petemillis

Great composition, great tonal range and toning - produces a wonderful texture with an appearance of gold ingots. Nice picture.

Another great photograph. The BW with toning works so well again for this. And the wide angle brings so much interest into the picture.

 

Pete

Absolutely fantastic. I love the toning. The exposure is spot on and it's great the way the sun is there without completely blowing out the sky. Great composition, great wide angle. Top stuff.

 

Pete

Sherle, thanks for confirming what I thought. I'll do a re-shoot at some point and move the light around a bit further to soften the shadow under the neck.

 

Fred, thanks so much for your valuable input (and sorry I've taken a couple of days to acknowledge it). During the exposure, I moved a small torchlight around to bathe various parts of the guitar in light. I could have softened the shadow (as just mentioned) by lighting some of the area under the neck as well. I get what you're saying about the floor and appreciate what you mean about separating subject from background. But what I was doing here was separating using light rather than distance, while wanting to leave some hint of the floor and the lines going across the picture - I wanted the straight lines of the floor and the straight lines of the strings and the guitar neck - all looking quite harsh - to highlight the curves of the body coming out of the dark. The more I look the more I'm happy with the way it turned out - except that shadow!

 

Thanks again for all the thoughts.

 

Pete

Gord, thanks for your input on this, but you know what? I don't like those "miniturisation" photographs - and I've never liked "model villages" either. But when I saw this bloke standing there I just had to do it! Strange eh?

Dustin,

 

Great subject - would have been nice to catch the woman just looking up, but things aren't always perfect to start with.

 

I agree with Dan that composition here could be improved somewhat - and this is easily achieve with a crop. Remember that 35mm film has a 3:2 aspect ratio which is fairly long and thin. It works well for horizontal photos but can look tall and unbalanced for vertical photos, as well as sometimes making composition awkward. A crop to 5:4 aspect ratio can tighten the composition up a lot and make for a better balanced vertical frame.

 

Like Dan, I also see a hint of blue here, especially on the woman's pullover. This disappears if you desaturate the scanned photograph. And I also agree on the contrast - it could be a little stronger.

 

I've taken the liberty of showing below how I would present this photograph - a crop, complete desaturation, a bit more contrast (apply slight s-curve to histogram), and also a very slight sharpen.

 

Kind regards

Pete

This is how I would possible crop to give a 5:4 aspect ratio...

Dustin, you've done good on this one - great exposure and tonal range. For first roll of film, and developing it yourself, you should be really really pleased - just keep it up. Nicely scanned too.

 

This photograph really does need to be viewed large to appreciate it with the main subject being the guy in the shop and the meat that is around him. I think that you could do with cropping the photograph in a way to show this better - leaving out some of the stuff on the right of the frame. It's great though, with plenty of interest.

 

Pete

Gord, It grabbed my attention and made me chuckle! I'm trying to closely examine what's in the reflection but I find the breasts to be a bit too distracting :) Definitely a well spotted scene with an interesting combination of lines from the pavement and the joins in the manequin - it gives the appearance of a picture that has been cut and then pieced together again. Nice one.

 

Pete

Ha Shaun, I'm not usually one for selective colour, but I like what you've done here. It's because the subject is different from what I usually see when selective colouring is used (i.e. it's usually a coloured flower or ring against BW), and I think the colour these cans works well against the BW cans and bottles. Nice job!

 

Pete

Hiya Shaun.

 

Ta very much for dropping by and for letting me know what you and your daughter think - 'tis much appreciated. Yep, I'm still enjoying experimenting, and it's months now since I had a straight autofocus lens on the camera!

 

Hope all's well over your neck of the woods.

 

Pete

Another wonderful photograph. The BW conversion is great. The subject is full of interest - the eye, the mouth - excellent.

 

Certainly nothing to criticise - just great as it is.

 

Pete

Tero, the composition and lighting here is superb. Love the tonal range. It all creates a very eerie photograph. I also don't mind the shadow at bottom left - it gives me the impression of something creeping up!

 

Nice work all round.

Pnina, you have timed this photograph beautifully to produce a scene full of hot energy. The reason I think of "volcanic" is that it feels to me like an explosion of fire. When I think that these photographs are of fast moving subjects in very low light, it amazes me how well you catch them.

 

Great stuff.

 

Pete

Sherle, I'm pleased that you came over to comment on my guitar photograph becausei it has led me to your work. It's great to find other people who like to experiment with their photography. Slow shutter speed work has interested me for some time, and even more so since I found Gordon Bowbrick here on PN (have a look at his stuff if you haven't already)..

 

I really like this photograph. It reminds me of PlayDoh being pushed through a sieve. The contrast between the curves of the greenery and the straight line on the edge of the road works well. The only part that might be worth doing something about is the bright area of sky. It could be worth considering other crops.

 

Pete

Sherle, many many thanks for giving me some feedback on this photograph. The shadow that could do with opening up a bit - do you mean the shadow under the neck? If so, then I tend to agree as it is possible too hard edged. Or maybe a little more light on the left hand side of the guitar body?

 

There's a bit of a story behind this guitar. I hadn't touched a guitar since I was at primary school. Then at age of 21 started work at a charge card company in their fraud department. A policy was introduced where recovered goods that had been bought with stolen cards were auctioned off within the company to put some money back in the coffered. Some fraudster had bought this guitar by mail order and we managed to get it intercepted at an airport. It arrived in our department in a poor battered cardboard box, and I fell in love with it straight away and bought it for GBP200 (a third of its value), And I've been playing it ever since, and now my 12 year old daughter plays it too!

 

If you managed to read this far...thanks again!

 

Pete

Comments would be much appreciated on both compensation and

lighting. I have a reason for the wide frame and large amount of negative

space, and that is to make the guitar stand out more from the background.

I have some spare time over next couple of days so will be more than

happy to discuss any of your pictures too.

Really really windy yesterday. This windsurf bloke was standing there

wondering whether to go out or not. I just had to get the camera out!

Would appreciate thoughts on composition - I wanted to who bloke

faced with the big sea, and the comedy part of him wondering what to

do! The tilt lens was used to give a great depth of field up the centre of

the frame to show him and the sea he is looking at in sharp focus.

I love this painting you have made with a camera. Beautiful colours perfectly showing the North Sea. I'm guessing you rotated camera during exposure to achieve this. Yay or nay?

Nice work

Well, seascape as opposed to landscape. Taken early yesterday

evening - very misty day and the yellow buoy really stood out. As well

as general comments, I'm wondering about colour..I've adjusted curves

slightly to make it a little more blue. has it gone too far?

Thanks in advance, Pete

Pnina, many thanks to you too for dropping by and commenting on this photo. I know it's been a long time - work has been so busy and I have to watch my priorities. I will check out your portfolio again very soon. Hope all is well with you Pnina (and you Micki!).

 

The "Floor Board" is the foot operated control panel for my guitar amplifier. I haven't used it enough and it is covered in dust (hence the mark going from left to right through the letter "N".

 

Pete

 

 

Hi Micki.

 

Thanks for your comments. It was quite dark - like in a dark corner of the room in low light with loads of clutter in the way - full shadow really. All I did on the image I uploaded second was to slightly clip the left hand side of the histogram to darken the darks. I could possibly have gone a bit further but didn't want to lose too much shadow detail.

 

Cheers again.

 

Pete

This one is wonderful too. It's fantastic what you have achieved here. Nice work.

 

Pete

This is most excellent. I'd love to know more about this shot. Photographs like this straight from camera and wonderful and are just my cup of tea. Great composition and colours - a piece of art.

 

Pete

link to the larger image so these show up better....