Image 1: "How Things Have Changed..."
Image 2: "Peak Heather and Barn"
With Image 1, I moved the old gent slightly away from the RHS, by creating a bit more wall - combination of cloning and painting shadows. This takes him away from the edge, which made for a slightly uncomfortable composition. I've also tightened up the composition, so he is more of a focus, and cropped out a dark LHS wall which added a distracting dark band to the LH edge. I've tidied up some of the cloning work to remove the circular table, and brightened up the old man's face a bit too, again to provide more focus.
With Image 2, it's a bit of an experiment to try something different with landscape. I've never really done any type of toning or sepia work, so it's a new thing, but I wanted to be trying something new, so that was the decision-making process. As for the image, I cropped it square and converted to black and white, then added a photo filter on top in CS. After some dodging and burning on a separate layer, I flattened, sharpened, and sized.
Let me know what you think? Competition is on Monday coming.
Cheers
Ivan
2 comments:
Hi Ivan,
I was a fan of the old gent photo as soon as you posted it and we had some good debate then about cropping. I think you've now taken this image as far as you can in terms of post-processing so it'll be interesting to see whether they share my views. The only negative is that the bottom right is a little dark - was that where you've painted in the shadows? It's only a minor point.
Moving to Peak Heather and Barn, I'm less keen. The toning's fine, mono conversion's fine, exposure's fine... but it has a confused identity. Almost 50% of the frame is taken up by the heather which, because of the mono treatment could be just any bush - while the barn is jammed in between those three trees and the heather. My eyes are leaping over the image looking for a focus and they're not finding one. It would almost be better if the barn wasn't there at all leaving just the heather and the three trees. Also, I know that mega sharpness isn't everything, but there seems to be a lot of detail missing from the bushes?
It'll go on to get a first now that I've just criticised it... :)
I forget what the other crops looked like but I like this one. If anything, I would have liked to have seen a little more sky so there is more space above the long building. But that is minor. I like the dark shadow on the left because it adds to the sense of 'hidden' which the old man portrays (the old man expresses other wonderful qualities too which I think were covered in previous blogs).
So often photos create a sense of contrast in texture or colour, but here you have captured contrast in time, mood, between open and hidden, bright and dark.
Its a great photo...and it has to be on your wall...
The second image is blogged in the more recent post.
Damian
Post a Comment