SDN Photo-a-Day (Rules updates - read the OP)

[Simplicius]

Dipping into old and substandard photos to provide content until I get things developed:

The colours came out like crap in the originals, so I used Photoshop to add overlays and false colouring to bring out the details & contrast.

Edgerton used milk, which is opaque and less reflective than water. That might help make your results more visible if you try this again. Nice, though.

clouds

So what about these particular clouds inspired you to photograph them? What set them apart from the others? What emotional reaction did they provoke?

hallways

Ditto for this hallway. What about it did you find significant? What do you want the viewer to see in this image?

train compartment

I see what you were trying to do, but for it to have succeeded this photo needed better lighting, better framing, a better angle, and no sun in the bloody frame. It's under-lit in the direction it needs to be (or else set up an actual silhouette); the subject is barely in the frame (assuming the person is your subject) and you have lots of wasted and empty space; the midday sun is a mediocre light source and a terrible subject. Unless you know for sure that the photo would be worse off without it, keep the sun out of your frame.

[The Grim Squeaker]

Dipping into old and substandard photos to provide content until I get things developed:

http://i90.photobucket.com/albums/k255/ ... 28_500.jpg

A bit dull. Maybe if at an hour of the day with shadows?

clouds

So what about these particular clouds inspired you to photograph them? What set them apart from the others? What emotional reaction did they provoke?

It was a beautiful day, and I was bored in the train .

hallways

Ditto for this hallway. What about it did you find significant? What do you want the viewer to see in this image?

It was twisty, turny, tight (thus possible to compose into a closed frame), and I expected nice shadows and light from the glass.

train compartment

I see what you were trying to do, but for it to have succeeded this photo needed better lighting, better framing, a better angle, and no sun in the bloody frame. It's under-lit in the direction it needs to be (or else set up an actual silhouette); the subject is barely in the frame (assuming the person is your subject) and you have lots of wasted and empty space; the midday sun is a mediocre light source and a terrible subject. Unless you know for sure that the photo would be worse off without it, keep the sun out of your frame.

Actually, the focus was the sun. I should have used a flash, but couldn't (the dude was sleeping and would have gotten pissed from that, and no flash in the train!).
I liked the sun in the frame

[Bounty]

This is less a pure photograph and more a Photoshop (well, Gimp) experiment. It's one of the Argus shots, cropped, desaturated and with the left-most power line edited out:



The original is still in the Argus thread for those who'd like to compare. Improvement or not?

Ships

I really like the first one. I guess it helps the windows at the front make it look like the ship has a face - it looks very... serious.

[Bounty]

Taken with the Zorki. I'm actually not really sure what was going on here...

[J]

This is less a pure photograph and more a Photoshop (well, Gimp) experiment. It's one of the Argus shots, cropped, desaturated and with the left-most power line edited out:

I think think the black & white one looks better, in colour, I get the feel that the colours don't know what they're trying to do, and you don't get an emphasis nor focal point for the picture. I think the framing contributes to this confusion as well, the B&W is better in this respect, though I think it can improved further by cropping out the top half or so of the sky.

[The Grim Squeaker]

This is less a pure photograph and more a Photoshop (well, Gimp) experiment. It's one of the Argus shots, cropped, desaturated and with the left-most power line edited out:

I think think the black & white one looks better, in colour, I get the feel that the colours don't know what they're trying to do, and you don't get an emphasis nor focal point for the picture. I think the framing contributes to this confusion as well, the B&W is better in this respect, though I think it can improved further by cropping out the top half or so of the sky.

Agreed, that was actually one of my favourite shots from the Argus from a technical POV - good, rich, warm colours.

The frame and composition/elements/contrast just don't work that well in B/W.

Your second shot is, well, crap. Sorry.

[Simplicius]

The original is still in the Argus thread for those who'd like to compare. Improvement or not?

I think it is a slight improvement. Comparing the two side-by side, you can see that the black-and-white version makes the stakes in the field and the wire of the fence more distinct, while the patch of tilled earth on the left is de-emphasized. The drainage channel on the left shoulder of the road also stands out a bit more, which helps to bring out the curve of the road. I took the liberty of cropping it further, though, since the sky is a lot of empty space and emphasizing the horizontal lay of the photo with a better aspect ratio helps it:



There's still a lot of empty space, but it is unavoidable empty space.

Taken with the Zorki. I'm actually not really sure what was going on here...

This one looks a bit better in landscape, but the focus really should have been on the foreground. As it is now, the large stalk says "Woah, how did I get in here" rather than "I am a part of the composition," while the focus is lost in the jumble of plants.

A bit dull. Maybe if at an hour of the day with shadows?

There are shadows; not everything has to be starkly lit. In fact, not everything should be starkly lit.

It was a beautiful day, and I was bored in the train .

This is where your editorial process needs to kick in. Anyone who doesn't live underground or isn't blind has seen a blue sky with clouds in before, and any of those people could take a picture of the same thing if they went out on a nice day with a camera and looked up. So there isn't much need to present such a photo to the world.

If you're going to just post snaps, at least say "I know it's just a snap" and still try to post only the least shitty snaps. I could drown this thread with years' of "I wanted to take a picture of [x], so I did," but I have learned to apply the editing process - as a result, I've got 32 snaps set aside for this thread if nothing better comes along, out of a total of thousands.

It was twisty, turny, tight (thus possible to compose into a closed frame), and I expected nice shadows and light from the glass.

Again, this is just a "Hey, I thought it looked nice" snapshot. An empty hallway makes for a poor subject; the lighting is perfectly ordinary midday light that anyone who has ever seen a window before is acquainted with, the shadows are plain frames on a flat floor and don't even grab the attention of the viewer, the p.o.v. is ordinary head height, and if there are any interesting architectural details here they are lost on the viewer because you didn't take a picture of them; you took a picture of the hallway they may or may not be in. If you mean to present serious photos for an audience or for critique, you need to put more work and especially more thought into them than this.

Actually, the focus was the sun. I should have used a flash, but couldn't (the dude was sleeping and would have gotten pissed from that, and no flash in the train!).

A flash would have reflected off the window and put an even brighter pointless glob of light smack in the middle of a thoughtlessly composed frame. In other words, it would have been worse.

What is it with you and midday suns? At least go for sunsets and sunrises; they are cliche but they are cliche because they have pretty colors. The sun at any time other than <30 minutes after rise/set is boring, boring, boring. It's like taking unfiltered photos of light bulbs.

Agreed, that was actually one of my favourite shots from the Argus from a technical POV - good, rich, warm colours.

The frame and composition/elements/contrast just don't work that well in B/W.

You agree with an opinion that is completely opposite from yours? What? Also, "frame and composition/elements/contrast" are things that exist independently of whether there is color in the photo or not.

[Simplicius]

Content:



Points if you know what or where.

[The Grim Squeaker]

Agreed, that was actually one of my favourite shots from the Argus from a technical POV - good, rich, warm colours.

The frame and composition/elements/contrast just don't work that well in B/W.

You agree with an opinion that is completely opposite from yours?

Dammit, I meant to crop out the bits which I didn't agree on from the quote.

What? Also, "frame and composition/elements/contrast" are things that exist independently of whether there is color in the photo or not.

I meant that they are things which among others make the shot not work well as a pure B/W shot.
There are shots that retain their merit regardless of whether they're in B/W or in colour, this wasn't one of them.

Now, 3 quick very slightly amusing snapshots taken from this overly long day today:
Taken from the IDF "Convention for Soldiers' finishing their service" event:

The cropped out title says "Smart". I liked the dude's pose .

"Blazer - everything a woman wants". It didn't come out well, but there are a number of slightly amusing elements - the ugly woman looking under the "Everything that interests Men" sign, the other girl with her hand on her ass in the background, etc'. Not a good shot, but it was either this or a few crappier shots of the job offer booths or hot girls in very, very tight shirts trying to sell job offers. (And wants to see that anyway ).


Bike shop near the Gaza strip. (Went bicycling their today). The left third of the frame sucks, but I like the shapes of the tiles and roof converging. A quick snapshot in other words. (The shots I took while riding were rather worse).

[J]

To Bounty: This is my edited version of your photo. I've taken out around 3/5 of the sky and used the curves tool to darken the photo and add a bit of contrast.

---

Anyway, here's my contribution to the cause.

[The Grim Squeaker]

Nice shot (Though not winning any originality awards anytime soon for the idea, but neither is anything else by anyone here ). Let me guess, taken with a compact digicam? (The noise reduction is brutal). Did you manage to do a flash as part of the shot? (on camera flash).

[Bounty]

the ugly woman looking under the "Everything that interests Men" sign

What ugly woman?

To Bounty: This is my edited version of your photo. I've taken out around 3/5 of the sky and used the curves tool to darken the photo and add a bit of contrast.

The one thing there that doesn't gel with me is cropping out the top of the left-most light pole. I agree that there's too much sky, but when trying to crop it myself I thought it was bad practice to have half of something in the frame and the rest cut off? I guess there's not much you can do when the original has the poles, but personally I like Simplicius' version better.

(Also, stupid question: curves tool?)

This one looks a bit better in landscape, but the focus really should have been on the foreground. As it is now, the large stalk says "Woah, how did I get in here" rather than "I am a part of the composition," while the focus is lost in the jumble of plants.

Yeah. I was thinking I might try to make a shot that's similar to this one, but instead of putting an actual stalk in the middle of the frame, I'd try to catch the plants' shadow, if that makes sense somehow. Sort of a "phantom plant" effect.

Content:

Some sort of heavy-duty electrical socket? In a factory? A train station perhaps?

[Simplicius]

The one thing there that doesn't gel with me is cropping out the top of the left-most light pole. I agree that there's too much sky, but when trying to crop it myself I thought it was bad practice to have half of something in the frame and the rest cut off? I guess there's not much you can do when the original has the poles, but personally I like Simplicius' version better.

I think J's crop works as well, though - having the top of the pole missing does change the perspective a bit; makes it look like the camera was closer to that pole. The rule about cutting off extremities mostly applies because little bits clipped off around the edges look like sloppy framing and detract from the photo, but bold and deliberate crops are perfectly okay as long as the photo looks good. A willingness to crop appropriately helps you get in close enough to your subject, which is invariably a good thing. Ellington's dictum, paraphrased, applies here: "If it looks good, it is good."

(Also, stupid question: curves tool?)

Cambridge in Color, for starters.

Some sort of heavy-duty electrical socket? In a factory? A train station perhaps?

Connectors of some kind on the Soyuz mockup at NASM, actually.

New one for today:

[Losonti Tokash]

I hesitate to call myself even an amateur photographer, but these are some of my favorite photos that I've taken. They're both from last summer and the first two are just fucking around in the middle of the night with long exposures and extreme fog.







I really like the last one because of how it looks like the rainbow is sort of cutting the sky into two distinct pieces.

Considering where I work I can probably get some really good photos of people so I'll start taking my camera in with me.

[The Grim Squeaker]

First 3 taken from the parade: (I intend to add a few more, regardless of the "dedicated" thread):
I was sure the shots were a bust due to my camera/lens going utterly crazy with the light and WB readings. I set everything on manual (right down to the WB and AP) and managed to salvage some shots:

I really liked this impromptu shot. (The colours are just so bronzy ).

Giant jester float.

I thought this would be a better investment for my wealth than a 70-200 F/4 lens. (Which I can't afford anyway )

[Simplicius]

guy with face paint

Really ordinary colors, actually. Good to see the white balance worked on manual override, but this is a really mundane shot. Nothing about it stands out to me, except that it must suck for that guy to have had his 'Durrrrrr' face on right when you tripped the shutter.

People are great photographic subjects because they convey emotion and tell stories with their posture and expressions and do it without even realizing, and because the connection between the subject and the viewer is so easy to build. It falls to you, as to photographer, to try and catch those moments when some facet of your subject's character suddenly shines through. It takes a lot of work, and lot of practice and a lot of shots, and you have to hone your reflexes and your perception, but it makes for some of the best photographs (of all time, I mean) when it's done well.

There are lots of photographers who do great portrait work, but since you seem to prefer the candid style, I'd recommend you check out Elliott Erwitt's work for inspiration. Cartier-Bresson and Arthur Fellig ("Weegee") are other photographers famous for their candid work, but I'm more familiar with Erwitt's photos so I'll stick to recommending him.

jester

I don't like the lighting on this one, just because it's not very well distributed - since all the bright spots are toward the top of the figure, my eye wants to scan up and then skip off the top of the head into empty space. I also don't find it to be a very evocative picture, so I can't consider it anything but a snapshot - but it's a quality snapshot, at least.

money tree

This one is pretty good. I think it's a shade too bright down at the bottom, but the light distribution is good nonetheless. The first thing that catches the eye is the bright money down at the bottom, which is also closest to the camera; then, as the eye tracks up, it sees the other bills receding into the distance. You've got the subject filling the frame, which is great, and the slightly shallow depth of field works with the chaotic arrangement of the bills to create the impression that they are actually raining from the sky. I would call this one a keeper, for sure - only major problem I can think of is that you should have chosen a slightly different angle, to fill in that gap between branches in the top center - and a bit lower, too, to increase foreshortening and strengthen the illusion still further.

Two more from the Air and Space Museum:

In case anyone's ever been curious about the galley arrangements of a 135-year-old coasting schooner, they are this:



The cook has a stool because headroom is practically nil. Despite that, the food that comes out of that galley sounds top-notch.

[The Grim Squeaker]

Since when do you have an ultra wide lens? (For the second green aircraft shot?).
First shot is, well, mundane - it's a third of a rocket, there's nothing interesting in it at all, not even for a snapshot.

I really liked your previous shot of the silver aircraft with the copters though, the composition was excellent.

[Simplicius]

Since when do you have an ultra wide lens? (For the second green aircraft shot?).

That photo was taken with the equivalent of a 35mm lens. It's trickery:


Red approximates the sightline of the shot, and green approximates the original field of view (63&#176;). You'll see that, first, foreshortening was enhanced because I was standing close to the nose of the aircraft, and second, that the curved taper of the aircraft's nose contributes to the appearance of curved distortion that is the hallmark of wide lenses. Finally, the blue line approximates the crop, and you'll see that the final angle of view is now asymmetric with respect to the sightline of the image, which increases the appearance of distortion still further.

I don't want an ultrawide. They're of very limited use unless you shoot massive open spaces, which are few and far between in New England. 28mm is wide enough for my purposes, and even then I rarely use it. Normal lenses are extremely versatile; you just have to learn to position yourself instead of counting on the lens to do all your framing for you.

[The Grim Squeaker]

Since when do you have an ultra wide lens? (For the second green aircraft shot?).

That photo was taken with the equivalent of a 35mm lens. It's trickery:

Equivalent? Not film? Max enlargement/min focusing distance?

[Simplicius]

Equivalent? Not film? Max enlargement/min focusing distance?

All my photos in this thread so far have been with my digital P&S, because I've got a shitload of film but it's waiting to be developed. Since I mostly shoot in 135 format I think in 135 format, and that means I need to scale up all those crop sensor and digicam lenses so I can translate their focal lengths into meaningful results. It wouldn't make much sense for me to say "85mm is a good focal length for portraits" when my 85mm and your 85mm are two different things.

Also, more snapshots. Astrophotgraphy on the super-cheap and super-slapdash, and color and geometry.

[The Grim Squeaker]

Equivalent? Not film? Max enlargement/min focusing distance?

All my photos in this thread so far have been with my digital P&S, because I've got a shitload of film but it's waiting to be developed. Since I mostly shoot in 135 format I think in 135 format, and that means I need to scale up all those crop sensor and digicam lenses so I can translate their focal lengths into meaningful results. It wouldn't make much sense for me to say "85mm is a good focal length for portraits" when my 85mm and your 85mm are two different things.

Yes, yes, we all know what a crop factor is . Still, are you sure you converted it properly? Compact cameras have varying (and high) "crop"/conversion factors. It is a lot easier to get an exaggerated angle with one of them though (hurrah for close focusing and lens-sensor distance!).

Also, more snapshots. Astrophotgraphy on the super-cheap and super-slapdash, and color and geometry.

Moon shot is awesome. What lens did you use for that zoom? Did you stick it up against a telescope?

Star shot is, well, might be nice for a website shot. The composition is a bit boring, might have been improved by you being and shooting a bit "higher" so you don't have a blank space on the bottom, and less of an "angle".

[Simplicius]

Yes, yes, we all know what a crop factor is . Still, are you sure you converted it properly? Compact cameras have varying (and high) "crop"/conversion factors. It is a lot easier to get an exaggerated angle with one of them though (hurrah for close focusing and lens-sensor distance!).

I looked it up. The A570IS has a 1/2.5" sensor and therefore a crop factor of 6. It's not hard to calculate these things.

Moon shot is awesome. What lens did you use for that zoom? Did you stick it up against a telescope?

I did stick it up against a telescope, because there's no way that a P&S could ever attain that level of magnification. It's not a very good quality shot (high noise, low detail), but it is nonetheless a triumph because the unsteadiness caused by holding the camera onto the eyepiece and holding the telescope at the right angle, and the slow-ish exposure, make it more than hard enough to keep the moon in the frame and keep it from being a huge smear.

Star shot is, well, might be nice for a website shot. The composition is a bit boring, might have been improved by you being and shooting a bit "higher" so you don't have a blank space on the bottom, and less of an "angle".

And now you see why I don't like P&Ss - the arm's length shooting stance required by the LCD is unsteady and harder to gauge and control than looking through a viewfinder.

More for today: A Lombard log hauler, and Beech Nut.

[J]

And now you see why I don't like P&Ss - the arm's length shooting stance required by the LCD is unsteady and harder to gauge and control than looking through a viewfinder.

And that's why my P&S camera has a viewfinder. Well, that's not really true, we got a digital camera with a viewfinder so it's still useable in bright sunlight & other harsh lighting conditions where the LCD becomes useless.

[Simplicius]

And that's why my P&S camera has a viewfinder. Well, that's not really true, we got a digital camera with a viewfinder so it's still useable in bright sunlight & other harsh lighting conditions where the LCD becomes useless.

I didn't even consider buying a camera without a viewfinder, but the viewfinder has its own disadvantages. For the picture Death and I were talking about, and for more than a few of the digital pictures I've taken, parallax error would have been a problem but for using the LCD. If the digicam were my primary camera I'd probably be able to instinctively use it to best advantage, but it isn't, so I can't.

[Bounty]

That's why I love my A640: manual controls, an LCD that folds in, and a viewfinder.

The beach hut looks nice. I like the sense of desolation - would you be able amplify the effect by putting the hut in the corner and shooting more empty space? I know it's probably not good practice but if the context fits...