Musician

Richard

stella82

This is very nice. What kind of effects are you using? Is it sun light or artificial light?

black mamba

Great PP work. It makes the image.

Juano

I would have liked to see more of the instrument and his hands. The PP work is interesting.

torags

The glasses give away time of day...

Nice conversion Richard

Richard

Thanks, all.

@stella82 said:
This is very nice. What kind of effects are you using? Is it sun light or artificial light?

It was shot in bright sun light. The conversion was done with Silver Fx Pro II, and mostly involved boosting the blacks outrageously with some vignetting added.

@Juano said:
I would have liked to see more of the instrument and his hands. The PP work is interesting.

Yeah, me too, but there was a music stand in front of him that got in the way. This was cropped to get rid of the uninteresting bit.

Stumblebum

Richard, processing is nice, but it might be matter of taste, two things bug me. The instrument is cutoff, and there too much space above so not sure about framing.....if expression is the key, then maybe even tighter crop of the face....also the in the background, the elements that have survived, create this strange crown around his head....kind they show in cartoons to depict odor. I am being too harsh....but what I thought.....cheers!

Richard

@Stumblebum said:
Richard, processing is nice, but it might be matter of taste, two things bug me. The instrument is cutoff, and there too much space above so not sure about framing.....if expression is the key, then maybe even tighter crop of the face

Yeah, since I posted it, the space at the top has been bothering me some too. Maybe a 4x3 crop would work better than square. As I mentioned above, I really couldn't help cutting off the sax.

@Stumblebum said
....also the in the background, the elements that have survived, create this strange crown around his head....kind they show in cartoons to depict odor. I am being too harsh....but what I thought.....cheers

Odor, eh? Well, I wasn't close enough to notice. The crown is due to the vignetting and soft contrast, but I rather like the effect. YMMV of course. And I don't think you're being too harsh, Taz. I welcome constructive criticism and only wish there were more of it.

Stumblebum

Having said all that....it is still a sweet image....but had trouble getting over couple of quirks......too spoiled with great images from you.....so expect more. Cheers!

ziggy53

I also would like to see less black space at the top. It pulls the eye away from the subject.

No problem with the dark vignette around the head. Overall the image has a grungy, gritty feel which goes perfectly with the subject. I think that there's enough of the instrument to make the point about the activity, but this is a head-and-shoulders portrait so it doesn't need any more propping.

Very nice and the kind of image to revisit!

Richard

How about this:

None of the standard aspect ratios seemed to work, so I just took some off the top. Not sure why I'm wedded to the standard ratios, come to think of it. I don't print much, and for online viewing it really shouldn't make any difference.

Stumblebum

Ratio is perfect Richard! Liking this tremendously!
As personal note, I used to think that any cropping was bad, but a while back, learned from YOU that image can have much greater impact if cropped differently! Have been benefitting from that since.
You had said at the time, "Less is more here"!
I say the same now!
Cheers!

Richard

You were absolutely right about the crop, Taz. Some very famous photographers including Cartier Bresson refused to crop ever. I suppose if I had his eye, I could do the same, but I need all the help I can get. Whatever works.