john_sidlo

I just noticed the exposure time. This present more opportunities for entertaining experiments - stop it down one more, keep the 30 secs, and try illuminating the statue with a strong flashlight by walking around it, and another hitting it with a couple blasts from an off camera flash.

It's actually a nice image, but not gloomy at all. Pretty hard with a brightly lit church in clear air. I'd try bringing a bit of fill flash on the statue - not much - but enough to allow the building in the bg to tone down somewhat - and see what that brings you.

A man with a good eye, and on top of his camera. Nice tones and esposure.

Nice balance, atmosphere and composition. Brings to mind a tree I've seen that I want to capture some day.

Steve's suggestion is worth considering. But I like the composition, and the sky. Nice blend.

I like the pose, and the framing. His right eye is in just the right spot.

This oozes atmosphere - the tones, the blunt, massive, dark corner work, the smeared Kommando to NOT block the entry, and the slightly ominous, diminutive pedestrian by the heavy spiked doors.

 

Ausgezeichnet!

Congratulations, Leslie, certainly well deserved! I fully agree with your comments on numeric ratings as well.

Beautiful light and composition. I'm very happy you waited for this to happen!

I manipulated this in photoshop to enhance the sky, illustrated below. I was a little sloppy with my selections, visible mostly on the lower boundary of the sky, but this should serve to illustrate. I selected the sky and copied and pasted it back into the image. The new sky layer I blended in "multiply" mode, with a 30% opacity. I also went back and darkened the foreground somewhat, but that was a minor adjustment.

I like this, but it seemed to have too much cyan and not enough yellow. I selected a couple of points on the what I guessed was the white trim of the house, and adjusted the colors until the RGB were approximately equal (which they would be in white or gray). For your consideration...

Very cool - those twin taillights really do it here.

It's too tight on the left, but otherwise I really like it, especially the contrasty image.

I prefer the improved versions somewhat, but like them all. Nice color and balance. I think there is some tilt in the original, missing from the alternatives. Well seen.

Very nice framing and exposure. I agree with comments about the abstract, yet human, characteristics. The arrangement of shapes and light are sophisticated, and fine.

Interesting composite, but the background image is quite busy. He seems a bit too tightly stuck into the arbor, and that symbolism is not clicking for me. I think the fading at the bottom of his feet could be improved. The perspectives are different, and that is probably the biggest drawback - an image with him taken from approximately the same angle as the other shot (or climb up into a tree to shoot the house) would make this better.

 

These are tough to get right, and I applaud your efforts.

Great action and intensity in the faces - nice catch.

I was wondering what this would look like with a little off the top, but Tom's example convinced me it is better as it is. The black negative space is a border, and serves wonderfully so, so no detail required. I also like the eccentricities of the off-center chimney and increasing light from perspective change around the windows. I think the larger dark space above lets the center of gravity sit a little lower, and just feels right.

 

Very well done.

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I know it's there - the detail in the shadow. Hang on to the slide/neg, and when you get the equipment/skills, redo this.

I modified this in levels to use the full palette and brighten the snow a bit. I used curves to get more contrast and bring out that wonderful sky some more.

Excellent exposure - I love the tonal range in this. The composition, with the vertical orientation, the reflected pattern of light off the alleyway, and the silhouetted details all along the alley is also very good. I think the street lamp is fine. The two things that bother me in this is the banner-flag hanging in the middle of the scene, and to a lesser degree the lamps shining under the overhang on the right. Without these the shot could have occurred a century ago. The lamps are less of a distraction but the flag, occupying the central position that it does, bothers more. I definitely would be tempted to clone it out, and it should be possible to do that without much of a trace.