dangoldman

of the images you've posted in the critique forum from this series, this is definitely the best. it gives you a sense of scale, and the 33% scale nicely. The DOF is perfect, a bit of blur in the background and the forground. it draws the eye to the airplane, but the pilot is not so out of focus to be unnatural looking.

thanks for the C&C, Len.

beautiful image. the low perspective is a nice touch compositionally. the egret (i assume) coming in ties the image together and adds a to the sense of tranquility in the scene.

this is a scanned file, i believe from kodachrome. looks like the film did get a little scratch, not sure if its from the camera or the processing. i bumped the contrast up a touch (not excessive, maybe 8%) to get the water black - so i lost the details in the feathers. i burned them, but, i agree, probably too much. in general i think i just over exposed the image. i cant find the original file - must be on my desktop back home. i;'ll post the original next week, if i remember to.

thanks Margaret

Sid, this was, as far as i can tell, all happen-chance. I had already been taking a few pictures of the man with the paper (under permission) and then the girl sat down. Both were pretty friendly and it made the trip back to campus a bit more entertaining than it usually is.

Thanks for the comments everyone.

Thanks Mike

while in the past i've converted Kodachromes to B&W, given that this is the last batch i ever shot - it'd be hard for me to do that! i like the square crop though.

definitely agree on the sharpness and contrast. Cheers Len - missed your comment with the new photo.net workspace format.

i would actually darken the top part, probably via global contrast bump, to add a bit more tension to the photo.

you've captured a thoughtful moment here. The feeling of solitude and loneliness are not only communicated by the subject, but by the bleak composition, and black and white. The composition is awesome as well, it is well balanced and compositional elements are well placed. Sort of a cinematic feel. 

yeah, you definitely have a point about the yellow distraction, thats a good call. I'm going to play with this as a B&W, or at least drop the saturation maybe.

most of what i shoot is not out in the open with a good background, most of my airplane photography being at airshows. this one, however, was a bit more unique being that it was just a P51D Mustang in a hangar. Anyways, this consistent problem of having distracting backgrounds has forced me into a compositional box where i tend to focus on parts of the plane rather than the plane itself. sometimes it works, and sometimes it doesnt, but in each case i can usually walk away from the aircraft and say "well, i dont remember that feature". Now to see if i can get someone to go on my computer and email me the RAW file so i dont have to work on the compressed image here...

it leads one to think out the box. I, generally, enjoy the challenge. It forces you to look in on details you might have otherwise missed. Of course when, for instance, you use the wing to block a building, and someone comes and stares at the sky for 5minutes making an otherwise clean composition...well...not clean, that sort of gets to me... but otherwise you end up getting pretty close to the plane, and looking at it in different ways, all by using the plane to block whatever it is that isnt the plane...

Hey Elizabeth. Good to hear from you again. How have you been? thanks for the CC.

interesting composition. Very geometric.