solve some of the problems one could run into using the original. Much credit to you for posting that!

Tom,

I find the exposure fine... but...

For me this still comes across as a bit tame.

I don't sense any tension here.. not in the ropes and not sexually. I do like a lot of your work - but I find these to be timid.

Let's face it - to find good rope work one simply has to log into google and do a search and one can come up with 'brilliant' rope work... so I find myself just a bit... err... ho-hum about this shot. It just seems it couldn't get any more static or predictable. I won't say more than this as I haven't posted any of my bondage shot's here just yet... so anyhow - there goes my .02 cents!!

The following is a good japanese site for bondage work:

WARNING!!!!!!! NOT FOR THE FAINT OF HEART OR THICK OF MORAL FIBER!!!!!!

http://www.nn.iij4u.or.jp/~sm/main.shtml

SO DON'T SAY NO ONE WARNED YA! ;-)

(Doesn't matter - 99% will check it out anyhow!!!! And if you don't check it out then there is no reason to bitch about how wrong it is - right?!?!)

Cristobal,

THIS SHOT ROCKS!!!!!

To speak plainly... you'll have a fairly hard time to get anyone critiquing this shot to be able to post a better one in terms of composition, expression of subject and overall mood and dynamics!

His intense facial expression along with the big fat Epiphone or Gretsch that he's tweeking into... ha ha... SMOKIN!!!!!!!!!!

Congrats... damn I better get with the program!

Jonathan,

You ask... "Does this work?..."

Coming from someone who's done a fair bit of front-pointing himself (WI-6-Grade 3 etc.) and spent way too many hours flippin' through Rock & Ice, Climbing and countless other climbing mags... No it doesn't work...not really.

I'm not being negative here, so here's why I don't think it works:

1) What's he doing may be a hard move..

But you haven't made it look hard. It looks pretty non-vertical. It's got no sense of scale.

And there isn't any look of tension that might say he's gonna pull a screw, or he's coming off... or all he's got is a mil of crappy ice.

2) You can easily see he's on a top rope so how hair ball could it be? Anyone who's seen R&I on the newsstand would not be that stoked with this shot.

3) You don't see his tools. Or his hands.

So without your title people might think he was ice bouldering or something. ;-)

4) The exposure and the sharpness both seem a bit lacking. Some of it could be the scan.. but it looks like the light is fairly overcast which means you won't get the brilliant crystal ice that you may have seen in the mags.

5) The dark stuff at the top of the ice is distracting. And it cause your eye to go away from the climber.

All that being said -

This kind of stuff is prime for getting good shots - rip a page out of rock and ice and emmulate/copy it. It's a great way to learn.

Get your friend on something vertical. And try to get some scale on him. If you know what's up with self belays and anchor systems. Get up above him while he's moving. 90% of the shots you see in the mag are shot this way.

I didn't notice the effort you put in by framing him with icicles. So that was a good move. It's just the kind of thing though that either works 100% or doesn't. Here it doesn't. But it has more to do with the actions of the climber than your concept of framing him. Which was cool.

Anyhow - post some more stuff.. why not.. it's a great exscuse to climb! ;-) And this is a good start for this kind of thing... with a bit of work you'll have some bomb proof shots.

Ciao,

Luc

Hot Hot Hot!

Nice concept. Nice result.

When seeing this as a thumbnail it easily smoked the rest of what loaded on the page.

It's very graphic and let's face it.. most peoples eyes (only mens?) have been trained to make a beeline for nice legs in stockings!

Nice to see someone else shooting on the RZ and posting here.

Inspiring!

Thanks for all the comments everyone.

Very encouraging to get such a positive response!

RE: Graham Byrnes - I had some thoughts about the chain as well. In the end I chose to go with it as I was trying to emmulate the Hurrell type of a shot. Which is rather theatrical. I think I ended up with a kind of hybrid shot... and older style of lighting and a new subject and props.

Interesting what you said about the 'street kid' thing... I grew up in a fun little place called Logan Heights, San Diego-CA.... as a kid down there anything was fair game. Chains, tire irons and the odd King Cobra bottle included. In LH anyone pulling their shirt sleeves over their fists to get down would've gotten smoked. ;-)

I will be doing some more shot's in this series.. and will post when I get a chance.

Again thanks for all the comments.

This shot is a real nice one.

The subjects couldn't possibly be any sweeter looking if they tried. They have a life probably a million times harder than mine in a lot of respects yet they can manage a genuine smile. Endearing.

Ha ha.. thanks for the comments so far on this shot!

Tim -

My friends and people in my part of town have learned not to bring their girlfriends, wives, daughters or grannies near the studio... and maybe for good reason...

It's crazy man.

It's just nuts I'm tellin' ya!

;-)

Sarah,

I won't echo the filters comments above that I agree with but my other point would be from a graphic design and usability standpoint.

For a logo, if they use it on letterhead, b-cards, signage etc... they will run into problems down the road with your image.

If they plan to print 4/C process (four colors that they use for offset printed items) this logo could end up costing them quite a bit of money and them and you some headaches.

Here's why:

They will have to find great paper (good ink holdout with little bleed or dot gain) and a good printing house running their presses at higher than 133 lpi (lines per inch) to keep all the detail in this image when it goes down to 2" X 3.5" (standard b-card size) or a bit smaller to fit with type and info on the card.

As well this probably won't work for something like a phone book of which most are black only. And the size of most ads in phone books are small as well. So you definitely have to translate it into a B/W only version. Invoices usually in triplicate form are only a singel color for most company's as well.

Again think of their whole system - envelope letterheads are rarely printed in 4/C... it's just to expensive for something that ends up in the bin. Most people don't even have 4/C cards.

From a 'pure' design standpoint most logo's have about 15 seconds to communicate it's meaning to the viewer. With this one I'm not sure what message you'd be sending. .

What I mean is that it's not very obvious right off what this logo is for - could be an artsy italian restaurant, a line of aroma therapy oils or a facial/treatment spa.

A logo should be fairly well able to stand alone and still communicate it's message. I don't get any of that here.

All that being said is not to discourage you..

You have a good start at something you could distill into a logo. But beware - when your friends come to print this one up - they may have all kinds of questions why it doesn't print the way it looks here or why the printer won't run it. Or they may keel over from the cost and complication of it all.

Design for friends/family is a bit like shooting wedding for friends/family. Very very risky!

Thanks for posting it and giving us the chance to check it out.

Ken,

This shot is an interesting one. The color combination makes it nice to look at. The tilt gives a scene that otherwise might get real static a nice amount of zap.

This shot give me a reminder about something similar I see everyday here in Hong Kong and have seen many example throughout Thailand and Asia -

Example - There is this open food stall that has this boiling 4 foot high vats of soup and noodles, bubbling over every few seconds with an open gas burner blazing... all of it precariously balanced and propped up with a few bricks and some angle iron... on a steep hilled street that get's tons of foot traffic - men, women, children and tons of elderly people as well as taxi's whizzing by - as well the food stall owners have a very fat, very old half blind dog that is always underfoot as well.

Funny thing is - in the U.S. they'd never allow this... BUT if they did you can bet an entire family of twelve would find someway to tip the whole thing over on them and the family dog and then turn around and launch a lawsuit against the food stall owner, the noodle supplier, the vat maker, the gas co. and the city!

When I explained this to local Cantonese people... most of them are just amused and say... 'Look where your going and you wouldn't have this problem!'

ha ha.. the noodles are good anyhow. ;-)

Paolo,

Nice shot. Good contrast and disparity between the have and the have-nots.

It's a shame/lame that the endless bickering that accompanies the POW has to spill over into the critique section of this shot.

I enjoyed it and thought is a fairly poingiant statment about poverty/desperation V.S. wealth/comfortability.

Keep up the good work!

Daniel,

You never cease to amaze me.

This shot is fantastic!!!

As well I have to concur with Touchel Berne's comment about the American administration policy being responsible for the state of corruption and crushing poverty in many SE Asian countries today. One person in particular everyone can thank for the nightmare would be US Senator James McNamara whose ignorance arrogance and folly led to the deaths of thousands of innocent men women and children in SE Asia during the Vietnam era. China's hand it the whole genocidal nightmare that took place in Cambodia should not be overlooked either since it's administrations tentacles are just as far reaching! Nor should the complicity of many of SE Asia's past colonial governments like France or Britain - One only has to look to the present day mess in Afghanistan and Central Asia to see more fall out from former Colonial handiwork.

Whew... see what this shot brings to mind!!!!

Sorry... back to the immediate image at hand..

There is no other place I can think of where beauty and grace and death and misery mix so thouroughly as they have in Cambodia.

You have captured one facet of that very very well here.

Thanks for making this image!

I see a shot like this and after having lived and travelled for many years in Thailand it is very refreshing to see a shot like this.

It makes me wonder...

when I am shooting... where is my mind??.

(don't answer that one!) But I don't think I'd have had to the idea to pull a shot like this off!

Just brilliant!!!!

cheers,

Luc

I like this image alot.

Like the others have noted it could benefit from a slight compression of the levels or bump the contrast to bring out the detail.

This is one of the fresher approaches I've seen to the panorama type shots.

If your not opposed to it on philisophical image/truth grounds I would go ahead and touch out the human walking on the foot path in the distance. He's a bit distracting and detracts from the overall picture - let the limelight be on the geese! I may get flamed for proposing that.. but what the heck. ;-)

Nice work.

I see your point about emotional attatchment and proximity to the event..

Though from a photo-critique standpoint I should get some of that feeling and pathos from the shot. It could be any candle vigil placing anywhere. The bright colors actually lend it a rather festive mood - without the title I wouldn't have a context.

Rob,

The shot looks interesting. Though I wish it were bigger to check out the detail/quality of the Pshop work though. I will critique in detail as you have obviously taken lots of time and effort to arrive at this finished image so I figure you deserve an honest critique. For what it's worth my background is in product/creative development - lot's of which has been spent doing action figure sculpts/artwork for movie/comic book/music liscences.

Here goes:

1) The bullets with their trails appear very 2-D.

Like they were flat and layed on top your shot.

It's almost like the perspective doesn't match the subject. If it was an non-photo illustration an Art Director would spot this right off. It confuses the eye as he is falling towards us in space and the bullets appear to be moving from left to right across the image - not changing their perspective in space.

2) I want to see some blur or a slight bit of movement on the subject himself. I know it's a take on the Matrix style.. but just a slight bit would help convey the movement a bit more.

3) The subject expression could be better. More terror/agony/strain. Though Matrix did have a lot expressionless people in it. Particularly when they were in dynamic movement or when anyone put on sunglasses. ;-)

That being said.. hats off to your for the effort involved to arrive at this image! No small amount of work.

Cheers,

Luc

---- Paradise isn't on any map... but you can find it here.----

Shucks, maybe my little caption is a wee bit grandiose. ;-)

>>>>left feeling empty and confusion supresses me like storm clouds gathering on an empty canvess<<<<

WHOA!!! Hang in there bro...

this was just one I liked out of a dozen rolls on a commercial job for a resort. ;-) Of course I may be a bit biased by the fact that she was very beautiful and heck... I can think of worse ways to spend a sunset. ;-)

Perhaps you point me in the direction of some shots with 'soul' as a reference point to work from/towards or heck.. go crazy and post one of your own! ;-)