None of this stuff is new but I'm looking at older shots with fresh eyes and they don't look so bad now:
*snip*
This has some awesome potential. I'm on an uncalibrated monitor here at work but it looks a bit dark. I would try and pull up the brightness and contrast on those 3 foreground trees in the center with all the moss and brighten up / add contrast to the the god rays/ tyndall effect.
If you want I can edit it in a bit to show you what I mean.
CommunistCow on
No, I am not really communist. Yes, it is weird that I use this name.
I believe they are called Crepuscular rays, but I hate that name. I like the pic a lot, Bombsie, but I also agree with CC's suggestions. I think that would add a lot more umph to the image.
EDIT: Maek Poast Picksure
for a larger copy, click image to go to its flickr page then click "all sizes"
None of this stuff is new but I'm looking at older shots with fresh eyes and they don't look so bad now:
*snip*
This has some awesome potential. I'm on an uncalibrated monitor here at work but it looks a bit dark. I would try and pull up the brightness and contrast on those 3 foreground trees in the center with all the moss and brighten up / add contrast to the the god rays/ tyndall effect.
If you want I can edit it in a bit to show you what I mean.
Ok, how about this? I'm not going to spend a lot of time masking the rays or anything but I adjusted some of the luminance levels differently.
Yea something like that but I would make sure you still keep the rays as a dominate part of the picture.
Here was my 2 minute take on it:
I did some levels on the 3 trees in the middle and some of the foreground on the bottom right and a tiny bit on the right trees. I did another levels adjustments to make the light streams to stand out a bit more and then one last exposure adjustment to darken the left side of the image and did a gradient just showing a little bit off it coming in from the left. If I took more time I would blend those 3 trees in the middle a little better and I would try and clone/heal out that silhouetted stump in center foreground.
Also you don't have to spend a ton of time masking the rays if you do a levels adjustment where you keep the blacks where they are and adjust the contrast of the highlights with the mid tones. Then you can do some pretty sloppy masking with a very soft brush and won't have to worry too much about it.
It still doesn't pop as much as I would like but given some time I'm sure it could be done.
CommunistCow on
No, I am not really communist. Yes, it is weird that I use this name.
And now we are back to my self indulgent "photography":
Click for bigger.
Are you presenting these as a diptych? I'm curious what ties these together for you. I have some impressions, but I'm not sure how far I'm stretching for meaning.
Yes I thought of it as a diptych, although now I feel that maybe they should be separate pieces in the same series. As for the meaning, I always thought it is best left to the "audience", as lame as that sounds. I found both frames a bit eerie, and thought that the juxtaposition of a frame-full of ghostly flowers jammed together with an empty train car was interesting, with one frame depicting overpopulation and other abnormal lack of subjects. The asymmetry in my mind created a need to combine both frames into a situation ripe for many interpretations (flowers are people!). And there lies the genius of my work.
Mind if I ask how you interpreted the whole thing?
CC: I couldn't help but notice that you have cut off some limbs at their joints of your models. Isn't that usually a big compositional no-no?
Pope: I really like your cactus photo, but the composition is a bit off to me. The eye is naturally drawn to the biggest brightest area in the frame, which in your case is devoid of detail due to shallow DoF. The overall shapes in the frame are off due to the object obstructing the cool V shape in the lower right hand corner of your picture. So on the instantaneous fly trough the frame, the eye is not immediately engaged on the macro or micro levels. I think the photo would work much better if you could get a cleaner geometric V made by those "petals", or if you cropped the right side of the frame, and focused on the vertical frame with the thorn edge splitting it diagonally. Just my feeling on it.
Bombs: Love the forest photo. Am I the only one that sees brooding batman in that photo? That tree stump could replace Christian Bale in the next movie...
I thin this roll of film got baked. I dont think you can see it at this resolution, but the whole emulsion has a strange "packing peanuts" pattern to it. The thing is I have no clue where it could have gotten heated up...
And now we are back to my self indulgent "photography":
Click for bigger.
Are you presenting these as a diptych? I'm curious what ties these together for you. I have some impressions, but I'm not sure how far I'm stretching for meaning.
Yes I thought of it as a diptych, although now I feel that maybe they should be separate pieces in the same series. As for the meaning, I always thought it is best left to the "audience", as lame as that sounds. I found both frames a bit eerie, and thought that the juxtaposition of a frame-full of ghostly flowers jammed together with an empty train car was interesting, with one frame depicting overpopulation and other abnormal lack of subjects. The asymmetry in my mind created a need to combine both frames into a situation ripe for many interpretations (flowers are people!). And there lies the genius of my work.
Mind if I ask how you interpreted the whole thing?
There was something about crowded flowers and an empty train car that made me read population immediately, so it works for me in that way. You have full vs empty and organic vs mechanical contrast with a population overlay, all of which works well together in a very artsy pretentious way. Leaving the film strip and damage plays to this notion. :^:
CC: I couldn't help but notice that you have cut off some limbs at their joints of your models. Isn't that usually a big compositional no-no?
It is a big no-no if you crop below a joint, but cropping above a joint is generally fine. Go try it out on some random person photo in PS and you'll see what I mean.
Bombs: I really like that version. Good work on the psing. One last thing I would try and pull the saturation back a bit on the rays so they aren't so teal or do a hue adjustment.
Pope: I love the contrast and texture in that cactus picture. I just wish there was a tiny bit more separation between the middle leaf thingy and the one on the far left (or wall or whatever is on the far left). I'm not sure how you could do that....sooooo.....*shrug*
CommunistCow on
No, I am not really communist. Yes, it is weird that I use this name.
CC - Thanks. it's a really small plant as far as agaves go, so I think that's the best I can do but I might reshoot and experiment more with difference apertures and if I do that I'll also pay attention to camera placement to see if I can get a bit more distance there. What do you think about the DOF in the shot? I was somewhat limited because I was too lazy to get my tripod so I was stuck with apertures that allowed for handholding. I mentioned reshooting, if I do it it will be to use a more narrow aperture. Do you think it's worth trying?
I would like it if you go with a narrower aperture since you might be able to get more texture out of that leaf thing. What the hell do you call that on a cactus? The arm?
On a completely random note I got some mediocre lightning pictures last night which I'll process and post tonight but I'm determined to get a good lightning photo this year(which really translates to getting a good one in the next month or so since thats lightning season here). My [strike]gf[/strike] fiance keeps telling me I'm crazy and that I have my whole life to get a good one. :P
CommunistCow on
No, I am not really communist. Yes, it is weird that I use this name.
Hey, congrats on the fiance thing! [strike]I dunno what to call that - I guess a leaf?[/strike] Reading about succulent plants on wikipedia indicates that they are leaves. I saw that word applied to an Aloe, and I would say that these leaves on the agave aren't really much different than leaves on an aloe. So it's official: they're leaves.
I agree about wanting more texture - I'll try it! probably unless I forget to. Thanks!
I'm sorry for h-scroll breakage
So this came out a little better than I was expecting but I still need to capture some more lightning when it is darker.
roughly 300 degree pano just for some practice so I know what the hell I'm doing when I want to take a pano of something cooler. P.S. adobe's photomerge utility for panos is absolute shit.
extra h-scroll breakage
CommunistCow on
No, I am not really communist. Yes, it is weird that I use this name.
roughly 300 degree pano just for some practice so I know what the hell I'm doing when I want to take a pano of something cooler. P.S. adobe's photomerge utility for panos is absolute shit.
According to my wife (and corroborated by the webs), photomerge tends to work best if you do it in pieces to see what it's doing, and then feeding it additional parts. If you throw a couple dozen files at it, it'll end up making a really wacky selection at some point that messes the whole merge up. If you do it in, say, chunks of files at a time and then merge the chunks, it's much "smarter" about the process.
roughly 300 degree pano just for some practice so I know what the hell I'm doing when I want to take a pano of something cooler. P.S. adobe's photomerge utility for panos is absolute shit.
According to my wife (and corroborated by the webs), photomerge tends to work best if you do it in pieces to see what it's doing, and then feeding it additional parts. If you throw a couple dozen files at it, it'll end up making a really wacky selection at some point that messes the whole merge up. If you do it in, say, chunks of files at a time and then merge the chunks, it's much "smarter" about the process.
Thats what I had to end up doing. It doesn't even seem to work well with small numbers of files like sub 4. It is really good at merging 1 photo. *rolls eyes*
CommunistCow on
No, I am not really communist. Yes, it is weird that I use this name.
CC: Fantastic shot. Love the tonality you have going there. Wish you could cram more cloudscape into that frame from a higher vantage point, but I am sure your jetpack wasnt fueled at that point.
Pope: I really like your cactus photo, but the composition is a bit off to me. The eye is naturally drawn to the biggest brightest area in the frame, which in your case is devoid of detail due to shallow DoF. The overall shapes in the frame are off due to the object obstructing the cool V shape in the lower right hand corner of your picture. So on the instantaneous fly trough the frame, the eye is not immediately engaged on the macro or micro levels. I think the photo would work much better if you could get a cleaner geometric V made by those "petals", or if you cropped the right side of the frame, and focused on the vertical frame with the thorn edge splitting it diagonally. Just my feeling on it.
Somehow I missed this. You give me a lot to think about here - thanks!
---
CC - I really like the clarity and detail in the lightning shot. In the cloud shot the tonal range is nice but the black stripe across the top isn't working for me. I agree with Munnin - I love the texture in the clouds and wish I could see even more.
Long - I think CC's right about the focal point. I do love the composition in general as well as the way the colors pop.
roughly 300 degree pano just for some practice so I know what the hell I'm doing when I want to take a pano of something cooler. P.S. adobe's photomerge utility for panos is absolute shit.
According to my wife (and corroborated by the webs), photomerge tends to work best if you do it in pieces to see what it's doing, and then feeding it additional parts. If you throw a couple dozen files at it, it'll end up making a really wacky selection at some point that messes the whole merge up. If you do it in, say, chunks of files at a time and then merge the chunks, it's much "smarter" about the process.
Thats what I had to end up doing. It doesn't even seem to work well with small numbers of files like sub 4. It is really good at merging 1 photo. *rolls eyes*
I dunno, I haven't had any issue with CS 3's photomerge. My last pano was 36 photos combined that I merged all at once. The trick is to make sure you have quite a bit of overlap on each picture. Keeping a consistent "horizon" base line helps prevent lines from skewing
Well, the lens is definitely not in focus, but the eyes definitely are in focus. Maybe you're thinking of a mixture of focal point and diffraction as this was shot at f/16.
Maybe its compression/resizing because when I still look at the original post the eyes look soft. Needs more unsharpen mask. The top view hood thing to that camera looks like it is the thing that is clearest in the picture IMO.
CommunistCow on
No, I am not really communist. Yes, it is weird that I use this name.
So I'm going to ramble for a minute about flickr so ignore this post if you don't care about flickr or the interestingness algorithm. So I've been killing a little time and I decided to check out my top 20 photos sorted by interestingness. Oddly enough those shots of the lime and orange being dropped into the water and the beer shot are in my top 20 intermingled with some photos of scantily clad women. Also I have a few other photos that are on there that I consider prettydamnmediocre compared to some of my other photography and they aren't even women in swimwear / lingerie. That is another thing that is kind of annoying. I can take a few mediocre pictures of women in swimwear or lingerie and they get TONS of views but my fashion work that I think looks way the hell better...not that much.
I guess I just a little surprised at my top 20 "interesting" photos.[/rambling]
and now a funny picture to go along with my useless post:
CommunistCow on
No, I am not really communist. Yes, it is weird that I use this name.
To put this in perspective, one of the concert venues I shoot at is the first unitarian church. I abbreviate the tag as FUC. Those photos get a lot of search hits for a related word...
Except for the slightly distracting stuff in the top right I actually like this shot more than any other fashion thing I've seen you post on this forum. Go figure.
Interesting. 2 is the original edit and 1 is closer to the actual colours.
Interesting. I can tell that no.1 had sunrise/sunset colors, but the hue itself was a bit off. The difference was slight so it might have been my monitor.
More of my Philadelphia pictures. I've been surprised how some of the poorer parts of the city is densely populated with these hole-in-the-wall churches.
CC - I've noticed my most interesting pictures seem to be based on # of comments and # of faves somehow spread over amount of time. My recent B&W Agave shot (May 16) has 3 faves and 5 comments - that is tied for the most faves and of the pics with 3 faves (I have 2) it has the most comments. I dunno - it seems like if a picture gets immediate response in the form of faves/comments then it goes high on my interesting list, passing other pics with more comments or faves if the other pic got them over a longer slower period of time.
The Flickr people suggest that somehow it also matters how people view the pic (where they view it from and then where they go next from the image) and other things too, but that stuff is of course impossible to even try to track.
I guess I just a little surprised at my top 20 "interesting" photos.[/rambling]
That is pretty interesting isn't it. ;D I just recently got a pro account but I have no expectations of ever being in, say, the Explore, mostly because there's so many teenagers with photoshop who love making "statement" photo-collages.
I have a technical question for those more familiar with the technical aspects of photography. Something I was working on recently involved the works of Atta Kim. One series he did was a set of photographs of busy urban centers with very long exposures. Here's one -- spoilered so people don't think it's mine:
That's an 8 hour exposure, in Times Square. Now, how would *you* set up an 8 hour exposure? It couldn't be at night, because the streetlights and other lights would be on, but perhaps a large format camera, with a very small aperture used and very, uh, "insensitive" film?
Posts
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PSN - Obersmith
This has some awesome potential. I'm on an uncalibrated monitor here at work but it looks a bit dark. I would try and pull up the brightness and contrast on those 3 foreground trees in the center with all the moss and brighten up / add contrast to the the god rays/ tyndall effect.
If you want I can edit it in a bit to show you what I mean.
EDIT: Maek Poast Picksure
for a larger copy, click image to go to its flickr page then click "all sizes"
My Website | My "photo-a-day" 2010
Ok, how about this? I'm not going to spend a lot of time masking the rays or anything but I adjusted some of the luminance levels differently.
*snip*
Here was my 2 minute take on it:
Also you don't have to spend a ton of time masking the rays if you do a levels adjustment where you keep the blacks where they are and adjust the contrast of the highlights with the mid tones. Then you can do some pretty sloppy masking with a very soft brush and won't have to worry too much about it.
It still doesn't pop as much as I would like but given some time I'm sure it could be done.
Yes I thought of it as a diptych, although now I feel that maybe they should be separate pieces in the same series. As for the meaning, I always thought it is best left to the "audience", as lame as that sounds. I found both frames a bit eerie, and thought that the juxtaposition of a frame-full of ghostly flowers jammed together with an empty train car was interesting, with one frame depicting overpopulation and other abnormal lack of subjects. The asymmetry in my mind created a need to combine both frames into a situation ripe for many interpretations (flowers are people!). And there lies the genius of my work.
Mind if I ask how you interpreted the whole thing?
CC: I couldn't help but notice that you have cut off some limbs at their joints of your models. Isn't that usually a big compositional no-no?
Pope: I really like your cactus photo, but the composition is a bit off to me. The eye is naturally drawn to the biggest brightest area in the frame, which in your case is devoid of detail due to shallow DoF. The overall shapes in the frame are off due to the object obstructing the cool V shape in the lower right hand corner of your picture. So on the instantaneous fly trough the frame, the eye is not immediately engaged on the macro or micro levels. I think the photo would work much better if you could get a cleaner geometric V made by those "petals", or if you cropped the right side of the frame, and focused on the vertical frame with the thorn edge splitting it diagonally. Just my feeling on it.
Bombs: Love the forest photo. Am I the only one that sees brooding batman in that photo? That tree stump could replace Christian Bale in the next movie...
Haha forest camouflage action Batman.
I thin this roll of film got baked. I dont think you can see it at this resolution, but the whole emulsion has a strange "packing peanuts" pattern to it. The thing is I have no clue where it could have gotten heated up...
There was something about crowded flowers and an empty train car that made me read population immediately, so it works for me in that way. You have full vs empty and organic vs mechanical contrast with a population overlay, all of which works well together in a very artsy pretentious way. Leaving the film strip and damage plays to this notion. :^:
It is a big no-no if you crop below a joint, but cropping above a joint is generally fine. Go try it out on some random person photo in PS and you'll see what I mean.
Bombs: I really like that version. Good work on the psing. One last thing I would try and pull the saturation back a bit on the rays so they aren't so teal or do a hue adjustment.
Pope: I love the contrast and texture in that cactus picture. I just wish there was a tiny bit more separation between the middle leaf thingy and the one on the far left (or wall or whatever is on the far left). I'm not sure how you could do that....sooooo.....*shrug*
My Website | My "photo-a-day" 2010
On a completely random note I got some mediocre lightning pictures last night which I'll process and post tonight but I'm determined to get a good lightning photo this year(which really translates to getting a good one in the next month or so since thats lightning season here). My [strike]gf[/strike] fiance keeps telling me I'm crazy and that I have my whole life to get a good one. :P
I agree about wanting more texture - I'll try it! probably unless I forget to. Thanks!
My Website | My "photo-a-day" 2010
So this came out a little better than I was expecting but I still need to capture some more lightning when it is darker.
roughly 300 degree pano just for some practice so I know what the hell I'm doing when I want to take a pano of something cooler. P.S. adobe's photomerge utility for panos is absolute shit.
extra h-scroll breakage
According to my wife (and corroborated by the webs), photomerge tends to work best if you do it in pieces to see what it's doing, and then feeding it additional parts. If you throw a couple dozen files at it, it'll end up making a really wacky selection at some point that messes the whole merge up. If you do it in, say, chunks of files at a time and then merge the chunks, it's much "smarter" about the process.
Thats what I had to end up doing. It doesn't even seem to work well with small numbers of files like sub 4. It is really good at merging 1 photo. *rolls eyes*
Ryan M Long Photography
Buy my Prints!
Also some mildly interesting clouds:
Somehow I missed this. You give me a lot to think about here - thanks!
---
CC - I really like the clarity and detail in the lightning shot. In the cloud shot the tonal range is nice but the black stripe across the top isn't working for me. I agree with Munnin - I love the texture in the clouds and wish I could see even more.
Long - I think CC's right about the focal point. I do love the composition in general as well as the way the colors pop.
My Website | My "photo-a-day" 2010
I dunno, I haven't had any issue with CS 3's photomerge. My last pano was 36 photos combined that I merged all at once. The trick is to make sure you have quite a bit of overlap on each picture. Keeping a consistent "horizon" base line helps prevent lines from skewing
Well, the lens is definitely not in focus, but the eyes definitely are in focus. Maybe you're thinking of a mixture of focal point and diffraction as this was shot at f/16.
Ryan M Long Photography
Buy my Prints!
Maybe its compression/resizing because when I still look at the original post the eyes look soft. Needs more unsharpen mask. The top view hood thing to that camera looks like it is the thing that is clearest in the picture IMO.
Okay, I see what you're seeing. Thanks for pointing it out.
Ryan M Long Photography
Buy my Prints!
I guess I just a little surprised at my top 20 "interesting" photos.[/rambling]
and now a funny picture to go along with my useless post:
1.
2.
But I had to think about it.
Here is another thing from a while ago.
Except for the slightly distracting stuff in the top right I actually like this shot more than any other fashion thing I've seen you post on this forum. Go figure.
Interesting. I can tell that no.1 had sunrise/sunset colors, but the hue itself was a bit off. The difference was slight so it might have been my monitor.
More of my Philadelphia pictures. I've been surprised how some of the poorer parts of the city is densely populated with these hole-in-the-wall churches.
CC - I've noticed my most interesting pictures seem to be based on # of comments and # of faves somehow spread over amount of time. My recent B&W Agave shot (May 16) has 3 faves and 5 comments - that is tied for the most faves and of the pics with 3 faves (I have 2) it has the most comments. I dunno - it seems like if a picture gets immediate response in the form of faves/comments then it goes high on my interesting list, passing other pics with more comments or faves if the other pic got them over a longer slower period of time.
The Flickr people suggest that somehow it also matters how people view the pic (where they view it from and then where they go next from the image) and other things too, but that stuff is of course impossible to even try to track.
My Website | My "photo-a-day" 2010
That is pretty interesting isn't it. ;D I just recently got a pro account but I have no expectations of ever being in, say, the Explore, mostly because there's so many teenagers with photoshop who love making "statement" photo-collages.
I have a technical question for those more familiar with the technical aspects of photography. Something I was working on recently involved the works of Atta Kim. One series he did was a set of photographs of busy urban centers with very long exposures. Here's one -- spoilered so people don't think it's mine:
That's an 8 hour exposure, in Times Square. Now, how would *you* set up an 8 hour exposure? It couldn't be at night, because the streetlights and other lights would be on, but perhaps a large format camera, with a very small aperture used and very, uh, "insensitive" film?