Zaqry

thoththoth Registered Users Posts: 1,085 Major grins
edited July 15, 2009 in People
We visited a friend tonight and I snapped a couple shots of her son absorbed in his art. I thought I would try to express that here. C&C is welcome.

Nikon D80, 50mm @ f/1.8, 1/60", ISO 100
Lighting provided by an SB-600 on-camera bounced off a high white ceiling.
3709352422_65fa028b0c_o.jpg

Enjoy!
Travis
Travis

Comments

  • PhotosbychuckPhotosbychuck Registered Users Posts: 1,239 Major grins
    edited July 11, 2009
    Nice shotthumb.gif

    It looks like it is upside down lol makes you wonder what he is thinking.

    You might want to blur the bottom left hand corner it looks like that was your focus spot and draws my eyes away from the boy.
    D300S, 18-200mm VR, 70-300mm VR

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  • NeilLNeilL Registered Users Posts: 4,201 Major grins
    edited July 11, 2009
    I can tell you from his drawing that his mental age is at least 2yr in advance of his chronological age.mwink.gif

    It's an unusual photograph, Travis. I'm not sure your processing has got everything out of it.

    But the feeling of introverted concentration is beautiful. And I love how the subject is bigger than the frame.
    "Snow. Ice. Slow!" "Half-winter. Half-moon. Half-asleep!"

    http://www.behance.net/brosepix
  • thoththoth Registered Users Posts: 1,085 Major grins
    edited July 11, 2009
    Photosbychuck wrote:
    Nice shotthumb.gif

    It looks like it is upside down lol makes you wonder what he is thinking.

    You might want to blur the bottom left hand corner it looks like that was your focus spot and draws my eyes away from the boy.
    I think what you're seeing there is an odd focal plane due to the angle of the shot. I'm really not bothered by that, honestly. I'll keep your suggestion in mind as I play with this shot a bit more, though. Thanks for the opinion!
    NeilL wrote:
    I can tell you from his drawing that his mental age is at least 2yr in advance of his chronological age.mwink.gif
    This kid is smart (too smart). His parents are incredibly relaxed with discipline and this fella has developed a very manipulative personality. He's cunning and very subtle in his disobedience. This bleeds into his artwork, as well. His drawings are always family-oriented (mom & dad holding hands, for example) but nearly always have a little fire or an arrow through a head somewhere. He is an interesting subject.
    NeilL wrote:
    It's an unusual photograph, Travis. I'm not sure your processing has got everything out of it.
    That's exactly what I asked for C&C on this photo. I feel like there is something not quite right but I'm not sure what that thing is. I suspect it has something to do with lighting but, having played with the exposure and contrast a lot, I haven't quite confirmed that.
    NeilL wrote:
    But the feeling of introverted concentration is beautiful. And I love how the subject is bigger than the frame.
    I am very fond of these closeup shots. B.D. can take all the credit for me understanding this. I always felt like something was wrong with my people shots. There was always a distance in them that I didn't like. Turns out, B.D.'s constant "get closer" comments made something click. That's where it's at, man.

    Thanks for the comments!
    Travis
  • thoththoth Registered Users Posts: 1,085 Major grins
    edited July 13, 2009
    Any other comments or suggestions? Thanks in advance!
    Travis
  • jpendley77jpendley77 Registered Users Posts: 42 Big grins
    edited July 13, 2009
    thoth wrote:
    Any other comments or suggestions? Thanks in advance!

    I would burn the couch cushion in the top right a little bit to put a bit more focus on his face. The tone is so close, that for me it all blends in together. I love how he is deep thought. Great job.
    Jason

    www.jasonpendley.com - site
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  • thoththoth Registered Users Posts: 1,085 Major grins
    edited July 13, 2009
    jpendley77 wrote:
    I would burn the couch cushion in the top right a little bit to put a bit more focus on his face. The tone is so close, that for me it all blends in together. I love how he is deep thought. Great job.

    I get what you're saying and agree that the overall tone is a little flat. The contrast on this shot is jacked up to 100% in photoshop and I'm wasn't sure what else could be done. Burning might do the trick but I was really hoping to end my PP with a BW conversion and a crop.

    Thanks for the input, Jason!
    Travis
  • NeilLNeilL Registered Users Posts: 4,201 Major grins
    edited July 13, 2009
    thoth, if you like, send me the color file (max ~10MB), I'll try some things with it for you. PM me for my email.

    I suggest, too, taking it over to Finishing School. You're sure to get more technical input there.
    "Snow. Ice. Slow!" "Half-winter. Half-moon. Half-asleep!"

    http://www.behance.net/brosepix
  • thoththoth Registered Users Posts: 1,085 Major grins
    edited July 13, 2009
    Thanks for the help NeiL. I might give it a shot over at Finishing School. I appreciate the suggestion.
    Travis
  • NeilLNeilL Registered Users Posts: 4,201 Major grins
    edited July 14, 2009
    Travis, I like this color version more than any of the B&W results I got. What do you think?




    591174284_7xfpC-XL.jpg








    Neil
    "Snow. Ice. Slow!" "Half-winter. Half-moon. Half-asleep!"

    http://www.behance.net/brosepix
  • thoththoth Registered Users Posts: 1,085 Major grins
    edited July 15, 2009
    NeilL wrote:
    Travis, I like this color version more than any of the B&W results I got. What do you think?

    NeiL, thanks for the edit! I do very much like the extra contrast in your version. I do wish I could get that out of the B&W conversion, though. I will revisit this and see if I can eek out that difference. Thanks for taking the time!
    Travis
  • NeilLNeilL Registered Users Posts: 4,201 Major grins
    edited July 15, 2009
    thoth wrote:
    NeiL, thanks for the edit! I do very much like the extra contrast in your version. I do wish I could get that out of the B&W conversion, though. I will revisit this and see if I can eek out that difference. Thanks for taking the time!

    I relit it using channels, used the Lighten-Darken filter in Nik Color Efex Pro, and burned around the face profile, to increase separation, selective curves adj on the eyelashes, and high pass sharpening. The crop is a little higher. The overall brightness could be increased a small amount, but the original is very flat, so the highlights quickly become washed out. so it was not just a contrast adjustment. Indeed, increasing contrast destroys skin tone here.

    I did several B&W versions, but none of them were as appealing as this color version, none of them convinced me that the image was better as B&W, was meant to be B&W. The adjustments needed to get this color version don't translate well into B&W, so you have either a very flat image such as your post, or one far too noir for the subject matter. Doubt there is a middle ground because of the extreme flatness of the original.
    "Snow. Ice. Slow!" "Half-winter. Half-moon. Half-asleep!"

    http://www.behance.net/brosepix
  • thoththoth Registered Users Posts: 1,085 Major grins
    edited July 15, 2009
    NeilL wrote:
    I relit it using channels, used the Lighten-Darken filter in Nik Color Efex Pro, and burned around the face profile, to increase separation, selective curves adj on the eyelashes, and high pass sharpening. The crop is a little higher. The overall brightness could be increased a small amount, but the original is very flat, so the highlights quickly become washed out. so it was not just a contrast adjustment. Indeed, increasing contrast destroys skin tone here.

    I did several B&W versions, but none of them were as appealing as this color version, none of them convinced me that the image was better as B&W, was meant to be B&W. The adjustments needed to get this color version don't translate well into B&W, so you have either a very flat image such as your post, or one far too noir for the subject matter. Doubt there is a middle ground because of the extreme flatness of the original.

    Wow, you did a ton of work to that shot! I'll have to take your word for it on most of that stuff and commend you on all the effort you've put into itl. Thanks a bunch! clap.gif
    Travis
  • NeilLNeilL Registered Users Posts: 4,201 Major grins
    edited July 15, 2009
    thoth wrote:
    Wow, you did a ton of work to that shot! I'll have to take your word for it on most of that stuff and commend you on all the effort you've put into itl. Thanks a bunch! clap.gif

    My pleasure! I need the exercise! And it sometimes takes a ton of work to get what an image promises. Get into this stuff and a year or so down the track you will find yourself very empowered. (I'm not super powered yet!mwink.gif)

    Just to clarify one step in my process, the burning round the face profile was done in PS.
    "Snow. Ice. Slow!" "Half-winter. Half-moon. Half-asleep!"

    http://www.behance.net/brosepix
  • bdcolenbdcolen Registered Users Posts: 3,804 Major grins
    edited July 15, 2009
    NeilL wrote:
    Travis, I like this color version more than any of the B&W results I got. What do you think?




    591174284_7xfpC-XL.jpg
    Neil

    I find the color distracting - aren't you shocked? rolleyes1.gif - and would suggest something like this...
    bd@bdcolenphoto.com
    "He not busy being born is busy dying." Bob Dylan

    "The more ambiguous the photograph is, the better it is..." Leonard Freed
  • thoththoth Registered Users Posts: 1,085 Major grins
    edited July 15, 2009
    bdcolen wrote:
    I find the color distracting - aren't you shocked? rolleyes1.gif - and would suggest something like this...

    I was really hoping for a B&W solution as well. Did you, by chance, produce your conversion from NeiL's conversion? If not, could you explain how you got the deep contrast in your version?

    Thanks!
    Travis
  • NeilLNeilL Registered Users Posts: 4,201 Major grins
    edited July 15, 2009
    Without the color the image is gray areas without much interpretation. The most striking things are the shirt stripes and the eyelashes. For me the idea of this image is the introspective face lit from above. That doesn't happen in either B&W versions here. Only in the color is that idea realised.

    I wanted to make a B&W, I did several versions, none of them realised the idea like the color version I posted.

    I certainly do not underestimate the powers of B&W, but to make B&W effectively a prejudice seems to me to be fantastical.
    "Snow. Ice. Slow!" "Half-winter. Half-moon. Half-asleep!"

    http://www.behance.net/brosepix
  • bdcolenbdcolen Registered Users Posts: 3,804 Major grins
    edited July 15, 2009
    thoth wrote:
    I was really hoping for a B&W solution as well. Did you, by chance, produce your conversion from NeiL's conversion? If not, could you explain how you got the deep contrast in your version?

    Thanks!

    First I did a conversion from the color version, using my black and white action. Then I put on an additional curve taking the shadows down a bit. Then an adjustment layer/screen to lighten the face and hair, and then an adjustment layer/multiply, to take down the couch, the lower right quarter, and the shirt just a touch.

    I disagree with Neil's take on this, as I really only see green and gold in the color version - and a face that's so light it disappears into the colors. In the black and white versions, my eye goes to the face. Yes, I see the eyelashes - the child has prominent eye lashes. But what i 'see' is his face, and what he's looking at.
    bd@bdcolenphoto.com
    "He not busy being born is busy dying." Bob Dylan

    "The more ambiguous the photograph is, the better it is..." Leonard Freed
  • NeilLNeilL Registered Users Posts: 4,201 Major grins
    edited July 15, 2009
    bdcolen wrote:
    I disagree with Neil's take on this, as I really only see green and gold in the color version - and a face that's so light it disappears into the colors. In the black and white versions, my eye goes to the face. Yes, I see the eyelashes - the child has prominent eye lashes. But what i 'see' is his face, and what he's looking at.

    Not at all! In the color version the skin tones are unique and dominant, there is nothing like them, they push the other elements back. The light is there for the skin alone. In the B&Ws, the light falls everywhere, the skin tones are gray like everything else, there is nothing to distinguish flesh from plush (compare the intensity of light on the white shirt stripes in relation to the face in both color and B&W - in the B&W those stripes overpower the skin), the face is upstaged by the brightness-blackness of stripes and the blackness of the eyelashes (no 6yo light-blond child has mascara-black eyelashes - get real!). Your eyes are drawn not to the subject but to the artificial eyelashes.

    In this image the B&W treatment abstracts the figure, removes him from himself. When I see his skin in color he becomes a real boy to me (eg those pale blue veins in his forehead evoke sympathy in me), and I believe in this image that is very important. An abstract, achieved through B&W, can sometimes isolate the essence of an image. Here it does precisely the opposite. It removes the very reality which helps us to connect with the subject.

    This image does not have enough compelling interest in terms of contrast and texture and drama to support the abstraction of B&W. Color provides these very things! Both the B&W versions here look dangerously close to being amateurish snaps to me. The color version has the quality of a portrait.
    "Snow. Ice. Slow!" "Half-winter. Half-moon. Half-asleep!"

    http://www.behance.net/brosepix
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