pradeep satyaprakash

Yeah me too. 8^P

 

But what I liked about this photograph was the purity of the color.

Yes, you are right. The actual door is made of wood/plaster and was actually not aligned properly. The tilt has been corrected (you can make it out by the top right hand corner where I did not crop correctly), but the bottom and the top of the door frame are not parallel, so I could not make it perfect. Thanks for the comments.

When I took the original photos of the swan, I noticed that she was filthy from the neck up. Basically she kept diving to catch water bugs to eat, and the lake she was in was not very clean. So you have this beautiful white swan with a dirty neck and head, so I changed the color of the water to somewhat match her dirty self. She is almost natural in color in the photograph. The water however was darkened and was color balanced to about 2900 Kelvin, which gives it that smooth chocolatey look.

 

The "Serene Rake" photo you referenced above was one of my first "keepers" with my G3. I've always liked that photograph for the way the colors and the angles play, but also because of the way the leaves form characters in the picture. The little leaf edge on the bottom left is like a stage character looking up at some ominous warnings to what will happen to leaves if they are caught. The other two leaves are the killed and skinned versions of the small on the left bottom. Reminds me of how Western farmers sometimes kill coyotes and wolves and leave their skins on the fence post to ward off similar predators that get the idea of coming into their lands to hunt their flocks. If you look at the middle leaf especially, you see the shape of a "pelt" with the legs areas, head area, as you would if you killed an animal and mounted its skin. With the arrangement of the bottom left leaf (which was intentional, BTW), I tried to make it look like how it would look if a leaf was "shocked" upon discovering this horrific site. The shadow angles, which are now coming towards the little leaf that is "alive" impends doom for it as well.

 

That was the idea I was going for when I took this picture, but few people actually get that, and just like the colors. Oh well. When I told people about the intent of this photo - which was to serve as a warning to all leaves that want to enter my domain, they thought I was nuts, so I then "reinterpreted" it for some and renamed it "Serene Rake", which is what most people tend to see in it. The rake is serene after a hard days work and it has testaments to its efforts strung up on it. That works as well.

 

Don't you love photography?

 

Yes, it is the right way. The water is flowing from the top right of the frame to the bottom left. The tree is hanging on to the side of the hill that was close to where I was standing. The colors are from the park lighting they do to make the falls look cool at night. Thanks for the comments.

Click on the LARGER tab to see a more detailed version.

saw this leaf also at the same rest stop in Virginia where the "Red

Leaves" photo was taken. I loved the dark contrasty background to the

colored and fragile leaf. The purple color of the leaf itself was

interesting because it makes the leaf look like a survivor. In that,

the leaf has lived a life and survived much hardships, and now is

taking its final bow with dignity. What do you think?

Please click the "LARGER" size to view the image as intended.

 

Took this photo on the Canadian side of Niagara Falls. The falls

were illuminated by some colored lighting that night and looked

magical. I was lucky enough to have a mini-tripod with me to capture

this scene. I hope you enjoy it.

I saw this beautiful swan in the lake at the New Vrindavan camp in

Moundsville, WV. This is one of the swans that the people at that

commune raised and it was a very friendly animal. She (I believe)

was busy catching bugs to eat in the lake, so I had to take many

pictures of her to get her to "pose" perfectly for me. The original

picture was a gray/blue hue and I thought I would change the color

balance to make this more of a sepia toned image. The beautiful swan

on chocolate colored water seemed more interesting. What do you guys

think?

I saw this patch of fall leaves at a rest stop in Virginia and was

taken back by the color. So brilliant and beautiful. I used curves

to tone down the dark and bring up the contrast, but the saturation

is natural. Amazing color I thought. I also ran this through some

nosie reduction and edge-preserving smoothing to clean up the image.

What do you think? What more can I do to enhance this image?

I saturated this picture. Is it too much?

The cut of the photograph, the blending, the high key, and the subject matter with your explanation of what you were doing all contribute to an excellent piece of work.

Scary and charming.

Shape, volume, texture are excellent. Abstraction of subject matter is interesting. I did not know what this was until I looked closer.

 

Clean, abstract, vivid composition. Very well done. The perfectly balanced sky makes it seem that this picture was painted instead of photographed.

Elegant. The contrast of the swirling water to the flat static horizon is great.

It is impressive to see what imagination and talent can do with the modest equipment that Barry is using. Should put a lot of gearheads who do nothing but endlessly pine about their equipment to shame.

 

Very good work Barry. Congratulations.

The birds make this otherwise simple photograph into something more interesting. One thing I would suggest is to offset our car away from the center.

Very nice lighting. I at first thought the car was moving as well. Reminds me of a magazine spread with the way the photo is captured. I actually like the foreground in this picture since it gives the car a place to go. That tends to add a feeling of motion, even with no driver :O)

 

Very nice work.

Hey Jay, thanks for that. I pride myself on being a decent photographer, but I lack skills with computer editing. How did you do that? It looks very interesting and brings down the cluttered look of the original.

Jay, I agree with the complicated part of your critique. That is why I spent so long thinking about it before posting. One idea I had was to selectively darken the tree structure to make it as close to pure black as possible. That would emphasize the colors and remove the emphasis of the tree. I guess then it would look like an infrared image of a terrain from outer space with the tree trunk being a river and the colored leaves being foliage. What do you think?

This is a photo of a tarpaulin for a overhang dock on the Savannah

River in Georgia, USA. The sun was shining on the tarp from

overhead and I got underneath and captured this image. The tarp was

quite dirty and was messy with mold and filth, but the sun shining

seemed to wash away all of its imperfections and made it beautiful

again. I hope you enjoy this photo. I currently have this as my

desktop screensaver and love the bright colors and the mood of

excitement this photograph bring to me. Thank you.

This photo, I worked on to get the arrangement of those smaller

flower petals "right" even though one was missing. I just loved the

colors, saturation, and detail in this image. I feel both elated and

peaceful when I look at this photo, and it has been my desktop

wallpaper for a few months now. I hope you enjoy it as well.

For some reason, the text did not post properly. I meant to say that this photo did NOT speak to me, but was just beautiful.

Comments and criticism welcome. A photo from 2003 which I never got

around to posting to my portfolio. I was not sure it was a keeper,

until I took a look at it one year later. Interesting how the

passage of a year can change your perception of what is good and

acceptable.