Hi Minniev,
I'm not the first with wedding photos. Roel Hendrickx was in the CC thread on Dpreview, years ago. He had just bought a new lens, the 75mm 1.8 from Olympus, took wedding photos with it and put it in the CC thread. The photos he took were presented in black and white and they looked good.
Thank you Minniev for your positive response and for your opinion on the atmosphere and quality of the photos that were pre-determined with the customer. I don't take wedding photos anymore.
Lou
Love this one! Excellent composition and of course great colors - seems like someone had a lot of fun creating this awesome festival of color and shapes. I feel like, I'm doing something somethat similar to what you describe (with your underexposing and then compensating in the scan) in a digital manner regularly. At first I was afraid that this might destroy a lot of details or distract by the additional artifacts or noise, it turned out to work quite well in a majority of cases, at least when my ability to control the lighting is limited!
Minniev,
Thank you!
Rich
Simplejoy,
Thanks!
Actually digital and transparency film work very differently with regard to slight "underexposure" in low contrast situations. Kodachrome 25 was very hard to control under these circumstances. Under the right circumstances it worked, but miss the "right underexposure" by less than 1/3 stop and the drum scan just showed dark, noisy mush in any tones below mid-tones. Rainy scenes were a favorite. Higher speed film was easier.
Digital almost never benefits from "underexposure," other than to save a potentially blown out highlight channel.
Rich
Thank you Linda, it certainly has a lot of rain 😀 June here in Scotland was lovely sunny almost all the way through . July was mostly rain, We live in the central belt but take a few visits to Skye each year
I am totally on the same page as Minnie.
Please tell us more about this image:
- the idea behind it
- the rapport with the subject, who makes bold eye contact with you and through you, with us,
- your use of what seems a double exposure,
not only to create a superb symphony of colour framing the face, but also on parts of the body;
while the face is still very sharp.
I am in awe and really interested in everything about this image and its genesis.
As everyone has said, wonderful, photo. A couple of things I noticed when viewing full size: There is a halo effect around most of the pads. At first I thought maybe the edge of a mask used in pp, but on closer inspection I think not. I am going to go out on a limb and guess it is surface tension changing the reflection and catching more sky. The second is the reflection in the water under some of the flowers. Quite amazing to catch that.
I don't know if you could get close enough but the flowers look like they would be excellent individual shots.
I like it, thanks. Did you mask and blur?
Yes f/2.8, the light was quite low and I was precariously balanced on a bank over it and was hard to be steady so I needed as much ss as possible.
Much appreciated, Paula. It was just pointed out to me in another forum that the image isn't straight - ah, the irony! I had straightened it somewhere along the way, but used the wrong file to rework and post to C&C this week. Staying organized is a daily challenge these days!
Met a guy heading out the door of a gig. Long story short I say to him, you look very photogenic, wanna do a photoshoot sometime? About a week later we're meeting up at a parking garage to test out some new tools. Lensbaby OMNI Creative Filter System was the start of the distortion in the image. Photoshop, mobChain, Adobe Camera Raw, filtering and layering and masking until the artist is happy maskes the rest. If you want to fake that out of focus look, radial gradient leaving the face unmasked, and throw the texture slider into the negative to taste. The biggest thing I really do is layer manipulations, blend mode messing around, masking, repeat until pleased.
Thank you for explaining a bit in general.
And there I was thinking that you did most of this in-camera. Old-fashioned fool that I am...
😁
Thank you for the critique ... I am really having problems looking through this site today I don't think I've seen everything or responded to all who commented on this picture ... Need that threaded view or some rethinking how to do this ....
WhyNot
Confess I thoiught I'd seen your response but had a hard time finding it so I could respond! ... I thought about your lonely benches when I looked at this picture but then this bench isn't really lonely.. Usually my benches are occupied but hen maybe someday ... Thanks for stopping by and the comment ..
WhyNot
Thank you everybody for kind and encouraging comments. Much appreciated.
Lens babies create only in-camera effects, so I'm figuring their filters are things that physically attach to the lens to create the effects. I've never heard of their filters, though I've been tempted by various lens babies over the years. I'll be interested to follow your journey with these things. Thanks for sharing what you do. (The last of it is pretty familiar, the tinkering with various tools in PS with layers and brushes).
I also own a Lensbaby lens.
It is basically a cheap tilt-shift lens with a wide aperture that I stop down by inserting a magnetic ring. Yes, it is THAT basic.
The effects can be quite cool, but it has been a while since I last used it. It is a Four-thirds mount (not micro) so I need the adapter for it.
I had not heard of associated filters.
Cause it's a different thing. What I have is the omni kit. It's a step up ring setup with magnets so you can put things in front of your lens. Kinda nifty really.
This begins by being an excellent image. Thinking about the treatment is a different challenge.
The drop off rolling over the hill edge is eyecatching and stimulates guesses as to what lies below. The framing with important lines in each of the lower corners takes us to the drop ogg and also establishes the line of trees that takes us to the same area. Where they cross is where we ask what happens below.
There's more to it. Down into the drop is shrouded by the clouds and this increases the question. Then there is the church. It sits a little further along the same drop. The previous lines have alerted us to how steep the drop off is so we are very aware of the churches position. The dark hedges frame the small church as well. On the right hand side, the hill curves repeat the foreground curves and unify the image.
I agree with Chris about the toning of the B&W. The lines, tones and framing within the shot would be better, in my opinion, in B&W. The selenium tone feels like an unnecessary distraction from the wonderful bones of the shot.
Much the same but even more so for the colour version. It's likely that I'm biased here because that green isn't a colour I like (even if it is accurate, which it may be).
I'm talking about the colours and title first. I prefer the colours in 1 but I agree with Linda that it doesn't look like a summer's day. In 2 it looks like an overall yellow tint is a bit overdone. It could be my monitor but the whites in the clouds also seem to have a touch of yellow as do the greens. Those aren't the blues I associate with summer. Was there a touch of industrial haze?
Colour apart. The shot is full of horizontal lines. This always creates a restful impression. The picture has to be seen large enough so that the shoes can be seen to be sports shoes. Because we know they are sports shoes we make the jump to assuming someone who has been active is resting. If we saw an old battered pair of shoes or solid working boots, the subjective response would have been quite different. Similarly, it's important that the feet are up on the arm rest. If they had been flat along the bench, we might have been concerned for the owner.
As it is, we smile and feel the bench occupant is taking a well earned rest in a resful spot.. He/she isn't the subject however. The bench is the subject and the bench might have many more stories to share.