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I like this shot. The light, colors and bokeh is superb.

But the focus point is a bit too close, either a little bit more on the center part of the flower, or a smaller aperture to get more DOF. I also think the shot could help from a square crop.

--
Dominique

http://www.pbase.com/tcom
 
Gazander said:
I really like this post-processing you do. The colors are deep but
not saturated. Almost sun-faded really.
Click to expand...
Thanks! The original was yellow and blue, but I hated the shade of yellow.
Gazander said:
Good cropping/framing too.
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Thanks!
Gazander said:
The fake vignette screams "insta-art." It is quickly becoming the new
Lens Flare... but i like it. It helps to emphasize the subject and
you;ve done it well.
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What's funny is that this has almost no vignette. It's painted on a wall behind a ledge. As I took this at 10:48pm, the only lighting was light coming from the door to the painting's right, so the left side was almost all in shadow. I added enough vignetting to get rid of that pesky ledge, and that was it.

I do have a tendency to over-vignette though. It's like the lazy man's cropping/burning/cloning tool :)

--
Keitha McCall
Pentaxian and Shapshot Shooter since April 2007
http://flickr.com/photos/aravis121/
http://www.ascenicworld.com
 
A very nice shot.

I think however the photo could be enhanced with a bit more light on the man. The frame is also disturbing.
--
Dominique

http://www.pbase.com/tcom
 
cycoj said:
I have to say I usually really love your work, but this one just
doesn't do it for me.
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Ah, no worries! I wasn't sure if it did it for me either, which is why I wanted to post it here, to see what other people thought.
cycoj said:
I think I would like brighter colours on this
one, and I think the vignetting is a bit too much. I think I
understand what you were trying to achieve, a kinda darkish more
mysterious look (don't know if I put my thoughts into the right
words), however I feel the subject should should scream out in
colour. It might just be the motif though, maybe the sign itself is
just not colourful enough for my liking.
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Oh, but you should have seen this garish yellow of the sun! Really, it was a travesty against all that is right with the world. The vignette look I understand, because it certainly does look heavily vignetted :)

Here's the one I posted with no vignetting (see the ledge?):



And here's a sad attempt at making a more colorful image, but honestly, I don't like it. It just looks dirty to me:



--
Keitha McCall
Pentaxian and Shapshot Shooter since April 2007
http://flickr.com/photos/aravis121/
http://www.ascenicworld.com
 
I think I agree with you, the colourful one looks kinda dirty. I also understand why you did the vignetting, looks better than the one without. I think it's just the sign then.
 
I was actually able to copy and paste the link into a browser but had to open the image with a local program to see the photo.

Edit:

Had to restart my machine for some reason.. I uploaded your photo to my Flickr account, I'll take it down at your request or when you get yours working..



--
http://s134.photobucket.com/albums/q109/jjkyle/ K10D
Still happy with the K10d (in spite of the pixel peepers)
 
I love the purple and lavender hues, and I'm a big believer in the idea that the photo doesn't have to look the way it looked when you took it - otherwise we'd never have black and white conversions :)

Great shallow DOF here for a real painting effect. While I'm sure others may disagree with me, I really like the fact that the only thing in sharp focus is the tip of the flower - that's the part where my eye travels to anyway, so I could really care less about the stalk. I imagine the background would have been quite busy if you'd used a smaller aperture anyway.

There are three things I find a bit distracting. First, it seems that there's a brightly-lit bloom on the far right behind the two that are in focus. Perhaps if you'd taken a small step to the right so you were shooting more to the left it would have been out of the frame? Of course, maybe there was a fence or something to the left, so maybe you couldn't change the direction you were shooting.

Second, it seems like either there was a very shallow depth-of-field or either the stalk of that brightly-lit flower, because the in-focus flower on the right seems like it has two stalks. Or maybe it's a ghost stalk ;) Either way, I can't come up with a solution for that one.

Third, the stalks themselves seem a little bit on the aqua side of green. That's actually one of my favorite colors, but it seems almost like its competing with the purply shades for attention - maybe because they're also so light?

--
Keitha McCall
Pentaxian and Shapshot Shooter since April 2007
http://flickr.com/photos/aravis121/
http://www.ascenicworld.com
 
K McCall said:
I love the purple and lavender hues, and I'm a big believer in the
idea that the photo doesn't have to look the way it looked when you
took it - otherwise we'd never have black and white conversions :)
Click to expand...
I totally agree :)
K McCall said:
Great shallow DOF here for a real painting effect. While I'm sure
others may disagree with me, I really like the fact that the only
thing in sharp focus is the tip of the flower - that's the part where
my eye travels to anyway, so I could really care less about the
stalk. I imagine the background would have been quite busy if you'd
used a smaller aperture anyway.

There are three things I find a bit distracting. First, it seems that
there's a brightly-lit bloom on the far right behind the two that are
in focus. Perhaps if you'd taken a small step to the right so you
were shooting more to the left it would have been out of the frame?
Of course, maybe there was a fence or something to the left, so maybe
you couldn't change the direction you were shooting.
Click to expand...
I have to admit, I just didn't see it when I was shooting, sometimes you're so focused on the "main" subject that you forget to look out fo the little details (me at least).
K McCall said:
Second, it seems like either there was a very shallow depth-of-field
or either the stalk of that brightly-lit flower, because the in-focus
flower on the right seems like it has two stalks. Or maybe it's a
ghost stalk ;) Either way, I can't come up with a solution for that
one.
Click to expand...
I think that's the stalk from that brightly-lit flower.
K McCall said:
Third, the stalks themselves seem a little bit on the aqua side of
green. That's actually one of my favorite colors, but it seems almost
like its competing with the purply shades for attention - maybe
because they're also so light?
Click to expand...
I just had a play with the image again, darkening the flower on the right kinda works. But I couldn't do anything about the stalks, will need some time for that, which I unfortunately don't have atm (really should be writing my PhD thesis :( )

Cheers for the comments
Jochen
K McCall said:
--
Keitha McCall
Pentaxian and Shapshot Shooter since April 2007
http://flickr.com/photos/aravis121/
http://www.ascenicworld.com
Click to expand...
 
Hello Dominique,

Cute ducklings. I would prefer an angle closer to the water. This would put the eyes of the ducks almost level with the camera and very close to looking at the camera. To me this would bring a lot more focus to the photo and a bit of tension.

I am curious to know it you cropped and had more room to the left. If this is the case i would like to see how the shot looks with just a little bit more space in front of the ducks.

did you give it a try in B&W with light in blue and cyan and playing with red. It makes the eyes pop up a lot more and makes the water lighter and less obtrusive as it is otherwise very dark and the ducks reflection more into the picture.

My 2 cents.

Cheers,

Luc.

--
Luc Benac
http://LucBenacPhoto.com



http://www.pentaxphotogallery.com/lucbenac
 
Hello Luc

Thank you for your comments.

Regarding the angle closer to the water, I will try to give it more attention next time.

The cropping was limited to remove a bit above and below, so unfortunately, there is no more space in front of the ducks. In fact when taking the photo, I only had my eye on the second one, it is only when reviewing the photos that I saw the second one is also in the frame.

I will give it a try regarding the B&W conversion.

--
Dominique

http://www.pbase.com/tcom
 
I like the idea, but would have tried to move the POV around and lower to use the blue flowers/background so that they were deliberately "more" behind the red flower, but with some clean separation. This would hopefully have made it less centred at the same time, and cropped out the annoying blades of grass of the lower left.

Just my 2c!

Dave
--
GMT +9:30
http://dave.colourpixels.net/
 
Although the composition is fairly static, I like it - because it screams "high contrast black and white with grit". With some work on the sky to "mood it up" and the weathered wood (dodge/burn tool on the highlights), this would be really fun!

Dave
--
GMT +9:30
http://dave.colourpixels.net/
 
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