SF4 - Color Wheel - Comments please...

kwalsh · January 30, 2008

OK, try number two! This time with Tessa's most excellent cropping suggestion. By the way, Tessa, you pretty much nailed it, I tried a few different crops and rotates and well, your's was always my favorite.

Next, I went after the lighting. The whole point of trying colored light was to enhance the texture. Instead my first version seemed to make one's brain depart from reality and forget all about texture. This time the light is way, way less saturated. There is quite a bit of white mixed in from the three directions and I also added some red to the blue and blue to the red. I also dominated the green direction with mostly white light so there is more of a hint of green than the visual clubbing in my first version. I like this one a lot more, but I still don't know if it rises to the level it needs to...

More input? Pretty please???

Original Post w/small version of first try...

Well, I've been struggling - badly. I had a few ideas for over a week and haven't been able to make them pan out at all like I'd want. I kept thinking of incredibly complicated shots or scenes that were a 12 hour drive away. Tick-tock it is getting late. So tonight I told myself I must shoot something in or near the house and come up with a theme for myself to guide me better. I've recently started playing with a couple Vivitar strobes I can use off camera in manual mode and learning all about light (hard, soft, angles, reflections, etc.). In doing so I've enjoyed discovering textures in things. So I set my self-theme as "Light and Texture".

Well, lots of laying on the living room floor thinking before I looked all of three feet from me at this giant ammonite sitting right next to me. Looks like texture to me (amazing how blind we become to what is around us all the time). Then I thought about illuminating with different colors.

So in the end, not a very complicated shot. Three flashes from three different directions. One each of red, green, and blue. I used a single strobe so it is three exposures added as a multiple exposure, my Canon doesn't do multi-exposures in camera so I had to add them afterwards. I tried very hard light (i.e. a bare flash from some distance) an there were almost no secondary colors in the image at all. I eventually had to use an umbrella amazingliy close to the subject (i.e. very large, soft light) to get any CMY to show up once the images were added together. I set this thing (it weighs a good 30 lbs) on black felt so I could drive the background to black with just a small levels adjustment.

Well, I think I hit the texture and light theme. It amazes me how almost computer generated this thing looks - I don't know if that's a bad or a good thing. In reality it is just a multiple exposure with red/green/blue from three different angles.

Well? What do people think? Is this too wacky? Is it overly novel or cutesy? Is it something you've all seen before?

All comments good and bad gladly accepted. I need to be done by Saturday, so I've still got a few evenings and full weekend day to try other stuff...

snapapple · January 30, 2008

I'm glad you explained how you did it. I would never have known just looking at it. It looks like it was computer generated alright. But, it still doesn't grab me. Needs something special, I think.

DeuceFour · January 30, 2008

I like it, Awesome, Vibrant colors...but I thought it was more of a macro shot before I read that it was 30lbs..thought it was a small sea shell or something similiar. I think you may be dissapointed if you enter it in the SF4. Just my opinion. But still very cool idea!

pyroPrints.com · January 30, 2008

snapapple wrote:

I'm glad you explained how you did it. I would never have known just looking at it. It looks like it was computer generated alright. But, it still doesn't grab me. Needs something special, I think.

I gotta agree. It's a nice image to put on a wall, but it just doesn't do it for me in this contest.

Greensquared · January 30, 2008

It does look quite computer generated and I think that it would make a great wall hanging with the right decor. However, for this contest, if you wanted to keep with this subject I would try to shoot it on a backdrop (so it doesn't have quite the "cut out" feel or maybe use a different color background (even shooting in a natural setting at night?). Maybe also shooting with softer colors would lend themselves to the lovely curves better as well. It's a neat subject worth playing with...

Best of luck!
Emily

Tessa HD · January 30, 2008

the contrast and colors are pleasing, but the composition doesn't do anything for me. What about this kind of crop - it adds some depth, I think.

Greensquared · January 30, 2008

Tessa HD wrote:

the contrast and colors are pleasing, but the composition doesn't do anything for me. What about this kind of crop - it adds some depth, I think.

Wow Tessa, good eye.

kwalsh · January 30, 2008

Wow Tessa, that is a drammatic improvement! I was fussing so much with the lighting I completely overlooked improving the composition. I'll definitely recrop when I get home. Thanks a million!

Thanks everyone else for your honest comments. My reaction has been similar, I've had an intangible "striking, but not contest worthy" feeling about the image myself. Tessa's suggestion helps it out a lot, but I think in the end I'll need to rethink how I'm shooting this (perhaps a background texture as was suggested) or try something completely different.

Thanks to all!

Ken

DeuceFour · January 30, 2008

I agree this composition does way more for the subject, and for the photograph as a whole. Nice Crop!

kwalsh · January 30, 2008

Updated the entry and the original post with a new (hopefully improved) version. Thoughts?

Thanks,

Ken

Greensquared · January 30, 2008

kwalsh wrote:

Updated the entry and the original post with a new (hopefully improved) version. Thoughts?

Thanks,

Ken

I think the new colors are really nice. The bottom right hand corner needs to be darkened though as it is currently drawing the viewer right out of the frame.

The neon version has more immediate impact, but the new subtle colors make me linger on the texture longer.

Emily

leaforte · January 30, 2008

The original? Bland?

Greensquared · January 31, 2008

Maybe something in between the two?

jziegler · January 31, 2008

The new one is much easier to loog at, and the texture comes out more. It's a really cool image. Not quite sure that you have it quite at the level of a winning SF entry, but it's really cool.

Tessa HD · January 31, 2008

you're too kind! i DO prefer your second one. nice crop!

you've been creative with this image and it's neat. My suggestion would be to submit it, however don't be satisfied until Sunday evening. Keep shooting, then show all your great images around, see what moves people most, but most importantly, enter what moves you most. My entry in the first SF was not the most popular among my friends, but "I" loved it. Have fun!

Tessa

LiquidAir · January 31, 2008

The way you have lit this, at least in my eyes, makes it look very 2-dimensional; more of an abstract rather than a picture of a real object. Our eyes use patterns of light and dark to guess at 3-dimensional form and by using colored lights of equal brightness, you have revealed the texture while completely filling the shadows and, to a large degree, concealing the form. That approach is interesting and unconventional. Truthfully, to me the colors look paint rather than light and I am left with the impression of a flatly lit colorful shell rather than a colorfully lit textured shell.

kwalsh · January 31, 2008

LiquidAir wrote:

The way you have lit this, at least in my eyes, makes it look very 2-dimensional; more of an abstract rather than a picture of a real object. Our eyes use patterns of light and dark to guess at 3-dimensional form and by using colored lights of equal brightness, you have revealed the texture while completely filling the shadows and, to a large degree, concealing the form. That approach is interesting and unconventional. Truthfully, to me the colors look paint rather than light and I am left with the impression of a flatly lit colorful shell rather than a colorfully lit textured shell.

I think you've got it just about right here. I acutally intentionally lit from three directions and then mixed color to try to move the depth cues from tone into color. As you point out the brain doesn't end up processing it as depth at that point and it is much more of a 2D look. I've actually tried removing one source and it does enhance the depth quite a bit, but it ends up being quite a bit less interesting at that point. I think I've kind of hit the limit of what I can do with this subject and technique for now. Probably shy of a good SF entry, but it'll have to do unless I'm inspired in what is now a limited amount of time left for me (other obligations coming up soon). Well, there is always LPS II (I hope!).

Thanks for your input, spot on!

Ken

kwalsh · January 31, 2008

Greensquared wrote:

I think the new colors are really nice. The bottom right hand corner needs to be darkened though as it is currently drawing the viewer right out of the frame.

Changed the overall contrast and darkened the corner. Thanks!

Ken

Llywellyn · February 1, 2008

I like the added depth with the increased contrast, and the wonderful texture.

I know you said you're limited on time, but if you shot this in RAW, I'm wondering if you can create an underexposed version and then blend your current image with the underexposeed one in parts to add that additional depth our eyes keep seeking.

Very neat concept, regardless. Kudos to you on experimenting with lighting.

Izzy Garavito · February 1, 2008

I do like the new one much better. I love the texture and the colors

Nikolai · February 1, 2008

I like the idea a lot, execution is also solid!