Reading

Ali Al-Eid

Hi everyone .. Good day for you all.


This is my first post in this forum ,,, hope u like it .. and I'm waiting for ur comments ..

:wink

Qarik

I like the composition but the selective coloring... not so much..not sure how it adds to the shot.

bdcolen

Nicely done - though I find the selective color, and the type of selective coloring, very distracting. I'd like to see this as either a black and white image or as a color image.

Mr. Quiet

Mmmmm...
It is very unusual for me to disagree with my peers in photography, but I do this time:D

B. D., I think that if Ali Al-Eid changed it to pure black and white, this picture would, IMHO, not look near as good as it does now. I think that if it was in B&W, the boy would be lost in the background, or the background would be to distracting. A color image might work, but I am not sure it would give the viewer the same affect that the selective coloring does.

The selective coloring brings me right up close to the boy, and I want to read what he is reading, and be totally oblivious to the outside world like he is.

Wil Davis

I'm not really into the selective colour thing, although I think you've made a nice job of what you've done…

Also, the use of a frame: I tend to see more of it being used on pictures posted on the web and I can see how it might be useful when exhibiting a picture in a gallery, but in my opinion it tends to get in the way, unless it's an integral part of the composition. I never use it; I suppose it's a hang-over from many years of submitting photos for publication (rule #1: no frames, full bleed!)

BTW - Welcome to dgrin.com - you'll find lots of nice people here with helpful comments…
(…then there's me )

- Wil

bdcolen

Mr. Quiet wrote:

It is very unusual for me to disagree with my peers in photography, but I do this time:D

B. D., I think that if Ali Al-Eid changed it to pure black and white, this picture would, IMHO, not look near as good as it does now. I think that if it was in B&W, the boy would be lost in the background, or the background would be to distracting. A color image might work, but I am not sure it would give the viewer the same affect that the selective coloring does.

The selective coloring brings me right up close to the boy, and I want to read what he is reading, and be totally oblivious to the outside world like he is.

Disagree all you want - this place would be realllly dull if we all agreed. But you're wrong!

Seriously - black and white is black and white. Color is color. But if the image needs a paint job to make it work, it doesn't work. I think this image does work in black and white....

Wil Davis

I agree with B. D. - and still think that the frame doesn't improve the picture:

Mr. Quiet

The black and white does not give it the feeling that it had. Also, the Middle Eastern feeling is totally gone for me. As to the frame, it is, in my humble opinion again, what makes the picture so professional looking.

"But if the image needs a paint job to make it work, it doesn't work."

But that is where the word "digital" comes in, no? Ali Al-Eid composed the image, and held down the shutter, so he SHOT this picture. But with a bit of tweeking, he has given it something that it did not have before.

Now that i have said that, why do you think that if a picture needs what you call a "paint job," it does not work?

Mr. Quiet

He has only made it better!

Something else, I think that black and white takes LIFE out of the picture.

Kinkajou

The Narrow DOF Advocate Swoops In!
I wonder what the image would've looked like if shot with a narrow DOF, the background could get a little creamy, then that would set off the boy from the background, which is a little contrasty and distracting.

FWIW, I didn't think the selective coloring worked for me either... I think it's because the brown and the grey were so similar in tone that I didn't immediately recognize what was happening... maybe if he were wearing red or some other bright color it might work better.

We all have our opinions about BW and color and frames and whatnot, and that's part of what makes us all produce different photos and keep the world interesting, no?

To each his (or her) own!

Ali Al-Eid

hi everyone ... glad to see ur comments and discussion here ...

I really appreciate your advises.


regarding the pic .. the thing that u need to know is :
I made a big mistake when I took this photo originally in sepia colors..
I didn't take it as a color image ...

after several trials in photoshop I finalized my choice to this one..


thx for u all .. thx bdcolin for ur effort ...

bdcolen

Mr. Quiet wrote:

The black and white does not give it the feeling that it had. Also, the Middle Eastern feeling is totally gone for me. As to the frame, it is, in my humble opinion again, what makes the picture so professional looking.

"But if the image needs a paint job to make it work, it doesn't work."

But that is where the word "digital" comes in, no? Ali Al-Eid composed the image, and held down the shutter, so he SHOT this picture. But with a bit of tweeking, he has given it something that it did not have before.

Now that i have said that, why do you think that if a picture needs what you call a "paint job," it does not work?

"Now that i have said that, why do you think that if a picture needs what you call a "paint job," it does not work?"

Not only do I think that, I could even argue that it is no longer a photograph in the classic sense, but is a "photo illustration," or a "photo painting." If it takes a Photoshop frame for you to think a given photo is worth looking at, then, for you, that photo simply doesn't work. Similarly, if you don't get the fact that this kid is somewhere in the Middle East, based on his clothing, then something has failed - I don't think it has, by the way.

The photographer did far more than push down the shutter - he saw the image. He composed it. He decided what exposure to use - what depth of field to go for. He made the image. Yes, he then decided to do a number of things to it afterwards, which, of course, he is entitled to do. I personally think he ran off the tracks after he downloaded the image, but that's my opinion.

But to answer your question - yes, if an image needs tarting up after it's been shot, it's a failed image. An old lady with a zillion layers of makeup - or face lifts - is still an old lady.

bdcolen

Ali Al-Eid wrote:

hi everyone ... glad to see ur comments and discussion here ...

I really appreciate your advises.


regarding the pic .. the thing that u need to know is :
I made a big mistake when I took this photo originally in sepia colors..
I didn't take it as a color image ...

after several trials in photoshop I finalized my choice to this one..


thx for u all .. thx bdcolin for ur effort ...

You are quite welcome. And never, never, never take images in sepia. In fact, don't take them in black and white either, because then you have lost the possibility of changing your mind about whether or not the image should have been a color image to begin with. Always shoot in color, and, if your camera allows it, shoot in RAW. (Some cameras will allow you to shoot in RAW but have the images display on your camera display as black and white, and that makes sense if you feel you are shooting 'black and white' and it will help you visualize. But shoot the images RAW, and then do your own conversion.

And by the way - it's a nice image.

divamum

bdcolen wrote:

You are quite welcome. And never, never, never take images in sepia. In fact, don't take them in black and white either, because then you have lost the possibility of changing your mind about whether or not the image should have been a color image to begin with. Always shoot in color, and, if your camera allows it, shoot in RAW. (Some cameras will allow you to shoot in RAW but have the images display on your camera display as black and white, and that makes sense if you feel you are shooting 'black and white' and it will help you visualize. But shoot the images RAW, and then do your own conversion.

And by the way - it's a nice image.

BD, this is an interesting statement from you. Is this what you see as one of the advantages of digital over film... since in film, you would have to choose your medium BEFORE taking the picture? Just curious on your take (and sorry to take the thread away slightly from the initial image, but I think it's relevant, if tangential, discussion).

Ali Al-Eid, the image is an intriguing one and you definitely captured a mood. I'd love to see the photo in its original sepia version just to see what you started with; also plain bw. I think the selective colours sort-of works, but it does raise the question "why" - it's not a "pop" of colour (ie bright flowers against a bw background), but already quite near in tone to the bw, so it makes us subliminally wonder what's being hidden, or what's the "extra" story being told through the coloration choice.

lilmomma

divamum wrote:

BD, this is an interesting statement from you. Is this what you see as one of the advantages of digital over film... since in film, you would have to choose your medium BEFORE taking the picture? Just curious on your take (and sorry to take the thread away slightly from the initial image, but I think it's relevant, if tangential, discussion).

:lurk

Awais Yaqub

Welcome to Dgrin
Nice photo and i prefer the BW version

bdcolen

divamum wrote:

BD, this is an interesting statement from you. Is this what you see as one of the advantages of digital over film... since in film, you would have to choose your medium BEFORE taking the picture? Just curious on your take (and sorry to take the thread away slightly from the initial image, but I think it's relevant, if tangential, discussion).

Absolutely! Digital allows us to shoot with every film stock on one roll. We can change iso from 80 to 12K - depending upon our camera - from image to image. We are shooting color, but we can end up with black and white as good as any black and white film ever produced. We can shoot in color but instantly visualize on the camera's screen in bw. And, of course, we can much more easily adjust the white balance of images after the fact, which makes shooting color infinitely easier than it was with film.

P. S. I tend to think of an image as either black and white or color before I shoot - but that's yet another advantage of digital; I can easily change my mind afterwords.

Qarik

it's interesting becasue if I set my LCD preview to BW, the picture immediately feels "different" to me to the point where I may even frame the subject matter differently in some cases or expose it differently then if it were in color.

craig_d

It's a nice picture, but I agree with those who don't care for the partial-color look. To me that kind of effect is almost always distracting and adds nothing to the picture. I never use it myself. Here, because it's not full-color vs. b/w, but sepia-tone vs. b/w, it's less annoying than usual, but still a distraction, and it makes the intense, high-contrast background draw attention away from the boy. I much prefer the straight b/w version, though straight sepia-tone would work too.

I also completely agree with BDC that with a digital camera you should ALWAYS shoot in color, and NEVER use your camera's built-in b/w or sepia-tone modes. If you shoot b/w you have lost the ability to easily adjust tonal relationships by changing the color temperature, and you lose the ability to choose between different methods of mapping color to b/w (constant luminance, maximum value, setting individual RGB coefficients, etc.). Anything you can do shooting in b/w mode you can also do (and more!) when processing your raw image later (and we all shoot raw, right? the advantages are overwhelming), so why throw away all that flexibility?

Sc0tty

I love the shot!

Mr. Quiet

Say whatever you guys want, I still like the original better.

DECinNC

I like pictures that create moods and this one does it very well. I like the shoes being in color.

bdcolen

DECinNC wrote:

I like pictures that create moods and this one does it very well. I like the shoes being in color.

I'm going to try to keep this going, because I think it's a very worthwhile discussion. So allow me to respectfully ask:
What "mood" does this photo create for you, DEC, and why isn't that same mood present in the black and white version?

Mr. Quiet

PLEASE TELL ME MIDDLE EASTERN!


Right, I wasn't asked:D

Am I going to be the only photographer left standing his or her ground now?

adbsgicom

Fight the good fight, Aaron!

I don't think it adds mood (unless applied to the whole image), I think it adds more contrast and separation on the reader from a busy texture behind him. Though I don't think it is really necessary, it is somewhat to personal taste. The picture works w/o the sepia left in. Personally, I don't equate brown colors to the middle east.

Ali Al-Eid

Dear Photographers ...


upon most of u requests ... here u are the original version of the pic which was taken in Sepia colors:

and also this is a try in B&W:

thx for u all ..

my opinion with all respect for u all, I'm just a beginner .. I liked the picture at the begining of this topic more than sepia and B&W ones..

Mr. Quiet

Thank you I am not alone.

It is not that I associate brown to the Middle East, it is dust, that I associate to the Middle East, sand. It somehow makes me think of Arabia too, but I don't know why.


"Though I don't think it is really necessary, it is somewhat to personal taste." I agree, that is why "I" like it.:D

DECinNC

bdcolen wrote:

I'm going to try to keep this going, because I think it's a very worthwhile discussion. So allow me to respectfully ask:
What "mood" does this photo create for you, DEC, and why isn't that same mood present in the black and white version?

Mr Quiet is correct. I when I saw the picture I thought Middle East. To be more specific, I thought Afghanistan. I read "The Kite Runner" not long ago and think I read something about Khaled Hosseini not long ago.

I think I like the selective coloring because it separates the boy from the background as I was often separated from my environment while reading the book. That is really the "mood" I think it creates.

I have looked at the sepia and the B&W. The boy does get lost in the B&W. The total sepia does work for me also but not like the original.

I hope this continues. It certainly shows 1 thing - beauty or whatever is in the eye of the beholder.

Mr. Quiet

DECinNC wrote:

It certainly shows 1 thing - beauty or whatever is in the eye of the beholder.

I am working on an essay that is entitled "Photography in the Eye of the Beholder."

Wow, some one agrees with me....Finaly some with the same opinion of art, at least close to the same anyways