2011.11.14: "Construction/Destruction" discussion

Snarkasm

shwaip: Nice exploded view. Macro lens? Would have been nice to have seen the drive tray in focus at a higher depth of field.

CB: It's a little blue-shifted on my monitor, though that may be me. Also, I wonder what it was like before the crop? Did you have more skyline behind it?

Everybody else: submit!

Marushka

snark: I love the choice of shutter speed. Very cool effect. I haven't taken many shots of fire, but I quickly realized that shutter speed must have a huge influence, and I definitely appreciated your choice there. What is the little model of that you used there?

CB: You definitely took advantage of some nice natural lighting - the shadows in the picture play really nicely. I might have cropped some of the grass at the bottom, but it's not too distracting as it is.

Shwaip: Even through the simple photograph I can tell you must be savagely attractive and a singular example of all that is man. But seriously I was blown away by the creative approach (and excellent execution) of a theme that I thought was sort of tough. I do agree with the depth of field comment. I would have, just for fun, loved to see a side shot, or something that gave it the context that they were hanging from the wall. That just sounds impressive.

vertater: cool first shot. Even though it doesnt really follow the traditional rule of thirds, I like it with the crop as it is quite a bit.

me: before we get too many comments here, that is vertater (my sister) in the pic. I haven't taken too many portraits before, so I would love some feedback. Its pretty awesome when your model is so darn cute!

CB

The blue-shift was intentional. I wanted to mute out the yellows in the machine, then boost the green in post to make the grass pop. it didn't turn out exactly like I had visualized, but I still like the result. I had also originally intended to cut the crass more, and leave the sky, but when I saw the final, I decided I wanted the grass in the composition instead of the trailer-park behind the site.

I've attached the original photo as well as a wide shot I took just to show the full scene in the natural light.

-

Snark: I like the use of fire as destruction. (I didn't think about any kind of destruction other than buildings, for some reason, and so I had been looking out for a construction site while I was driving around last week. I found an equipment storage yard instead.) What kind of figurine is that?

Schwaip: I like the idea. It looks like an exploded diagram, and somehow gives an impression of motion, like it's currently falling apart.

Vertater: I couldn't tell what it was at first, until I thought about the theme again. You got a really interesting angle. Did you desaturate some of the hues in post?

Marushka: I'm not a good judge of portraits, but I feel like the toughest part is directing the subject, and the composition becomes secondary. I like the juxtoposition. Inoscent girl next to danger sign, john deer shirt next to orange machine.

Snarkasm

Vertater: was that a traffic cone? I like the point of view and the ruination of the ground. I might have made it a tiny bit darker, but it's a very interesting picture. Well done, and thanks for joining!

Maru: love the Deere against the Cat. Clever juxtapositioning, you. I like the use of foreground to put the subject in the middle of the picture. You got the important part of (traditional) portraiture, which is to make sure the eyes have the most focus. Very nice.

-

The model is (was) a man with balloons. I also had a guy with an "I you" sign that I thought might have been cool, but I went with this one in case I wanted to use the other later.

I find them at hobby train shops and such - these are the figures people put around their train sets to make them seem realistic.

Tushon

(most of what I would have said has already been said but I've been more of a critic than artist, unfortunately)

I think Vertater's pic is several traffic cones stacked then cut at the same height, giving it the layers we see from the top. Awesome pics!

shwaip

here's the pic with the strings:



exif: 17-55mm @ 23mm, f/7.1 1/100.

If I had to do it again, I'd change a couple things:

1. More light - I did use a flash, but that just made a bunch of hard to deal with shadows
2. Use fishing line, or some easier to 'shop string - the string was pretty wide and made things harder
3. More DOF (related to more light). I would have liked to have the cd tray in focus

cb: Did you do the color shifting through the white balance? IMO if your goal was to desat the bulldozer, decreasing the yellow saturation would have given you a better effect. Right now things just look really blue.

vertater: It took me a while to figure out what it was and what the ground was. It still throws me for a little loop when I stare at it.

marushka: I don't have much to add to what other people have said! I too can tell from the picture that you took that you are extremely attractive.

snark: It's really hard to see what the figure is, even in ridicuhuge size. It does look like the guy is in distress (or is making the D: face almost), but that could just be his mustache.

tushon: Take picher, make post.

primesuspect

CB, if I can offer some constructive criticism:

When you're adjusting colors, the first step is to find pure white and pure black; that gives you a baseline to shift the other colors from

Your photo has a definite blue shift:



If you compensate for white balance, you'll find that the colors shift back to look more like reality:

CB

primesuspect wrote:

CB, if I can offer some constructive criticism:

When you're adjusting colors, the first step is to find pure white and pure black; that gives you a baseline to shift the other colors from

Your photo has a definite blue shift:

CB wrote:

The blue-shift was intentional.

Yeah, I just screwed up the white balance to get the effect. You can see in my wide shot I attached above that I do know how to white-balance my camera. :P

primesuspect

Then there is no excuse other than laziness jerrrrkkk

CB

I don't get what you're saying. What's lazyness if I meant to do it that way? I mean it may not look good, that's fine, but I intentionally shifted away from white to make the image more blue. Where lazy?

primesuspect

Oh, my bad. For some reason I read that as you didn't know why it was blue. Carry on.

GHoosdum

CB wrote:

I don't remember what program I was using before to extract the exif data as text, so I don't have a nice list for you this time.

IrfanView?

IrfanView wrote:

Filename - 20111113 final small.jpg

Model - Canon PowerShot A610

ShutterSpeedValue - 1/807 seconds
ApertureValue - F 3.51
FocalLength - 21.71 mm