Synchronicity Experiment

Nick Morgan

I was lucky to have my camera at this particular moment. I would love to get some critique of this photo -- whether you think it fits the theme, whether you agree with my photoshopping, or whatever else you may like or dislike about it. Much appreciated, thanks. :rofl

TomaS

Normally, I don't like the mixing of color with B/W, but this works for me and fits the challenge.
Couple of suggestions.

The largest stop light looks more yellow than red.
Taillights on a parked car?
Graffiti on the pole a bit distracting.
Crop out the light and a few cars on the right?
Either add or subtract noise - the amount in it right now it just make it look overprocessed.

SloYerRoll

TomaS wrote:

Normally, I don't like the mixing of color with B/W, but this works for me and fits the challenge.
Couple of suggestions.

The largest stop light looks more yellow than red.
Taillights on a parked car?
Graffiti on the pole a bit distracting.
Crop out the light and a few cars on the right?
Either add or subtract noise - the amount in it right now it just make it look overprocessed.

Tom has allot of good points.
Good shot though.
You are definately on the right path.

-Jon

Nick Morgan

Thanks for the comments and suggestions, ToMaS and SloYerRoll.

When you saw this picture, how noticeable was the traffic officer? Did she strike you immediately, or did you first take a tour around the red / orange lights?

The officer's hand up and the crosswalk hand, in my view, constitute the coincidence that makes this an instance of synchronicity -- otherwise it's just traffic and the very mild coincidence of a few traffic lights being red. I think I'll go back to this intesection, which tends to have a traffic officer, and see if I can feature the officer differently.

douglas

I seen the officer strait off, and the the syncronicity with her hand and the hand in light. I think it fits the challenge well, theres also the fact that in a sense the officer is syncing traffic. I think Thomas has some great ideas, I also think that if you can reshoot you have a good shot at getting a better angle of officer, and maybe more cars just past the intersection would work even better.

System

So far I think this is the only capture that actually portray's synchronicity.

For me the only cropping I'd do would be to get the median curb to hit the bottom right corner. Reducing noise in the pci though needs to happen as it's pretty bad. Nice work.

ESiggins

nice
I like this just the way it is - I wouldn't mess with it at all. Best entry yet, I reckon, and I'm not just saying that 'cuz I had the same idea

Nick Morgan

This is really helpful feedback, thanks so much. I'll see what I can do about noise and I'll try to reshoot the scene later today to see if other variations work better.

Anyone have pointers for CS2 noise reduction techniques? I'm pretty new to Photoshop.

mr peas

This would be an awesome shot if you had a better angle of the cars. Try it again this weekend and make sure you fill up the entire frame with the rear ends of cars with their brake lights on full blast @ a red light. Walk on over to the middle of the street if you have to (though its not a good idea lol). Especially in the streets of LA. hah

Definitely try it again, I think you can make an awesome submission if you give it another shot.

twinbnj

look forward to your re-shoot!

Nick Morgan

That's an excellent suggestion, Mr. Peas. Upon reshooting, I discovered how very difficult it was to get all the important elements at once. The officer came into view only briefly for every traffic cycle, and in only one of three cycles did the near crosswalk show a hand, and in even fewer did the other traffic lights show red and were there cars lined up. It was also really tough to keep big ugly cars out of the foreground.

Unfortunately it wasn't physically possible to move to my left or my right and keep all stoplights and the crosswalk hand in view, but I was able to get some improvements, I think. I tried moving all around the intersection, but no other point of view was remotely as good.

I definitely agree about getting more brake lights in and using them to establish a strong diagonal. We'll see what I can do with the reshoots and photoshop.

Aiken

Nick, a fantastic photo, one of my favourite.

captures the essence of the word to me.

you got my vote

Nick Morgan

Thanks, Aiken, for the props and the vote.

cmason

Hope you win this one Nick, I think you nailed the theme and the shot and treatment is mesmerizing. The traffic cop with the raised hand is such a surprise everytime I look at it.