chrisvest

fantastic eyes; puppy shots are a shoe-in for sure, but this one is exceptionally well taken. bravo.

bravo. very compelling image. the flag and door are spectacular. just to nitpick (which is why i'm here) i reckon the post on the left would have an enhanced value if the crop moved left-- just a bit more of that fabulous dark cob texture to make the post stand out more. great shot.

hi tony

 

thanks for stopping by. yeah, i had a "touch of matisse" the other night when i made this-- just a touch, and unfortunately the next day it had passed. the only thing i regret is that there WAS some detail in the red glove that i should have retained. cheers.

the red is indeed fantastic; gorgeous stuff. and i did look at the others in your series, they are all strong. to be honest, IMHO, there are mundane details that i think could be blurred out, or even could have been bypassed altogether by the viewfinder. here, for example, all of the drama and visual pleasure is in the shimmering red: the viewer probably cares less about the golf cart, the sedate and chilly-looking building, etc...i'd shift the view left and down, cropping just right of the first cone. this is an exciting series full of possibilites. cheers. chris.

nice lines, good composition, the subject is in the right spot, the head aligns with the light spot. this appears to be a vivacious spot: i wonder if you'd waited for different models whether perhaps you'd have found something more evocative of your title; someone with more of a forlorn shuffle casting a timid glace at a group of passing partying young people. just an idea-- in the search we all have for those cartier-bresson moments...

 

you've got a fabulous portfolio, by the way.... cheers.

hi dan

 

i'm a fan of your work! here you've got a strong image: good model (good title) and feather detail. the model could be pushed a bit left so he doesn't crowd the edge. also, the bird is apparently puffing it's feathers a bit that makes him look bottom heavy.

 

in terms of PS tho, there's a few things i'd respectfully reccommend: use the smudge tool to soften those pixel edges, especially around the bill and down the breast. use it also to draw out the whiskers so that the top layer superimposes convincingly over the background. there's a halo effect around the whole bird that could be airbrushed.

 

cheers. chris

thanks again cynthia-- looks like just you and i like this one...

 

maybe i should switch to black and white... ;-)

 

cheers!

found this old road warrior out in the utah desert-- gathering patina

and dreaming of better days.

nice shot sir. good composition and mood. who can resist a bit of fog? cheers.

excellent shot; everything frames up beautifully. my monitor shows minor hotspots, but that's probably me. great capture.

excellent, well-constructed still life. the light on the bottle, the flow of the muslin, the speckled background: all superb. the knife could use a bit more light and definition IMO; also there is no sense of where the horizontal plane ends-- the vertical background appears to merge with the foreground. nice one, cheers. chris

hi eduardo:

 

thanks for the kind comment and your interest; i've given some clues about the process a number of places on my page-- and i'd be happy to elaborate to any extent if you email me. one brief discription appears on the commentary that follows the image: road to the old house.

 

cheers, chris

these are the little-known people that live inside glaciers? icy cool image, fascinating. bravo!

give it to me straight, doc, i can take it.....

i've got a soft spot for roads running away to the horizon-- this is a very nice one, the combination of blue frost and long shadows really makes this a very alluring image.

brilliant image-- mood, texture, warmth. that's how a good photographer gets down low for the shot! bravo!

thanks to all you good folks for having a look. an hour south of this spot is mesa verde national park, an hour west canyonlands, northwest has arches national park and everything east is the san juan mountains. this is a fun summer road to run the dogs.

 

lou ann, my 'trade secrets' aren't all that mysterious: in the darkroom it's the sandwiching of exposures; in photoshop it's the superimposing of layers. try photographing the texture you want to see in your landscape, import it into PS and then fool around with the blending modes, saturation, opacity, etc.

 

rather than show the humble origins of MY photo, i pulled a photo of yours-- a sweet image from your excellent france collection (one that i wish i could've taken)-- and subjected it to (almost), the identical effects as shown with my "road to old house". it has six layers of effects. with yours i added one additional layer: a photo of tall grass for the foreground.

 

tho i intend no expression or implication that my tweaking is better than your original-- it's just a different way of processing.

 

cheers and happy experimenting!

hi evan-- well, heck yeah, we love the textures and colors too! nice shot, but my monitor and browser show the white overexposed; that's not what you intended, aye?

this is a fine composition.

hi again lou ann

 

concerning your website, yep, i think above all in a global sense that the empowerment of women is key to alleviating poverty and war-- not to oversimplify too much, but as long as women are treated as chattel, denigrated and demeaned even in ostensibly "developed" nations, the natural order is way out of sync.

 

anyway, yeah, the more i look at the image, i more i concur with you: there are slightly brighter colored bricks above which circle the holes, and indeed that's where the eye settles comfortably. i thought it would be fun to look at a slightly stronger saturation-- not that that's where you need to go, but perhaps worth a look, so i'm attaching a variation. cheers, chris --still in colorado ;-)

the kenya portfolio is wonderful, but this one might be my favorite. and IMO this is the crop to go with. great shot.

enjoy i do. cool; everything comes together wonderfully. bravo.

cool. great layout. clever use of fish-eye. evocative of the perfect evening out strolling and dining. i can almost smell the restaurants. cheers.

excellent subject well taken. it is amusing that the drinker would use the can opener instead of pulling the tab, that makes this a very arcane historical piece. however, just to critique, i'd have preferred seeing the can appear on any surface with a patina more consistent with the era of the can. cheers.

of course there are all kinds of photographs: this one is a textural study, and well done, it has all the patina and color i enjoy in a background, say, for a CD cover or website, because it's tres urban cool AND it benefits from lacking a central item to focus the attention. to be a stand alone piece, IMO it does need some central visual locking point to rivet the interest: imagine a graffiti-like hyroglyphic scrawl in yellow chalk across the image. that's a great wall and it takes a great eye to find subtle gems like this. cheers.

 

and thanks for directing readers and conscientious folks to this:

 

http://www.amaniafrica.org/shop/item.php?itemID=63

this is all covered in snow today. uh, except the moon i mean.