pic from session today

did a portrait session with a pastor today for a church website and other uses. Just thought I would share one from the batch today I thought was good. THe others were good too, but I wont post them till they are proofed and ordered, but this was one I just did on a whim and threw in..

a200, minolta 50 1.7 (ISO 100 at 1/125, f8 ) with a 200ws monolight and shoot thru umbrella at 1/16 power 45 deg camera right.. converted to b&w in PS, some gaussian blur, high pass and blending of those layers for effect.

Are his hands that big, or is that bible so small, or was this with a rather too short focal length which resulted in what i perceive as perspective distortion?
To me these hands look too large.

Great idea, but I am not sure it works for all as executed.
--
Ralf



http://ralfralph.smugmug.com/
10.000 slides still to scan........

I would have enjoyed sharp hands with wrinkles, instead of the bible text..

--
Georg Varsanpää

very moving

Ralf Bliesener said:

Are his hands that big, or is that bible so small, or was this with a
rather too short focal length which resulted in what i perceive as
perspective distortion?
To me these hands look too large.

Great idea, but I am not sure it works for all as executed.
--

Click to expand...

From the angles and distances of the items I don't see how it could be a perspective thing, probably a small Bible. Regardless it looks good to me. Maybe your being a little too analytical?

--
Tom

Look at the picture, not the pixels

http://www.flickr.com/photos/25301400@N00/

eyefuse said:

I would have enjoyed sharp hands with wrinkles, instead of the bible
text..

Click to expand...

Obviously the Bible, not the hands was the focal point. If he focused on the hands the Bible being would be out of focus and that to me would be more distracting. It looks like the primary focus point is on the clothing above the Bible. Maybe if he had focused as close as possible on both the Bible and the hands everyone would be happy.

--
Tom

Look at the picture, not the pixels

http://www.flickr.com/photos/25301400@N00/

Though the over-all impression is warm and endearing, i agree with Ralf: something looks rather strange from the first look, not only after technical analysis.
But a worthwile approach anyway. I'm looking forward to the others you'll post!

Bart
--
x700 - 7xi - 7 - 7D - A700... two more 7s to go...

Nice composition and use of blur. IMO the OP has got exactly what they were after by use of selective softening. This image looks deliberate and well considered, not at all a focussing compromise. It was shot with a 50mm at f8 on APS-C, so unlikely to be suffering perspective distortion or DOF problems.

Chris

and a very good idea. However, on my monitor, it looks like the shadows could be raised a bit. The text might be a little easier to read. Also, I think I would have used more DOF to get more of the hand IF.

AEH
http://aehass.zenfolio.com/
Question: What do you do all week?
Answer: Mon to Fri. Nothing, Sat & Sun I rest!

Thanks for c&c, I was looking for thoughts on this...

Its likely going on a church website as an accompanying a "pastor's thoughts" type of articles page. The bible is small, but its HIS bible, and its not a huge church so it will be recognizeable. He preaches from that exact bible, so I felt it appropriate to not alter this in the photo. He does have big hands too. Not much I could do with the combo otherwise. I had just completed the formal head and shoulder shots for 11x14 in auditorium and staff pics for website and just had this as a thought while he was standing there talking to me. I didnt want to go rearranging all my lights and such and asked him to just hold still for a few extras. (this will be thrown in for free, so they cant complain too much). Discussing what I was doing , I found out was actually soemthing he wanted for the "thoughts" section as mentioned above. It was totally on a whim and not initially shceduled/ordered as part of the shoot, so I dont think they will be dissapointed. they have p&s photos against a wall on thier site right now...

This shot did NOT work at all in color. it was flat and boring. I took 4 or 5, bracketing the aperature, but really nothing worked. I almost just ditched the idea, and decided to play with b&w to see if I could save it. part of the bible detail thats missing, is not there in real life either. It is well worn. I felt given the intended/possible usage it was better than making him go dig up a bigger prettier version. There DOF was done in camera (the gaussian blur I added was to the whole pic) and there is still almost no difference between f8 and f11, but at f16, the flash was so choked down it was basically all shadows and everything in focus looked much more off than this version..

The b&w was done with a max black layer and a max white layer in overlay with a gradient map, and a blending mask for each. I still only spent about 15 minutes on this in PS, so I will likely tweak it some more before giving it to them. I saved the psd (lesson for those of you who flatten and dont save the psd w/layers... LOTS more work to adjust later when it has to be redone again!) so I will bring up the max black layer some. Thanks again for c&c

...a lot fot this explanation in detail. really appreciated, and putting things 'in perspective', so to speak.
The people involved will be very happy with the final results, I'm sure!

Bart
--
x700 - 7xi - 7 - 7D - A700... two more 7s to go...