vivek iyer

"I would bet that Ramaiah Gidda could capture the equivalent image in any country, any culture, or any place he chose to visit."

-Andrew McGrath

Well said, Andrew! I fully agree with that.

As to Taylor, Nietsche and others (similar) comments about very poor presentation: Yes, there is a problem with it. This has never stopped any photo being chosen as POW. More notably, it has not stopped some of you saying something like, "well, I KNOW how good a photographer you are... so, it must have been due to this and that".

I wonder in which gallery some of the photoshopped window pane shots with added "oomp" hang now?

Like Marc G. opined, if it fits some beliefs, ofcourse it adds to the mystique. Perhaps, not. Should he be publishing any book in the future, it is most likely that it will be typeset and printed in India. Professional photo critics, IMHO, are well served by sticking to what they are good at. If he or anyone finds this a contradictory statement, I would simply suggest to them to go visit the country to find out for themselves. They may well be presented with plenty of photographic opportunities as well.

Here we have a photo which presents itself well inspite of the (unintended) added artifacts (the opposite of some of the photoshopped images featured here, like a building shot where the photographer even lost track of all the PS manipulations he did to arrive at the final image, that had an added "oomph", for example).

Tri-X is not the cheapest B/W film one can buy in India. A while ago, I remember finding a re-spooled B/W cine film rated at 640 ASA. I printed them at home on Agfa paper. There was literally no budget to speak of. They worked and it was a great learning experience as well.

Vivek.

Great choice Elvis!

From time to time, some mistake is made by making a great choice!

It is certainly a magical shot. I would think that the scanner used did not focus properly on the image to result this beauty. Whatever went on, the result is outstanding!

Good work!

Krister,

Lovely as it is most of your shots, it looks to me that you are wasting this lens and your creativity with the 300D.

Is there a Moire problem that fuzzes up the eye here?

Michael,

Since you are recommending this camera, let me ask you this: How large a (sharp) print have you made from this camera? Is this the best choice for displaying images at photo.net (100kb being the max)?

Vivek.

Well, if you are going to split hairs on this feeding issue- bread is actually harmful. Almost all the bread in the US is made with "fortified" flour.

Fortified flour is enriched with iron and is unnatural to anyone's consumption. And what goes in has to come out, eventually. Adding to wider contamination of the environment. Unnatural trace iron, BTW, greatly enhances the rapid growth of micro organisms- bacteria, etc..

Vivek.

I am little bit astonished to see these averse reactions about the feeding of a Hawk.

How many of you have pets locked up at home?

How many of you have taken photos of these pets and

posted them here?

Should "wild animals" be only seen through National Geographic magazine and thought of with pity when you read those heart wrenching stories about poaching and the destruction of their habitats (no wonder National Geographic photos LOOK so gripping- without their excellent stories, not all their pictures will be seen anywhere).

If a photograph/story is about Panda bears in their natural habitat and all the photographs come from the south pole, then there is something definitely wrong about that. If the same photographs are accompanying a story/commentary about Panda bears, in general (as an introduction) with explicit details about their location, I do not see anything wrong there at all.

Vivek.

If paying the human models with heavy make up and artificial sets

is not cheating, feeding the Hawk would not be either.

If caging the animals, insects, fish and birds in a zoo is tolerated and supported, this feeding for a photo is even less so.

If the photographer has fed the bird with meat (if the bird were a vegetarian) I would have find that repulsive and very dangerous (look at all the fish, sheep and cattle farms and how mad cow came about).

Vivek.

Absolutely fabulous!

Looks like a painting and I love it.

Advanced equipment? Better technique?

I will take this kind of results every time

over anything else.

Beautifully captured moment!

Vivek.

Patrick,

Have made any bracketed shots? Also trying to get the perfect round Sun is extremely difficult using the D-70 (at least, I find that).

Nice shot!

Vivek.

A mighty well executed shot!

(Thanks for pointing it out at the "POW")

Not a bad shot. As pointed out above, it has been done many a times.

Is this really vignetting?! I think it is the way the light was- perhaps the photographer can jog his memory and tell us (Note: only the bottom left corner is dark not the right corner).

As for the elves'question, a bit more play with curves in photoshop, a bit of trimming here and there to make the image square and bit of blurring to to make the nasty wavy designs in the foreground should give it bit more of what is that complex technical term, "oomph".

I would like to thank Carl for posting the original version's link,

the enhanced version and Robert Brown's version.

My comment last week was taken in the wrong context and appear to have led to a discussion on the medium one uses to record images. This time also, I had a chance to be the first to comment but chose not to. Here, I hope to choose my words carefully in expressing my thoughts.

I like Carl's work in general. It is illuminating to learn about the progression of this image from its original.

All other versions appear closer to the actual photo taken (top right corner the schlieren/stress textures on the glass window), except this one. This, in my opinion, is a different image.

Whatever happened to photographers chasing after lights?

I am very particular about image clarity/quality. I wonder how much image degradation has occurred after the PS work.

Vivek.

Dean,

Sure, I agree your point.

However, if one can not get "technical"while talking about technical panchromatic film- Techpan...

Should people cropping,rotating or doing other manipulations on the photographer's original image be commended?

If photo.net were to be like an art book page or a museum hanging,

sure, I agree that no one should get hung on "technical"aspects.

Yes, indeed!

After looking at scanner restricted images through the

computer screen, any image, unless taken through a Canon D20

will look flat and muddy.

When one can see 15 zones with a quarter inch image capture

on a CMOS with a one mouse click BW or whatever conversions,

why bother with Techpan or any BW film.

After all, we are only talking about a 100 Kb images. Why split hairs here?

I fully agree that the use of technically complex medium with complex/careful processing and all that does not improve the artistic

nature of an image unless the photographer is talented.

But, I would also suppose that good photographers also will not be satisfied with printing only pixel enhanced images.

Thanks for the post Miguel!

(Thanks for choosing this as the POW)

Here is yet another example of all the fine details, subtle tonal variations brought out in an "old"film. A very fine abstract. Wish I could see a real print with all the details!

I just pray some of the digital snappers (who mouse click to convert the images to BW) will buy a film camera, buy Techpan and use it.

Otherwise, Kodak will ditch this fine film as well.

Thanks a bunch to all the those comments about improvements,

sharpness, presentation, etc. This brought out a whole series of superb

pictures from William.

As someone found out, this photographer does not need any advice on

better presentation of his work to make a living!

Brilliant use of photo.net and the POW forum by William Chapman!

Once again, hearty thanks for the superb pictures!

A truly stunning image. I love the the colors and the fantastic composition.

A real pleasure!

Ignore all the comments about "sharpening" etc. Thanks for sharing your picture.

Kelly, thanks for giving one explanation. Sure, having as many options available is useful.

I guess, for a 800 pixel image it does not matter whether it was shot on Techpan or a Fuji color print film.

There is grain structure in color films as well. Digital manipulations in Scanning/PS can take care of a lot of the "undesirable" aspects and does add more flexibility.

Could someone enlighten me on: why anyone would bother to shoot with a color print film and go to the trouble of converting the image to black and white?

Are there not better black and white films with far nicer

qualities (someone commented above on the niceties of the tones in this image!)- like tonal variations, sharpness, resolution...