aaron emanuel litvinoff

well I am no expert photographer, but here goes - without PS I would say to darken the sky u could use a half filter which darkens half of the picture, but in this case the trees would appear darkened so that would not be appropriate. its hard - it has to do with filters but they may affect the rest of your pic. I'm certainly no expert on filters, haha.

 

to increase the lens flare simply position the sun further out/away from the frame - lens flare has to do with how off centre the intense light source is. lens flare also has a lot to do with the lens construction, so get to know your lens, simply by just experimenting with it and light sources. the effect of flare is more pronounced on old or cheap lenses because today manufacturers put anti reflective coatings on lenses to minimise accidental flare.

 

special effects can be made when droplets of water are thrown into the air close to the camera - you may need someone to help you! its kind of what u might get when you're down at the beach and there is spray coming up in front of the camera, even perhaps on the camera lens. it produces hexagonal shapes, although the shapes can depend on many things, such as the settings on the camera.

 

in general, if you want the sun to appear large and hazy and undefined in your picture, use a large aperture. if you want it to appear small and with sharp, elongated flare marks use a smaller aperture.

 

hope thats of help. good luck, keep experimenting

I will admit I am a bit annoyed with the amount of "sunset" images on this site - a sunset is definitely one of the biggest cliches in photography. adding human interest would surely spice a lot of them up, this one included. although i will admit i like this one - partly because the clouds do not look like clouds; they look like something more abstract.

well that wasn't very nice harvey! yes, the feet thing is a cliche but at least in this picture it offers a nice, large depth - from the photographer's waist, down to the feet, to then lead your eye right to the end of the garden! I like the near symmetrical quality to this picture, it is very pleasing on the eye and you have obviously composed this carefully through your viewfinder, a difficult feat considering you were in such an uncomfortable position! the rays of the sun in the top right make it so that the picture is less predictable/completely symmetrical. the couple of glare spots are of detriment, though nothing that some simple but careful photoshopping could not remove!

 

and harvey - if this is a boring picture, what is this: http://www.photo.net/photodb/photo?photo_id=1380807

i'm tryin to figure out where this was taken - looks familiar to the grand union canal near camden town in london.

 

the picture is very dramatic - the contrast between the peaceful feelings created by water and the invading white trees is exciting! the 87 filter was definitely the right choice for this one.

suggestion - crop a bit of the ground in front of him off. its a nice piece of work

How do you like the interaction between creature and concrete? What

would be your improvements/suggestions

cheers - although I see it more as a stairway to nothing, hahah - take another look at the picture

I like your light metering mate - wish I could sort something like that out

Hi there Len. When I first made the original print I wondered what it would have looked like if I had shot it using infra red film, the shrubbery looking white and the sky black. Being too lazy to shoot it again I tried to imitate an infra red effect in photoshop. when I inverted the upper half I found that there was a lighter area in the right of the picture, caused of course by shadows/dark areas in the bushes. This looked terrible and very much reduced the symmetrical quality of the picture - I therefore cut it in half and mirrored it. The effect, I feel, is more powerful.

turn it up in photoshop

hmmm, this one is difficult - i dont really like the contrast between the outside of the shop and the colours inside... perhaps it would be better as a straight B+W shot.

I wonder why all that smoke was there... This reminds me of a scene from that Brad Pitt film, Meeting Joe Black (i think that was what it was called). Anybody know the scene I mean? ;o)

Well, does it strike up any fear in you? Any suggestion/opinion

appreciated.

post comments and suggestions please. also check out my other pics

Please post opinions and rate

I would like to know :o)

yup, I did

A lot of the contrast that is in this shot comes from what one would expect from shooting through an arbour, the dark trees sihouetted against the light at the other end. I am using a 25 yr old SLR and, to my knowledge I cannot adjust the contrast on the camera... what I would have to do is make sure I had an appropriate film and weather conditions amongst other things. I very often adjust contrast on post processing programs because I never feel I have a "perfect" negative... so yes, I did adjust the contrast on this one. Not much though... about 10/15%. I'm not entirely happy with the image's contrast though... when I was in the darkroom the other day I burned the part at the other end, its a bit too bright and hazy for me. That defined the area better and brought out the appearance of the rays.

My first critique request - what y'all have to say about this? Any

comment appreciated.

more contrast - lose the grey tones

great effect. would have been more amazing if the trees weren't there and you just had a huge eternal sky.

Ansel Adams reincarnate, these pictures are so good. So you can use infra red on top of everything else?

who needs Ansel Adams when you've got Paul Wamhof eh? :o)

what was the shutter speed mate

great composition and timing. nice range of tones