noshir_patel

Ah, now Doug is a master. I've often seen area cropped out of a frame, but who else among us can crop areas INTO the frame that weren't there to begin with!? (Well, almost a master... The givaway is at the bottom of the nearest rock...)

I looked at this picture at work and thought it looked quite bad. I just looked at it at home on a calibrated monitor, and I must say it makes quite a difference. At gamma 2.2 the shadows are dark, but acceptable. Slight tweaks in PhotoShop would be easy to add (curves with a gradient mask would be my first step). So now I'd say it is a good composition which unfortunately got only half lucky with the lighting.

 

Because of the lack of strong color, I think this could work well as a black and white image. Then it would be about texture and value and objects.

All this bit about leaving the classics alone... Ever heard of a musical piece called "Rhapsody on a theme by Paganinni"? (might have spelled that wrong...) ... by Rachmananov? (might have spelled that wrong too... damn!) Referencing earlier pieces of work is a strong tradition in the arts.

 

The photoshop work is nice. The reference combined with changing to a female form and using the gear give the viewer a few things to think about. Certainly illustrative. I don't think Photo of the Week is supposed to be showing modern day classics... If we were producing stuff of that calibre I hardly think we'd bother posting it here...

 

First of all, I like the picture. I think it's pleasing from an aesthetic point of view. Well composed and plenty to keep you interested. I don't particularly mind if it is a photoshop creation, although this would make it less impressive. If it were an in camera double exposure, I'd say it was very very impressive indeed.

 

Usually people are too quick to cry "manipulation!" here, but I think this is doctored. Here's what I notice...

 

First, the light source for the girl seems inconsistent with the light source outside. If it is candle light, there is no way it would compete with the outside light and reflections. If it were on camera flash, it would not have the warm tone but would be similar to the outside lighting (unless the flashead were covered with a filter). If it were interior overhead lights, well, where are the shadows on her face (and again, could it compete with outside light and reflections)?

 

Next, there is an odd break in the lighting of the reflected buildings right where you see the jagged white vertical streak. I brightened the whole frame up in photoshop and it is clear that the white streak is not the ladder. What is it? Also, the buildings get much darker to the right of the streak. Perhaps there was a daytime and a nighttime exposure.

 

Note that the reflection of the tape merely indicates that the second exposure would need to have been made while the tape was still there.

 

So am I wrong? Is it real? Anyway, it's been fun trying to figure it out...

 

Very nice. Only complaint would be I'd like the highlights lighter.

Water looks good (right amount of blur), but the picture is too dark for the most part. The hotspot at the top of the falls is also a problem. Probably would be better on an overcast day with more even lighting or maybe at a different time of day.

I don't like the frame. The bird on the left is interesting, but the other two detract from the picture, I think.

Nice sunset. It might be a little better if you moved your position to get a lighter part of the sky behind the tree. This would make the sillouhette stronger. (Hm, don't think I spelled that right...)

I like the gold against the blue. It works very well in a simple composition like this. Plants are well positioned in the frame. Assuming there wasn't anything wrong with whatever is outside the frame to the left I would have tried to reangle or shift the picture so the plants and moon were in opposite corners. That also might have avoided the big shadow (which detracts from the picture in my opinion, but isn't really that bad).

The butterfly and flower are nicely isolated.

I like the frog, but everything else is too chaotic. The blurry foreground elements add nothing.

"E.I." is a personal thing. Velvia doesn't change speed just because they cut it into bigger pieces...

 

The exposure here (and post exposure decisions) are meant to highlight the delicate nature of the waterfall. Making the whole photo brighter loses highlight detail in the waterfall.

 

I do think the rest of the photo ends up a little dark as a result... Perhaps I'll try some localized adjustments...

All comments welcome...

This is great. I didn't manage a decent picture of the bats when I went to Animal Kingdom...

 

Very nice yellow against blue. More blue would make it even better. I like the abstract quality of the closeup on only part of the flower. Lighting is very nice as well.

Well, I was just there and got some decent shots. I'll have one on my website soon. (Send me an email at nosh@bigfoot.com if you'd like me to let you know when I've added it and send you the URL.)

 

First, a wider angle lense is really useful at this spot. For a shot of the whole scene (somewhat like what you've gone for) I used a 17mm focal length (Sigma 17-35EX). You might eventually want to replace the lens you have with something that goes down to 28 or 24 mm (Canon has a couple of relatively cheap good zooms... 28-105 and 24-85 I think). That will expand your possibilities. You could add a wide angle prime or zoom (like mine) to your system, but that gets you into carrying multiple lenses and such. I don't know how much you like to lug (I took 5 lenses on my trip). Enough on equipment choices...

 

Don't be afraid to crawl... :-) I crawled right up to the edge on my belly. That way, when I held the camera, it was sort of hanging over the edge. This allowed me to include the whole bend in the river without those rocks in the front getting in the way.

 

For less wide angle shots (maybe around 35mm) you could consider not including the whole bend. I got a picture I liked that just included the right half of the bend. Actually, I guess this is probably better advice than what I've already written. Gotta work with what you have... Can't buy new gear for every shot. :-)

 

As for the colors in the scene, you might try a different time of day (or year, but I know that can be tough...). I shot in the afternoon (maybe 3 or 4 pm, I don't remember exactly) on a partly cloudy day and that worked well (I think the sun was shining directly on the scene and not behind a cloud). The water appeared very green (I don't know if this varies with time of day, but I could easily believe it does). These big overlooks are just never as impressive viewed on paper, so you really need some good color to help it out.

 

If this is a scan of a print, there's a possibility that the print isn't the best picture you could get out of your negative. It might be that different paper, a more skillful printing job, etc could help. You could scan the negative (or have it scanned and put on PhotoCD) and adjust the colors in PhotoShop, but that's a whole different story.

 

Hope that was helpful.

 

Was a filter used on this one? Graduated red maybe?

 

Um, I believe he said that there was no computer involved. Even if there was, art is art. This (and the rest of Alexander's portfolio... check it out) is good art. Some art happens to be composed of modified photos. As for "doesn't really exist" or whatever, art often depicts things that exist only in the artist's mind.

 

Alexander, I read your explanation, but I didn't quite understand. Are you saying you simply sandwich the slides together and print the combination? (So if you were to project the sandwiched slides you would get the same result?) If this is your technique, it is pretty amazing. I have seen sandwiched slides and double exposures, but they generally aren't this good.