donald_l_fackler_jr

Excellent shot Hector, it looks like he is sitting on a piece of glass. Great composition and contrast.

 

Don

I think this shot stands out to me because of the contrast between of the building and the wheel. I also like the contrast between the red and green, they make for a colorfull image. Verry nice image.

 

Don

Thanks Michael, I apreciate your input and respect it. Can't wait to get her into a studio.

 

Don

Next try, hope the hightlights are better

Thanks Michael, I got it and you worked some great stuff on it. I'll have to spend some time tomorrow studying it tomorrow.

 

Don

Hi Michael and thanks. I think you have the ratio that I was going for. I didn't get my fill correct in the original. I think next week I am taking her into a studio to play around. It should be fun. Did you use highlight/shadow on this?

 

Don

Thanks Sondra, I guess I am going to have to rethink the lighting on the neck. I know I can tone it down quite a bit. I had liked it because it draws your attenting to the line of the neck but I guess thats just me.

 

Thanks for the feedback.

 

Don

File is too large for dial up, I waited 10 minutes for this to load and decided to leave am message and leave.

 

Don

IMHO I like the darker version better. I think there is too much going on with the ground cover and makes it to busy or messy and making it darker removes a lot of the mess. In the original what atracted me to the image was the sence of light growing out of the darknes and adds a little emotional impact to the image. My only nit is I think there are too many blown highlights. I like the color version for the simplistic beauty that you have captured but I like the crop and tonality of the B&W version for the emotional impact.

 

Don

Nice macro but I think I have seen this somewhere before!! Oh yeah, you showed it to me after you printed it. Even though the JPG compression doesn't do it justice it still has great impact. I like this shot because of the rainbow of colors that you have by the fuzzies. Excellent.

 

Don

I tried that once. It was a panoramic nightmare. I came out with a good result but it took forever to achieve it. Working on the image was pretty bad due to the fact that I shot it in lg jpg and with 8 shots I had a 520 mb file shooting in raw on another scene I had a 1.4 gb file. The raw file takes forever to open! LOL

 

I was told by an instructor not to adjust your focus but I found you can get a better shot by adjusting for focus.

 

I didn't adjust my zoom or settings just my focus to make sure that the whole image was in focus with the same exposure. I have one wher I changed the exposure but found it too time consuming adjusting the for exposure. Good luck and have fun.

 

Don

Thanks Deanna, I don't mind the light on the neck so much but I do mind the blown highlights on the post behind her. This was my first real attempt at using fill flash to balance daylight and I didn't do very well. I liked the pose as I caught her laughing as I was making fun of her.

 

Don

What can I say. Your work in using lines and curves is impressive. To me it is an inspiration.

 

Don

I love this shot. I like the perspective and the cables really pull you into the image. I really feel like I am standing under this arch looking up. This is the kind of shot I strive for but never seem to achieve. Excellent.

 

Don

I like how all of the elements come into harmony in this shot. It is all lines and angles and keeps me interested. To me the most interesting part of the image is the planking, especially in the foreground. It gives it space and movement. The low perspective helps to enhance this shot IMHO.

 

Don

Thanks for stopping by Michael. Sorry I haven't responded sooner but got caught up in life and finals. Since I posted this shot I have learned some more techniques and will use on other photos. This one just about did me in. LOL

 

Don

This has created some very interesting lines. At first I was trying to figure out how you had made the field flow like you did with the lone tree so sharp. I like this for the minimalistic aspect to it and the interesting lines created by taking a picture at 100 MPH.

 

Don

Thanks Tim and Arjen for visiting and your kind comments. This was my favorite photo in the shoot. It showes a little of his personality. This week I am going to try to shoot his wife to see if I have a nack for portrait work or if it was just luck.

 

Don

I agree with Sondra that this needs to be lighter but I don't think she went light enough. I have played with this in PS a little to try to bring out the rich colors in the flower. I created another layer and set blending mode to screen then used a soft brush with layer mask to reduce the hightlights. Because of the small file size I had to blur the background due to JPG artifacts, I didn't want to because I think your selective DOF is great. I like how you have the statue and background nicely out of focus as it really brings your eyes to the flower. I also like the cropping and composition of the image, I just wanted to see the flower pop. I don't know much about lighting but think that a fill flash wouldn't have worked because the highlights would have been blown. Due to the bright highlights and a digital not being able to record the whole contrast range you could have tried a tripod and 2 exposures. One for the highlights and one for the shadows and blended them.

 

Don

Here is a link to the final output.

 

Jason final output

 

Thanks to everyone for sharing techniques.

 

Don

Studio Lighting and touchup techniques. Project for school

 

Don

Thanks for stopping by Don and Biliana. In a way I kind of like the stark eyes to but it bothers me too, they seem to overpower the whole image but in a tight crop they work well. After all the discussions on this and working on it, (aproximatly 23 hours) my eyes got burned out and I didn't see that it had a color cast to it. I worked on it for about another hour this morning at school in preperations of printing it out for a class project. I finally got it all correct and reworked it with all the techniques I learned here and printed it out. The instructors that I showed it to were very please with it.

 

Thanks to all for the input, I couldn't have achieved this level with out all of your help.

 

Don

Thanks Stephen, one thing I haven't done is start cropping the picture. I spent a lot of time to try to get the color in the foreground water correct. I don't have any shots with the bridge as subject but I know I have at least 4 good possible crops with this photo and one is a square crop that accentuates the waterfall and the bridge. One of the things I have been taught is to try to find as many compositions as you can from each shot.

 

Don

Errr, about the rose color. I didn't notice it until you posted a correct color cast. I used a black background but think that I have stared at it for so long that my color perception is off. I was expecting to see black and black is what I saw. Well I guess I'll give my eyes a little rest and repost this tonight. I had originaly added a slight red filter to compensate for the desaturation I get going from my working space to Save-For-Web, Usually I do great at color management but missed the mark in a big way. Thanks Patricia, I hope you had as much fun as I did with this excersize. I have learned so much in just one sitting.

The contrast is good as I don't see anything blown out. I like the pose that she is in and you seem to have a pretty good symmetrical image. My only suggeston would be to keep your shadow from falling across her hands as this is distracting from the image. I think this could either be sharpend or blurred more. As it is the image stands between the 2. I don't know if you were going for the soft focus look but if you were then you need to commit to it. I love the look in here eyes they ars so intense and she is very cute.

 

Don