Mayor Photo Shoot

shatch

These are some photos of our Mayor. I submit them to the publisher of a state magazine (IQ Idaho) next week. The article is about the transition of our city from an old west culture to the growing professional city we have now. Any thoughts would be appreciated. Thanks!























This shot will be used for the cover. I will put him standing on a dirt road with old city buildings on the left and new buildings on the right. The black background is a temporary background.

Mr. 2H2O

Ummm...wow...given what you are shooting for I really like the concepts and compositions you put together - the series really conveys the ideas. Very flattering work. The cover shot is especially well done.

For the first pic, I understand your post-processing but I would like to see more detail around the outline of his head - it really pops his face but I think his dark hair dissapearing into the dark background is a little distracting.

- Mike

Seneca

Very impressive...how did you do the smoke coming out of the gun? Love that shot!!

shatch

Here is the Cover Shot
Spent the afternoon shooting buildings and assembling an image. This is what I am submitting to the editor for the magazine cover. Your critique now will be kinder than those from the public. Thanks for your eye.

shatch

Seneca wrote:

Very impressive...how did you do the smoke coming out of the gun? Love that shot!!

Learned this a couple of weeks ago. On an individual layer, draw a random semi-smoke shaped image and feather the edge. Fill it with white. Use your eraser with an approximate 30% and erase some of the image and lighten other area. Run the "wave" filter on the layer. Under Edit, Select, "Fade Wave" and use 50%. Repeat multiple times until you like the image. Good luck.

Shane422

I like your cover shot. It looks like some of the promotional stuff for the SciFi show "Eureka" which are done to be just a tad quirky. My one suggestion would be to work with the horizons of both background shots a bit. If you are going to tilt them, make sure that they are both tilted the same amount in opposite directions. The angles don't seem to match at the moment. The left has a bit more tilt than the right.

coldclimb

Just a note for the street scene, the older street seems to run under the buildings. Makes them look like they're floating or something, to me.

HiSPL

The buildings on the left don't say "Old West" to me. I do like the rest of it though.

You need some old wood buildings. Maybe a movie set or something.....

gavin

Great shots. Wow!! The second shot is awsome except its garbage because you have him looking out of the frame. If he was looking towards the middle of the frame. PERFECT. IMO.

Awsome Stuff!

christulk

Lovely work. Great lighting.

The body language (arms crossed) is a bit repetitive - maybe some with arms 'doing something else'

Good work though.

DavidS

Wow! You did a great job.

shatch

Thanks for all of your comments. I have tweaked the cover shot based on your good input and have the following:



Emailed the editor. He likes it. (whew!!)

Christulk, thanks for the attention to arms crossed. I went back through the shoot and you are right, nearly 70% of the shoot was with his arms crossed. Looks like I need some new skills.

Thanks to each who commented, I learned a lot on this project.

Seneca

shatch wrote:

Learned this a couple of weeks ago. On an individual layer, draw a random semi-smoke shaped image and feather the edge. Fill it with white. Use your eraser with an approximate 30% and erase some of the image and lighten other area. Run the "wave" filter on the layer. Under Edit, Select, "Fade Wave" and use 50%. Repeat multiple times until you like the image. Good luck.

Got it..thanks...did you attend TEXAS SCHOOL?

shatch

Seneca wrote:

Got it..thanks...did you attend TEXAS SCHOOL?

I didn't. Why?

Seneca

Texas School was just a couple of weeks ago...and you mentioned you learned this a couple of weeks ago.

Here is the link.

http://www.tppa.org/school.htm

This was a great school I met so many wonderful people from all over the nation. Over 995 people attended (39 states & 4 countries).

I took the Photoshop class which was very good. I'm not sure I retained the information that was taught to me...By day 3...I was brain drained. The class last 5 days. On the last day, they give away over $30,000 in prizes.

evoryware

Great set of photos fit for a state Governor!

On the globe map on the wall behind him, you cropped out the state of Idaho.

shatch

Thanks to all of you who were bold enough and took the time to share your thoughts and point out tweaking items. Your opinions, compliments, and critiques are greatly appreciated. It is a great way to learn.

evorywhere...great catch on the map being cropped short of Idaho. Oh the details!!