Sunday morning

bdcolen

Thoughts?

kdog

bdcolen wrote:

Thoughts?

Too much brick? I'd try a crop starting just below the curved orb in the upper-left corner, and proceed down and to the right so that maybe half that amount of brick is showing. That way I won't have to strain my eyes as much to see the lovers. I'd also like a little more visibility into the subway entrance.

Hmm, why am I giving you advice?

Cheers,
-joel

bdcolen

kdog wrote:

Too much brick? I'd try a crop starting just below the curved orb in the upper-left corner, and proceed down and to the right so that maybe half that amount of brick is showing. That way I won't have to strain my eyes as much to see the lovers. I'd also like a little more visibility into the subway entrance.

Hmm, why am I giving you advice?

Cheers,
-joel

Why not?
Do you mean like this? It's a very different image that way...I'd rather you searched for the couple - and I definitely want the defaced poster that's now missing...

kdog

No, I was thinking more along the lines of this.



I like the way the defaced poster head is looking down on the lovers. I just noticed that.

D'Buggs

bdcolen wrote:

Thoughts?

I find myself lost, not being able to find what is the subject.... Is it the poster, building, the brick work,,,, or something else??? If I didn't know your style, the couple would've been over looked.


It's likely that I just don't 'get' the style that's presented here.
Some of your stuff captivates me, this does not.

But hey; I'm NEW!

Awais Yaqub

Hmm
What if you crop it in portrait orientation ?
Leaving behind only building floor, couple and window of shop. Getting rid of whole white areascratch

bdcolen

Awais Yaqub wrote:

Hmm
What if you crop it in portrait orientation ?
Leaving behind only building floor, couple and window of shop. Getting rid of whole white areascratch

Probably not - then all you have is a photo of a couple kissing - and what's that?

I don't like the other crop, because it loses the shape on the left, which I like to think works with the shape on the right.

What I see here is a vast empty space at dawn, emphasized by all those bricks, with the couple off in their own private/public corner of itBut, hey, it's possible the whole thing just may not work.

rutt

Let's see. This is an interesting composition in the abstract. Right to left: horizontal, vertical, cylindrical. The kiss is framed within this visual rhythm. We have the T stop on the left, a common sight and the strange bearded lady on the right in contrast. In the middle, the couple comes together.

Does it work? I think it's a little hard to evaluate at this size. What about XL or X2? Might work better given that the couple is such an important part of the image and is so small at this size.

I like kdog's crop.

Color nerd stuff: The image has a blue cast in the 3/4 tones. You can tell by measuring the couple's flesh which reads a little too magenta. Too much plugged shadow. Underexposure of the couple due to the backlight. I used this blue curve in a color blended layer to fix the cast:



I used a false profile (gamma 1.2) to lighten, curves for contrast, and some LAB magic to try to recover some shadow detail and give it a little more pop:



I might have taken the LAB color enhancement too far for BD; I think he likes a duller film-type look, since he goes back to the days when dinosaurs ruled the earth.

Of course, working from raw would be better than working from the low res attachment as I did. But I think this image does have the potential to make some good post work worth while. BD, if you want to see what I can do, email me. You might just not care enough.

To repeat myself, though, this image needs to be viewed LARGER.

Awais Yaqub

bdcolen wrote:

Probably not - then all you have is a photo of a couple kissing - and what's that?

I don't like the other crop, because it loses the shape on the left, which I like to think works with the shape on the right.

What I see here is a vast empty space at dawn, emphasized by all those bricks, with the couple off in their own private/public corner of itBut, hey, it's possible the whole thing just may not work.

Ahan great i suggested that because i wanted to hear critics on my compo

bdcolen

rutt wrote:

Let's see. This is an interesting composition in the abstract. Right to left: horizontal, vertical, cylindrical. The kiss is framed within this visual rhythm. We have the T stop on the left, a common sight and the strange bearded lady on the right in contrast. In the middle, the couple comes together.

Does it work? I think it's a little hard to evaluate at this size. What about XL or X2? Might work better given that the couple is such an important part of the image and is so small at this size.

I like kdog's crop.

Color nerd stuff: The image has a blue cast in the 3/4 tones. You can tell by measuring the couple's flesh which reads a little too magenta. Too much plugged shadow. Underexposure of the couple due to the backlight. I used this blue curve in a color blended layer to fix the cast:



I used a false profile (gamma 1.2) to lighten, curves for contrast, and some LAB magic to try to recover some shadow detail and give it a little more pop:



I might have taken the LAB color enhancement too far for BD; I think he likes a duller film-type look, since he goes back to the days when dinosaurs ruled the earth.

Of course, working from raw would be better than working from the low res attachment as I did. But I think this image does have the potential to make some good post work worth while. BD, if you want to see what I can do, email me. You might just not care enough.

To repeat myself, though, this image needs to be viewed LARGER.

It does need to be viewed larger - I'll see what I have. As to your technical work...My neurons are getting old, but I really do remember the scene. And the cast you've given it is definitely too yellow for 7 a.m. on Labor Day weekend. The colors in the original really are much closer to the scene. I think.

rutt

bdcolen wrote:

It does need to be viewed larger - I'll see what I have. As to your technical work...My neurons are getting old, but I really do remember the scene. And the cast you've given it is definitely too yellow for 7 a.m. on Labor Day weekend. The colors in the original really are much closer to the scene. I think.

Your memory is what you need to represent, not my idea of 7am in September. Before the LAB enhancement, my color correction might have appealed to you more. But you can tell the image is too blue by measuring the white of the T signs, the magenta of the bearded lady poster, and the couple's faces. Any of these alone might just be the way it was, but taken together they offer a consistent picture of too much blue (too little yellow) in the 3/4 tones. Different people definitively react differently to this on computer monitors. Some (me) seem to have more powerful internal auto white balance in reality than on computer screens and need more cast reduction in order to get a match. Others want to see the cast on the monitor. Very few people like this in prints, though. My (not perfectly well formed) theory is that almost nobody's internal auto white balance works for prints, some people's works for monitors (BD's, not mine), and everyone's works for reality.

That's a lot of theory and not enough practice. Here is the image with just the cast correction and no LAB stuff. Might still look too yellow if you are fixated on the colors of the original, but it looks a lot better to me, the blacks measure neutral, the whites are a lot closer, and the flesh isn't more magenta than yellow (usually a good thing for healthy people under daylight.) Might want darker bricks in my version to make up for less magenta. Original (left), corrected (right).



Give it a day or so. Then look at my version first followed by yours.

Richard

I don't think the problem here is really the processing. As a great photographer advised, get closer. Seriously, the couple just don't occupy enough real estate in the frame. Sorry, BD, but if I had posted that pic, you would have been the first to say so.

Mitchell

The more I look at these, the more I like the original crop.

I was initially put off by the object in the upper left corner. Now I find it offers a nice balance to the rounded contour of the kiosk with the poster.

I like the empty spaces and the vast floor of brick. The emptiness works with the couple's romantic interlude.

bdcolen

Richard wrote:

I don't think the problem here is really the processing. As a great photographer advised, get closer. Seriously, the couple just don't occupy enough real estate in the frame. Sorry, BD, but if I had posted that pic, you would have been the first to say so.

Nothing to be sorry about, Richard - I put it up with a question. I'm not sure about it. I took this a couple of years ago for a Harvard Stem Cell Institute annual report - the theme of the report was connection, and it used the MBTA system as a metaphor. I had to take a lot of T photos. For this one I went to Harvard square at sunrise on a Sunday, set the camera on a tripod, and took a whole series of shots as people came and went. I'll try to find some of the others and put them up. This was taken as a photo of a place, not a couple. But...

whiterice

The image didn't initially appeal to me....wasn't quite getting it. Once you reread the title and realize that you're looking at a T station....then it starts to click. This is a normally BUSY place.....but very quiet that AM. The vast expanse of bricks emphasizes this. A closer crop would take away from that isolated feel. Would this couple be embracing had this station been busy with the weekday crowd? This image makes me wonder.

jethibod

whiterice wrote:

..This is a normally BUSY place.....but very quiet that AM. The vast expanse of bricks emphasizes this. A closer crop would take away from that isolated feel. Would this couple be embracing had this station been busy with the weekday crowd? This image makes me wonder.

That was exactly my thought - that sort of solitude of a Sunday morning would give a bit more license for public displays. Which I note was a fairly long one considering the blur of motion behind them - I think that was the part that I liked the best - that they were immersed in each other. And then I noticed that poster, and had to sit for a while and try and figure that out...

I like the story that I've made for the photo - maybe that's the point?

Flutist

kdog wrote:

Too much brick?

Cheers,
-joel

It's Boston........Boston is made of brick..........

rutt

Richard wrote:

I don't think the problem here is really the processing. As a great photographer advised, get closer. Seriously, the couple just don't occupy enough real estate in the frame. Sorry, BD, but if I had posted that pic, you would have been the first to say so.

Yes, I agree that processing won't make or break this one. I was thinking about closeness when I critiqued it, but sometimes wide with context works too, so I tried to take it the way it is. It is interesting, but you are right. BD would have been really mean if this were turned in for his class, I think.

Still, processing issues are fun to me and this one presents some interesting ones.

bdcolen

rutt wrote:

Yes, I agree that processing won't make or break this one. I was thinking about closeness when I critiqued it, but sometimes wide with context works too, so I tried to take it the way it is. It is interesting, but you are right. BD would have been really mean if this were turned in for his class, I think.

Still, processing issues are fun to me and this one presents some interesting ones.

MEAN? Mean Me mean? Surely you jest?!

Wil Davis

Flutist wrote:

It's Boston........Boston is made of brick..........

Don't let anyone from Cambridge hear you say that it's Boston…

- Wil

Wil Davis

…but back to the original question; I find that my eye is drawn to the upper left, away from the kissing couple. I'm worried by the expanse of white, and that's accentuated when the upper left is cropped or the bit of roof is removed. I think I might have tried to get closer, although I think the OP said that this was a discovered composition rather than intentional (as far at the kissing couple is concerned); I don't know what I'd have done, but I'd be worried about that area of white…

IMNSHO -
- Wil

BTW - the bearded graffiti isn't Banksy is it? It's the sort of thing he'd do, but done in a different style (check the web for his exhibition at the Bristol Museum…)

Wil Davis

OK, something like: