what do you think? (2 pics for cnc)

eas

Sometimes I wonder if I'll ever get to the stage where making decisions on my photos is easy. I always seem to have a question or two that I can't answer myself. Sometimes it's regarding composition, sometimes it's exposure, sometimes it's about colour and so on. maybe the ability to answer these questions oneself comes with lots and lots of experience, or maybe it never comes - i dunno

Anyhow, here are two recent photos of mine that I've been looking at and wondering :


1) Is the fact that the snails shell and eye in focus a good thing or a bad thing? On one hand, I think the eye is obviously important to have, and the detail in the shell is a bonus. On the other hand, the shell is a distraction and takes away from the pin point DOF accuracy of the eye. What do you think?





2) Are the lines running horizontally a good thing or a bad thing? On one hand I think that they give a dissection creating nice geometry creating a balance between horizontal and verticle, on the other hand they are a distraction to an otherwise clean compo. What do you think?





arrgg

CONMIKE12

I think the focus on the snail shot is just right.it's like he is in a different reality and he's just poking thru to ours for a quick look.And For me those horizontal lines in the second image should stay,i like them. two good shots,well done.

eas

thanks CONMIKE12, that's good to hear.

i like your interpretation of Mr.Snail -

AlisonB

Well done eas, these are exceptional. You're definitely getting value for money out of the d200.


I love the first one, i dont think it could be composed any better. You've highlighted the most interesting parts of the snail. I think without the shell there would be no shot.

The second one is excellently composed. I would definitely make one of the lines either totally horizontal or totally vertical. Would like to see the second in black and white too.

Very nice shots, well done.

eas

thanks AlisonB -

true the shoes would have been nice if the wires where 90 degrees off each other - unfortunately the where buildings creeping into frame on either side - maybe a slight rotation on would fix it up



as it happens :

AlisonB

ooh very nice i prefer the monochrome version.

JackKelly

Wow, those shots are really nice. I think the snail is perfect. Nice texture. The sky shot is brilliant, and the horizontal lines bring something extra to it IMO. The tone of the clouds is excellent and i prefare it to the monochrome one tbh. Good stuff. How much PP did you do on them?

jlang

Without wanting to change this from a critique thread to a social commentary, that shoes-on-wires thing seems to be the latest in-thing for bullies. I know of at least 7 pairs of shoes hanging on wires in 4 different places across Dublin. At least I assume it's just malicious bullying - there could be more too it - gangs marking territory or drug dealing locations maybe?

captain P

I love the second shot, the simplicity is great and it really shows Dublin! . The horizontal lines are good and I wouldn't lose them. I love the colour of the sky and would definately keep it in colour.

CONMIKE12

Wow Eas,it's MUCH better in B/w. Congrats !!

Morlar

That snail shot is the winner for me - I love the dof on that - if you wanted to you could always try blurring the shell in photoshop while leaving the eye pin sharp. Lovely shot.

Fionn

technically the snail shot is very good and no doubt really illustraits DoF brilliantly
i'd like to see what a shot with it in full focus would be like, i'm just not sure about it
on te lines and runners - i'd say don't touch it, it's showing reality, those lines aren't 90 degrees to each other!

overall well done

beans

I had a mind to shoot some shoes-on-a-wire myself, there's two cracking examples in Ballyfermot.

I love the snail, in sofar as the DOF works to highlight the tip of his thingy and the center of his shell-spiral. Good guns

elven

You could go on forever asking yourself whether you should have done this or that, it gets to the stage where you have to trust your own judgement and also understand that for every person that thinks you got it right there'll be another who doesn't agree. At the end of the day, it comes down to a question of what you're taking the pictures for. If it's just for you and your own pleasure, screw everyone else, make up your mind what it is that YOU like and stick to that. If you want to appeal to a wide audience, that's when you have to think about what the mindless masses want to see

As for these particular pictures, I'll start with the shoes/lines first, Personally I prefer it in colour, seems like too nice a blue to drain the colour out of it. I don't think that the horzontal lines take away from the simple composition, I think it's still simple enough and they give it a bit of a balance, too.

The snail one - my first impression was that I liked it a lot. After looking for a while though, I have a couple thoughts... the shallow DOF works. It would probably be a bit standard and unimaginative if it was all perfectly in focus from front to back, and all the patterns in the shell would be distracting to the overall image. So, you made a good call on that one, in my opinion. I do have a couple of nitpicky comments though. I think the shell is too bright, and it's quite close to the frame which draws my eye away from the rest of the picture - including the really nice texture on his body there. It looks like you've maybe overexposed a touch, and using a slightly faster shutter speed would have brought it down a stop or two and eliminated that wee bit of shake that you can see in his eye as well. I'm not sure if you were using tubes or a macro lens but coming back a touch and tilting round might have brought the shell more into the frame, and also stopped you from cutting off his other eye - owch!

I like where you're going with it, I think you can stop questioning yourself so much. They are good shots.

311

Like the shots ,the snail one looks like it was taken in a studio.
I like the blue sky in the runner shot ,reminds me so much of town.

eas

thanks for the detailed input elvin.

I design as a living and am constantly put in position to think of audience first. Years in the corporate design arena made me this way...and I am bitter .

Thanks for the comments on the photos as well. I agree the shoes need the color too. The BnW was really only put up for AlisonB request. But then again a few people like the BnW better...there i go again.

Your points about Mr. Snail are very good. I'm not sure about the exposure, but it looks pretty good to me - just a touch if highlight blown on the shell maybe?

I used a sigma 105 ex dg macro set at 2.8 with ss of 1/100th, a nikon sb800 speedlight with diffuser was also fired. No tripod, resulting in a touch of shake. Even at 1/100, a longer macro lens is very difficult to handle shake free without a tripod.

As far as the composition - your comments are spot on, and my lazy framing technique has little to be admired in this case - full shot below.

eas

_Brian_ wrote:

Like the shots ,the snail one looks like it was taken in a studio.
I like the blue sky in the runner shot ,reminds me so much of town.

thanks Brian. no studio for snail, he's on eating my wifes precious plants!

elven

Ah, he looks great with his other eye intact! It's also less distracting with the shell further inside the frame.

I don't think overall the picture is overexposed, just as you say the hot spot on the shell, which could be burned in a little easily enough. I just have a tendency to like pictures darker, I'll grow out of it soon, I promise

As for the shake... I throw away hundreds of pictures from every day's shooting because of my shaky hands It also stops me using my 80-200mm much.

CoolBoardr

I know what you're saying about constantly having unanswered questions... sorry, don't have an answer though

I agree with Elven's comments - at first glance the snail shot looks great. Looking away then looking back at it a few times, it still looks great! Only improvement I can think of is fixing the overexposed shell (did you use flash?).

I think the colour photo of the shoes/sky is better than the b/w... The lines are good, taking away the horizontal lines would throw the balance off unless you put the shoes in the thirds. Because of the white sky (merging into the white border), an addtional thin black border around the photo might make the whole photo stand out a bit. You might need to put one around the outside of the white border to, to balance it.

440Hz

The snail shot just doesnt do much for me, purely subjective but it just freaks me out a little. Technically it is a great abstract shot, but he seems like an evil snail, like he is watching me and is planning something

The shoe-shot though ~ superb. What an honest shot this is. That is what I like the most about the lines, you just know the shot has not been embellished and it really is just this good. It is so simple, a no-frills great compositon resulting in a cracking shot! I love it.

elven

440Hz wrote:

he seems like an evil snail, like he is watching me and is planning something

Hmm, sounds like you've discovered the secret of the world that we're just here as a big experiment and it's really the snails that run the earth...

Paddy.Macky

Hi, hope I'm not being a pest (new to Boards.ie) but the photos dont show on my view. Any ideas why.. Internte Explorer is set as normal to show all pictures.:o

Necronomicon

Paddy.Macky wrote: »

Hi, hope I'm not being a pest (new to Boards.ie) but the photos dont show on my view. Any ideas why.. Internte Explorer is set as normal to show all pictures.:o

Because this is a reeeeeeeeeeeaaaaaaallllllllyyyyyyyyyy old thread and the photos have probably since been deleted from where the OP was hosting them

challengemaster

M-M-M-M-MONSTER BUMP! :pac:

Paddy.Macky

Necronomicon wrote: »

Because this is a reeeeeeeeeeeaaaaaaallllllllyyyyyyyyyy old thread and the photos have probably since been deleted from where the OP was hosting them

Thanks a million. . .should have guessssed. .

DaireQuinlan

Haha, I was wondering why eas was taking pictures of snails, and why elven suddenly acquired an interest in C&C ...

eas

ha, this is really funny and quite humbling.

5 years on, I can answer my own questions, in that there really are no answers, only opinions. In reality most things just don't matter, any photo can work in dozens of different ways & as long as you're happy with what you have then you're doing well....pretty much as elven said.

If I was to give my younger self some pointed advice it would be to not ask for CnC in an open forum. I don't think there's any value in it and it only makes you doubt yourself. .

sineadw

Or ask, but know who to listen to

dakar

I wanna see the evil snail...

AnCatDubh

sineadw wrote: »

Or ask, but know who to listen to

rather than who, perhaps what?

challengemaster

AnCatDubh wrote: »

rather than who, perhaps what?

There's definitely a who about it, ACD. Not really in a bad way like it might sound, but there are a lot of different style photographers on here.

There's little point in taking C&C from a landscape photographer when you've posted skateboarding pics... If you get what I mean?

magicbastarder

why? surely you're not taking skateboarding pics purely for skateboarding photographers?
granted, a skateboarding photographer can offer more informed advice on how to get a better shot from a technical perspective, but often you'll get better aesthetic feedback from someone who doesn't know about the technical details.

challengemaster

My point was, you'd pay more attention to the people who know what they're talking about.

Would you ask an accountant how to fix a car?

magicbastarder

but that's a different sort of situation and only has tenuous application here.
i can tell someone why i like or do not like an oil painting. the fact that i cannot paint does not render my opinion worthless.

i know what you mean, you will get a different sort of advice from skate photographers - but the original 'little point' phrasing didn't seem to allow any other sort of feedback. and that other feedback can be very useful.