DSS #24 Emulation Image - Unofficial Feedback Thread
hawkeye978
Registered Users Posts: 1,218 Major grins
Here is the official gallery to give your C&C for DSS#24
Gallery Found Here
This unofficial feedback thread is a catch-all of sorts, lets make it happen:thumb
Anyway, Lets get #24 Feedback started!!
This thread is:
As pointed out last month it's easy to post thumbnails (with help from our Moderator).
With the image selected in the gallery, copy its URL from your browser, add "-Th.jpg" to the end, delete the jumble of numbers and letters preceding the hashtag (#), change "gallery" to "photos" and that's it.
Example
Change this url
To this
To get this:
Happy Feedbacking :scratch
Gallery Found Here
This unofficial feedback thread is a catch-all of sorts, lets make it happen:thumb
Anyway, Lets get #24 Feedback started!!
This thread is:
- a place to post a list of your top ten favorites. (be heard, and let everyone know what images moved you.)
- a place to post your "the making of my image"
- a place to ask someone "how did they do that?"(for us all to see:D )
As pointed out last month it's easy to post thumbnails (with help from our Moderator).
With the image selected in the gallery, copy its URL from your browser, add "-Th.jpg" to the end, delete the jumble of numbers and letters preceding the hashtag (#), change "gallery" to "photos" and that's it.
Example
Change this url
http://challenges.smugmug.com/gallery/7821877_VUfQz#508585564_r5YQB
To this
http://challenges.smugmug.com/photos/508585564_r5YQB-Th.jpg
To get this:
Happy Feedbacking :scratch
0
Comments
While my commenting has been sparse due to being busy (out of town working on Verdi's masterpiece Otello - bliss!) I've been following with tremendous interest. As always, tough to narrow it down, but my top choices this round, in gallery order:
Good luck to all.
— Kevin
My Site, My Book
Website: Tom Price Photography
Blog: Capturing Photons
Facebook: Tom Price Photography
sherstone – Vicky
CookieS-MMVogue
Greensquared - Candle in the Wind
anonymouscuban – Cowpoke
richtersl – Pondering
DeuceFour - Dog 'till Dusk
nightpixels - Just like Manny
photobrando - "Self Portrait"
annnna8888 - Play of Light
cloudnine - Fished In
Here are few of my favorites:
TravelwaysPhotos.com ...... Facebook
VegasGreatAttractions.com
Travelways.com
http://danielplumer.com/
Facebook Fan Page
Tim
Aaron,
I agree.. I learned a lot with this round and I learn a lot from hanging out on the DG as well... It is all in "fun and learning".. and the contests motivate me to grow and get out there and shoot.
I like what would have been your submission. That is a gorgeous color and you captured it beautifully without blowing the contrast out, that's the thing about a lot of macros of colorful flowers, is a lot of people overdo the color, you kept your nice and soft and true. Nice work...
However, I don't know who you are emulating...
Kat
There were some fantastic entries. I can't begin to choose a top 10.
*
http://member.onemodelplace.com/member.cfm?P_ID=214042
Cheers/peter
My images | My blog | My free course
My SmugMug
I know.. I am having a heck of a time trying to get the links for the pictures to take.. I am following the directions and it worked for one, but not the other.. AGHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH...:deadhorse I keep trying it over and over and over....
half an hour on this and I cant get it to work.. there has to be an easier way to do this...
Kat
I’ve loved Pete Turner’s work ever since I first encountered it at the George Eastman House, and later rediscovered his work as a featured artist in the book More Joy of Photography. And while I knew that I would be unlikely to find a giraffe running through the plains of Rochester, I wanted to create something that was vibrant and slightly abstract, while still being grounded in the real world.
To start, I looked at all the Pete Turner photos I could find – mostly on the internet and especially his website due to the time constraints of the challenge. Looking at, and eventually deconstructing, his images was an eye-opener.
First, off, his images tend to be 4x6 format, with a noticeable but not distracting vignette. I’d want to use a similar crop ratio and vignette in my image.
Next, of course, is his color palette. Pete Turner photographs are vibrant and dark. His skies are often midnight blue, his yellows are almost orange. He tends toward primary colors, always with the saturation pushed to the maximum. Color casts? His photos revel in them – even adding color filters --the kind you use for black-and-whites-- to his color images for added “pop.” The classic example, of course, is the one I fell in love with at the Eastman House—the black giraffe, running across a purple plain under an evenly-lit red sky. I also love the way he uses more believable color casts to emphasize mood and tone in his outdoor scenes. His colors daunted me. I feel most confident with my black-and-white images, and am usually hesitant to push the colors in my images past a certain point. Moving out of my comfort zone and using the supersaturated, but still somehow realistic, colors would be a real challenge.
Finally, of course, is subject. Pete Turner images are quite varied in terms of subject, but what I think I figured out is that he starts with normal enough subjects, isolates shapes, lines, and colors, and removes them slightly from their context to make the shapes, lines, and colors more important than the subject itself.
My goal then, was to emphasize colors, shapes, and lines to create my final image, and if I could get in that wonderful black-blue daytime sky, so much the better.
Naturally, the day I went to shoot, the sky went from a brilliant blue to a dull gray. I snapped some pictures at a beach playground and a local building, but nothing was exciting me. Racking my brain, I remembered looking at a series of photos Turner did called “Walls of Light.” I turned toward a beach house …
… and I had my picture. There were the portapotties (!) at just the perfect shade of blue. Lined up against the textured wall, with the arced window of the beach house, I had my lines, my shapes, and, with a little bit of post-processing, I had my colors.
By the way, if you ever want to feel like a real creep, stand outside in broad daylight in a crowded area snapping pictures of a public toilet. I just thank God to this day that they were unoccupied, and that no one was exiting one at an inopportune moment, or there would have been some explaining to do. I went home, downloaded the pictures and excitedly showed them to my wife, who still thinks I’m nuts.
Initially, I tried using the digital equivalent of colored filters for my picture, but the results weren’t strong enough for what I wanted. I ended up pushing the saturation as far as I could take it, then brushing in additional saturation to the walls, window frame, and parts of the portapotties. I also increased sharpness and local contrast enhancement to bring out the texture of the wall, and added a stronger vignette and did some straightening.
The end result is something I’m sure Pete Turner would never in a million years want to be associated with, but which nevertheless he inspired.
So that’s why a picture of “EZ Does IT” Portapotties appeared in a Dgrin challenge.
You’re welcome.
Well since you asked...
I have long been a fan of Steichen's Gloria Swanson image - I've always been fascinated by the lace, and the intensity (I love much of his work - and that period of photography in general - but the Swanson picture has always stood out for me). I played around with the lace-in-front of face a few months ago jsut for fun (I think it was during the high/low key challenge) but it was never quite right and I set the idea aside. The emulation challenge was a perfect time to try again!
The lace I have is gold, but the spacing on the pattern was good and the mesh nice and open, so I figured it was worth giving it another go.
Hardest part was the makeup - my eye shape does not naturally do well with 20's style makeup (I have almond rather than round eyes, which were more the fashionable paradigm of the time, plus I don't have the superskinny plucked eyebrows that were all the rage); also, I have hereditary dark circles under my eyes - normally I can just pp those out, but I knew it was going to be tricky behind the lace, so I wanted to get the foundation/skintone as porcelain as possible for the shot. Believe it or not I was PLASTERED with makeup - every bit as heavy as I'd wear onstage, perhaps even more.
Here's the basic (warts and all) shot - lit with a speedlight fired into a 45" shoothrough umbrella, so nothing terribly exotic. I practiced with a mirror to figure out how to place the lace pattern so it still let my eyes show.
Next came converting it. Biggest problem here was getting the gold lace darker - it took selecting and converting the gold part of the lace as a separate layer (with the yellow channel darker) to get the overall effect I wanted without overdarkening skin tones along with it (caucasian skin has lots of yellow in it, I'm learning!).
The result at this stage - after cloning out the shadows cast by the lace (that was a job, with all the mesh to try and match!), some dodging/burning of the eyemakeup and eyes, and selectively darkening the lip colour was this:
This is about when I started posting it for feedback, but I still wasn't convinced - it just didn't have the wonderful softness that the Steichen's style - and equipment - offered.
I started playing around in LR, and realised that using one of the Lomo presets I have instantly started to give it the period look I wanted. That preset was only a starting point since it was a cross-process effect and I didn't want thee green, but it did do some nice things to the overall look. Some more tweaking of the conversion using assorted LR tools/presets, and it got me to this:
This is actually my favorite version, I think, but I decided for the challenge I wanted just a little more detail in the lace, so in PS I blended it with the original BW version above for greater clarity, let just a hint of the eye colour shine through as though it had been hand-tinted (thanks for that suggestion, Velvet Art) and... well, there you have it!
No magic, really - just a lot of trial and error processing until I got what I wanted. I really, really enjoyed working on this image (even if it did mean looking at my own mug for far too many hours - I HATE that part about SP's, although I'm figuring out how to detach from it, kind of like I do when I listen to a recording of my own singing) - I just love Steichen's style and digging into it was really rewarding.
And Pemmett, I swear I'm not that scary (well, I don't THINK so, anyway!!
Hi Everyone.. This round was especially challenging to me because I am new to the world of photography, and lack the years to have studied others skills to emulate. My choice of Tony Sweet was because I bought his books and studied them when I first started, along with Julian Busselle. Tony is "the photographer" who inspired me to get into photography. I love his art work and his personal story.
So, my top picks are based on overall skill, yes, but also of whom I learned the most from... I keep my nose in the books and my eye in the viewfinder to learn daily, but I find it very refreshing to be able to look at actual ongoing photography work here on DG daily being able to talk directly with photographers about their work.
I learn a great deal from everyone and appreciate the time people have taken to explain their methods, and also for the time they take to help out with critiques..
<o:p> </o:p>
"Everyone" did an awesome job, but I have to pick 10, so these are the ones that taught me the most, or that I chose because of overall impressive skill or both..
<o:p> </o:p>
Listed in Order of Gallery, not in order of favorite.
<o:p> </o:p>
Kat
Jag-Upsy Daisy
I found this photo creative and it taught me to slow down and consider the possibilities pertaining to perspective and how both props and models work together, skill wise, the focus is nice and sharp and the colors work with this theme.
Sherstone- Vicky
I liked this photo and found it to be very appealing and classy, plus I watched how the photographer here applied and considered critiques, and this photo comes very close to the art it is emulating. Great model,she brought a lot of character to this photo, and great photographer skills. I can see that the photographer took careful time to set up the shot.
Velvet Art = 2 Left Eyes
Now this one not only looks awesome and unique, it took time and thought and it shows. Great color and texture. I learned a lot from this photo and this photographer. The photographer shared techniques and was very open to teaching us how it worked, so I learned a new skill and admire the work. A + for thinking outside of the box on this one.
silversx80 -- Crabtree Morning
This one lead me to consider how to work with reflections, light and shadows. I admire the warm and mood of this photo and find that I feel peaceful looking at it. I respect a photo that pulls you into it and shares something of what the photographer might have felt when shooting it. I was also impressed with the composition here and the way the photographer made use of dividing lines and depth.
dnie - Pegasus
What can I say.. this one is fun to look at, and because I am partial to a photograph that departs mood and pulls you in, I feel that this one does that well. Knowing how difficult it can be to shoot light and control the glow, I admire this one for the skill and the character. The colors pop and it sets a real mood with the color of light and the extras in the composition. I love the way the glow just lights the extras up enough. When looking at this one, I feel like I am standing right there in the place.. This is a photographer who was open to critique and was willing to scrutinize his own work along the way and I respect that in any artist.
Nightpixels- Just Like Manny
This photo proved educational for me. First by studying the artist who he was emulating, and second by teaching me to watch patterns and the way they can dominate your composition. The one thing I found off about it was the patterns on the shirt, they compete with the floral patterns in the shot. I cannot say enough about the umbrella and how it looks painted, just wonderful.
I do like high contrast in certain situations and feel that it fits this theme. The emulation was clear and apparent. The model looks like she was hand picked for this shot; she looks very similar to the models the artist he is emulating uses.. it all came together very nicely, although I would have suggested to shoot this one outdoors as this particular backdrop competes with the colors. Great technical skill and very sharp!
Greensquared - Candle in the Wind
I did not learn anything specific from this one. I just chose it because it is beautiful to look at and the photographer skills shine here... you can tell the photographer is very skilled and that a lot of work went into this shot. The make-up is gorgeous; and I absolutely love the eyes, and the light and shadow play. The emulation is successful in this one as well.. super!
anonymouscuban - Cowpoke
This one I just plain love. It is packed full of character and I admire the time the photographer took in the digital darkroom. The composition and pose are pleasing, and the textures and details are amazing. I admire how the photographer threw a "positive spin" on this emulation with his own unique style emulating an artists who puts out a lot of dark negative type shots. Very skilled. Great work.
photo-bug: "Grocery Store in Portugal"
There is just something about the way this one was captured. It is very realistic in nature, and I respect a good candid. Despite the lighting problems here, It has character and mood, it pulls you in and immediately you feel like your standing in another country. The indoor lights and the way the man is dressed casual, out doing late night shopping, creates a lot of atmosphere. I love the colorful fruit and and the marketplace setting.
hawkeye978 - Wetland Sunset
This one I picked because I admire it, and because it taught me something important.
First it taught me to be very careful with the foreground in my composition.
The view is gorgeous and well shot, perfect lighting and relaxing mood and setting, but the foreground dominates and competes too much with the background. I think I understand where the photographer was going with this, using the foreground for depth, and that would have worked if the grass would have remained lower in the shot.
I admire the photographer's sky shooting skills in this one. I always struggle when shooting the sky; and I feel this photographer pulled that off here very nicely. Wonderful clouds and light, and I am very impressed with the water and the way the light varies on it.
Aaron,
He has some orange flowers on his site that look very similar in nature to what you shot, so I can see the emulation clearly. I noticed you emulated his compositional style as well. He shoots his flowers sharp, yet there is a very subtle softness to them. He has a lot of impressive work .. not to mention an awesome smug site too!
Thanks for sharing..
Kat
Aaron, this is so lovely and really well done. The colors are soft and warm, but still manage to be vibrant. The dof is great, but I wish the focal point were just a teeny tiny fraction more on the central petal (but that is a minor nit). Really lovely and would look fantastic and I would totally put it on my wall.
Thanks for the kind comments. I agree with the foreground. I was struggling with that for days. It was an attempt at something different but didn't quite work. This was a HDR image so I was trying to get the large dynamic range present between the brighter sky and darker foreground while attempting to get details into the birch trees in the distance. It worked somewhat but not perfectly. I liked the sky and so wouldn't give up on the image. It was difficult to get a reshoot in a different location. I tried saying 'Cue the Sky' but it didn't seem to work
Website: Tom Price Photography
Blog: Capturing Photons
Facebook: Tom Price Photography
Firstly, outstanding round of photos for everyone. Secondly, thank you to those that included me in your favorites.
While I didn't make the cut this time, I thought I would share some of my thoughts around the process that I went through for my entry. "Setting up" a street shot is a little different than a landscape or studio. I'll try to keep it short.
My inspiration for this challenge was Robert Carl Cohen from a series of photographs he took in Shanghai in 1957. You can find it here, but the site isn't too sophisticated.
What I enjoyed was how he wasn't afraid to be a part of the scene and focused on capturing ordinary people doing ordinary jobs. This is in direct contrast to the stealthy street photographer with their discreet rangefinder sitting in a corner or casually walking through a setting, hip shooting.
But in my view, what both approaches have in common is the need to be close. No long lenses for this type of work.
For this challenge, I went to a street not far away from my apartment and strolled it's length twice to get a sense of what was happening that afternoon / early evening. I chose evening as the light is more interesting and I wanted that texture to be there.
After settling on the location I felt had potential, I set up shop. Monopod out, check. Big Nikon with 24-70, check. Tall, white woman in a backstreet in Shanghai, check. Nothing shy or inconspicuous about me on these streets!
I started out working on exposure, DOF and composition options. This has the added benefit of allowing my eventual subjects to get used to me being there and not feeling uncomfortable with my prescience.
Here's an early exposure shot:
Once I felt I had that covered, it was down to waiting for the right opportunity (I wanted as little "modern" life in the shot as possible ie, no cars). I tend to take a short burst of shots then just watch for 3-4 minutes to let the scene progress. Here's a burst when a street sweeper came through and pushed everyone out of the way to do his job.
The problem (challenge?) with this is you don't know if you nailed anything of interest until much later and it's next to impossible to ever recreate the shot! In this instance, my selection came from this grouping.
I felt the tug of the officer's eyes the moment I saw the RAW capture. I then began PP, cropping out the scooter in the foreground and working on the conversion.
I hope this hasn't bored anyone or gone on too long, but I think sharing is part of learning.
Jenn
Thanks for taking the time to share that with us... It is so unique to see the journey you took in capturing the shot. I have to say I still maintain that I really favored the black and white version, but now with your explanation here, I see where you were coming from with the yellowish technique in trying to give it an era look. I love the right eye on the black and white and the skin tone. I am happy for you that you made the cut and wish you all the best. I just got around to reading your blog last night, I had not noticed the link before on your signature. You are one busy mamma..
Best of luck winning...
Kat
And I thought I was the only one who sent that many to the trash bin.. I see you are a perfectionist.. and it shows... I do see a lot of his style in your shot... you know one thing I noticed about his work was he is a master at framing and polishing.. I saw that right off the bat when I saw his "red rose" rarely do you see a red rose framed so perfectly like that, I mean it is almost like he has the frame and crop in mind before he shoots.. it is like he shoots for the frame and polish, instead of the other way around shooting and then deciding on a frame and crop.. amazing skill and thanks for introducing me to his work. His work makes for a good study..
thanks for the share...
Kat
Thanks Jen for the share..
I really respect the candid here... That is the "one" thing I have the "most" problem with is candid with strangers.. I have tried,, I just cannot seem to get comfortable with it.. I feel like an intruder.. I wonder how you guys get over that fear... ???? I mean look at the way that cop is looking at you! I don't think I could have done that, and that is respectable. The only thing I would nit pick in this photo is I wondered why the street was so bright white. I think a darker street of grey would have pulled the atmosphere together in this one.. still excellent shot.. and thank you for sharing your technique..
Kat
What a fabulous round, so many great entries !!
Kudos to all !!
Peace,
Donna P.
Hi Mark,
Congrats on placing in the final round
I don't know if you realize it, however, after reading your explanation here and researching your emulation photographer of choice, your image almost perfectly emulated Pete's Baja Spheres. Did you see that?
It is inverted but you emulated him with color and size porportions.
for instance if you look at that photo, his "foreground" is orange, whereas your "background" is orange, his background is blue, whereas your background is orange.. Then here is the neat part... you have a larger object positioned to the right, and his sphere is the larger object to the right, and then both have the smaller object in the composition to the left.
that is cool and I wonder if you even realized you were doing that?
Amazing.......................
"classics gallery" you should really pull both up and take a good look. It stood out to me instantly.
Congratulations on making the cut..
Kat
Hi Tom,,,
Your welcome for the comments.. I love to learn and share..I thought you may have held onto this one for those reasons.. I mean you nailed the sky and water and field of depth,, so it had a lot going for it.
I did not realize it was an HDR. I should have guessed that with such a successful sky and the harsher tones in the grass. I am just getting into HDR, did my first one last weekend and guess what? I did something really stupid.. I shot my first HDR as a gorgeous Willow Tree.. lol
I thought to myself..wow this is going to be gorgeous......except I "forgot" to consider what a "nightmare" it would be to align the thousands of tiny fine willow leaves up... aghhhh... I shot on a tripod, but right now, I have a cheaper one and there was some light rain and wind..
What software do you use? I use CS3 and it will automate the alignment, but I sure wish I had more control over the alignment.. and it wont let me have it....
One other quick question.. do you find you lose detail once you convert to 8 bit form 32 bit? well I should probably post this in the technical forum, gonna get booted from here and moved... Just curious because you did a great job here and I am trying to master HDR so that I can master my sky shots, they always get blown out white..
thanks
Kat
Kat,
I had the same nightmare with the rush in the foreground. Those kind of cloud formations come with 30-40 mph gusts. So I did have movement issues. One of the tricks is to perform the HDR (I use Photomatix Pro) and save as a 16-bit tiff file. Then take your 0eV exposure and make an adjustment so that it closely matches the luminosity and color of your HDR file. The single shot will probably have less movement from the wind. Use this as a layer in Photoshop and generate a mask to bring out the image without any blur. The alignment can be done automatically in Photoshop between the layers (under the Edit menu) or you can nudge it around yourself. Just paint away the blurred part of the image and the sharper part appears. I'm taking everything as RAW images that I work in Lightroom. When I go to Photoshop I keep everything as 16-bit images to prevent degradation. I generally don't use 8-bit JPEGS except when I do a final export.
Look here for more details on HDR techniques.
I learned a lot in this round by studying the current HDR techniques. It's not quite throw it in software, make some adjustments, and out comes the picture on the other side. There is a lot of fussing well beyond the HDR process.
Hope that helps.
Website: Tom Price Photography
Blog: Capturing Photons
Facebook: Tom Price Photography
Thanks Tom,,
That helps a lot...
Kat,
Interesting observations. I was definitely trying to emulate Turner's colors and shapes, but I did not necessarily have Baja Spheres in mind. Mostly I was thinking: I can't believe I'm submitting a Portapotty to a dgrin contest.
Thanks for the compliments and the observation.
Carry on!