mark_hanegraaff

I don't normally go for street pictures, but I like this style very much. The other ones in this series are very good too.

The lighting is pretty good on this one. I would have just used some additional fill lighting to attenuate the shadows next to the cheekbone and neck area (more of a personal preference).

If the subject of the picture is the camera, why not have that displayed more prominently, rather than hiding in his jacket's shadow?

My only other comment would be to fix the blemishes on the model's face, and maybe not have him cover the belt buckle with his hand. It seems to draw a lot of attention to that general area.

Overall, It's a decent shot, but I like some of the other portraits better.

Veramente una foto fatta bene. Il contrasto delle alte luci in questo caso contribuiscono ad un effetto molto interessante, senza detrarre dal dettaglio che in questo caso e' stato preservato molto bene. Anche la composizione e l'inquadratura panoramica e' molto piacevole.

Su quanti scatti e' stata basata questa foto, solo una?

I agree with the above comments. This is a very good shot. Do you think it would have looked better to crop the image as to make the building perfectly symmetrical?

I'm not crazy about the blurred out background but It's a very good picture. The action is on the spot.

I think this is overall a good shot, but you only captured half of the interesting dynamic range in the scene. If that was the intention, that's fine too.

I would have gone for a second exposure to add some detail in the boats and the foreground.

It's a very good portrait, but I think the added contrast on the wrinkles is a little overdone in this case.

From a technical standpoint, this is a good night shot and the exposure is right on. I like how the floodlight separates the waterfall from the rest of the scenery, and it does not have a cartoon like appearance like other shots done in low light conditions.

In terms of improvement it would be nice to see a strong foreground subject to complement the background, but like I said, it's pretty good as it is.

The sky is very nice and the contrast against the foreground is pretty good too.

A second exposure to bring out foreground might have looked cool too.

Overall I like it.

It's not bad. Personally I like lots of contrast, so I would compress the levels further. Also something could be done with the sky or grass. If you shot this raw, how does the sky look like under the red channel? How does the grass look under the green channel? I say raw because you will get less banding per channel that way. These suggestions probably won't please your clients too much, but would make this picture more interesting for my taste at least.

"Released from a mental institution, abandoned without benefits, without treatment, no one will help me. I am 100% disabled. Donations, thanks".

 

With the woman standing behind him it's interesting. I really can't tell what she's thinking though.

It's a very well done portrait. The only suggestion I could possibly make is to try and fix the eyeglass imprints on the nose.

Hassan,

This is a very decent landscape shot, but if you don't mind me saying so, I think it falls short in two areas. The first is that image looks a little flat. It appears that the picture was taken during a hot and hazy day, so the trees and the hills in the distance lack some much needed contrast. This could probably be fixed after the fact by playing with the levels and adding a mask to protect the foreground which shows good contrast.

The second area which I think could be improved upon is the fact that the picture lacks an obvious subject or just someplace to draw in attention. The road is a good attempt, but I don't think that ultimately it is sufficient, and gives the picture somewhat of a snapshot appearance.

Regardless of that, It is a very good effort.

It's a good night shot. I like it. The subject is very interesting.

 

I do notice some light banding around the sky though. If you shot this RAW, I would recommend working in 16 bit all the way until the end, when you are ready to save your final jpeg. I think it would help a lot in this case since you definitively have more than 8 bits worth of blue shades in the sky alone.

Nice job though.

I'm not exactly sure what it is, but I like it. Very dark and creepy which is right up my alley. What is it by the way?

It's a very good shot of the eagle (good action), and even though the raven would normally make this scene more interesting, I think you're better off without it. It's hard to make it out from that angle. In my opinion, cloning out the bottom part of the picture, and leaving the same crop with just the eagle would make very a fine picture.

It's a very good shot. The "no noise" sign is cool, but I think it would have been better without, or at least have it facing the camera and being more prominent.

Hey Nick, glad I can help.

I've only done a little experimentation with HDR myself, so I don't know all that much about it. I find that in these cases (like in your image) you can simply take 2 exposures copy them as separate layers in photoshop and then either use a mask or the paintbrush tool to combine areas of both exposures selectively. I find this technique to give you better control then what the "Merge to HDR" photoshop function gives you. I guess it really depends on the original picture, and what you want your end result to be.

 

There are some good tutorials on Lumious-Lanscape.com as well as cambridgeincolour.com. That's what I looked at. There was one really good article that I found (I forget the link) that was a step by step tutorial comparing Photoshop vs. Photomatix. Check them out. The first 90% of the process is pretty much automatic. The other 10% is manual and can be as simple or as complex as you want, but it usually makes the difference between an OK looking HDR and a really good one.

Just bear in mind that all this comes at the cost of losing sharpness in the final image, so it's a tool you may not want to use all the time.Good luck,

Mark.

Nick,

I think that the fisheye effect on this is very unique; you don't see many fisheye landscapes. This contributes to giving the viewer a sweeping sensation which I like. I think it works very well.

 

The post processing on the other hand I'm not crazy about. I may be wrong, but it looks to me as if a lot of detail was lost in the lower part of the picture by matching its levels to those of the sky. Is that the case?

If so, I think that a second exposure could have been used to balance the lighting between the sky and the foreground without losing any detail. An NG filter would have been useless in this case because of the round horizon line, and there is just too much dynamic range to capture the entire scene using one exposure.

 

On the other hand, if this is an HDR image to begin with, then I think the foreground levels need to be mapped differently. They just look a little unnatural to me.

 

Overall, It's still a very good picture.

The refleaction of the fly certainly separates this from many other of the insect macros I've seen so far. It's well done. How were you able to get so close to the fly without scaring it away?

I'm usually not a fan of nudes, but I like this one. I like the motion blur in the hands and the water. Sorry, I can't offer any suggestions on it other than maybe allowing some extra space on the right (her hand of almost off the frame). It's very good as is.

It's a very good action shot. Especially they way the bull is positioned. For some reason the rider falling off detracts from it somehow, probably because he looks to be in so much pain (or at least he will be in a minute). I would crop the sides even more and make it a vertical shot. It's still impressive none the less.

Devil's tower is a great subject to photograph and this picture is no exception. The only problem I have is that I find both trees to be distracting because part of each of them overlap with the main subject. Since you used a 17mm lens, I think this picture could have been taken much closer to the base than it currently is, thus eliminating some of the distracting foreground elements. If you had wanted to keep the trees in the frame I would only suggest not having them upstage the tower. The other versions you have out there are way better. I like those a lot.

It's pretty good, but why not take the picture from the road's center line perspective? I know it's a cliche' thing to do, but I'm not sure how much is gained by taking the picture from the side of the road. The vignetting is a plus. I like that. I bet a BW version of this would look nice, but I can't say for sure.

Mark, I hear you... I had a feeling your situation was something of the sort. In that case you're a better man than me. I would have been too chicken to take that shot in the first place. keep up the good work.