Photography 3

[Alec Ferris]

Do you have a manual mode on your camera?

 

It's just a camcorder with a point-and-click stills option.

[matthijs]

Ah, looks pretty good for that

 

I can probably shoot Gogol Bordello tonight

[matthijs]

 

 

Gogol Bordello

 

More in my set here!

[Bs]

 

 

Two more from the recent Spring pictures. Haven't had time to go through any more since as uni's starting to take over again. In theory should have a bit of time in June though, so hopefully I can sort through a couple more. Will take forever to get through all of them though.

 

In other news, I decided to make the most of my time in Japan to get myself two new lenses, which I've just received. Saved maybe £250 or so compared with being in the U.K. so that's nice. No idea when I'm going to have chance to actually get out and use them now though.

[ʘ]

 

T

 

This one is amazing!

 

ah, Japan in Sakura... tres hermosa.

[matthijs]

Nice photos, although I'm not a fan of selective colouring. Curious how the lady looks without it!

Also, what lenses ?

[Alec Ferris]

I'm not a fan of selective colouring.

 

That's one of the things that most annoys me in paddling photos today. Really takes me out of the scene in the picture.

[Bs]

Nice photos, although I'm not a fan of selective colouring. Curious how the lady looks without it!

Also, what lenses ?

 

Here's the original if you're interested.

 

 

 

 

I tend to find that a lot of the colour in pictures is distracting from the forms, shapes, and actual subject and so on, so I tend to take a fair bit of colour out of my pictures in order to increase the attention on details and things like that. The more you take colour out, the more other things become apparent which I quite like. I do like there to be some colour though, so it ends up being somewhere between colour and black and white. I do edit on full brightness though, so I acknowledge they look a bit too greyed out when posted up sometimes.

 

The lenses are the Lomography x Zenit Petzval lens that was posted about here ages back. I found myself quite intrigued by it, and had the chance to save a decent amount of money if I got it while I was in Japan so I decided to go for it. The other is the Nikkor DX AF-S 10-24mm lens. A large proportion of my pictures are landscapes and I'd had plenty of occasions wishing I'd had a wider lens, so I figured I should finally take the plunge and get one. Not had chance to try either of them out since they arrived in the past week anyway unfortunately.

[matthijs]

Cool, curious about the lomo-lens!

[Bs]

Yeah, I'm curious to actually try it out, haha! Hopefully I can get out to give it a go, but rainy season is imminent, so...

 

This one is amazing!

 

ah, Japan in Sakura... tres hermosa.

 

Hi.

 

 

I've still got tonnes more to sort through yet too. Hell, I never even finished going through my autumn pictures, haha!

 

Edited June 2, 2014 by Bs

[crazybobbles]

Here's the original if you're interested.

 

 

 

 

I tend to find that a lot of the colour in pictures is distracting from the forms, shapes, and actual subject and so on, so I tend to take a fair bit of colour out of my pictures in order to increase the attention on details and things like that. The more you take colour out, the more other things become apparent which I quite like. I do like there to be some colour though, so it ends up being somewhere between colour and black and white. I do edit on full brightness though, so I acknowledge they look a bit too greyed out when posted up sometimes.

 

The lenses are the Lomography x Zenit Petzval lens that was posted about here ages back. I found myself quite intrigued by it, and had the chance to save a decent amount of money if I got it while I was in Japan so I decided to go for it. The other is the Nikkor DX AF-S 10-24mm lens. A large proportion of my pictures are landscapes and I'd had plenty of occasions wishing I'd had a wider lens, so I figured I should finally take the plunge and get one. Not had chance to try either of them out since they arrived in the past week anyway unfortunately.

photo looks too obvious that it is processed (although you could look at playing with the curves on that shot if you are going the black and white and boosting the dynamic range). Personally I would rock just ONE colour if you were to go the selective colour route and that would be the classic red on the lipstick

[FabriPav]

Yeah, I'm curious to actually try it out, haha! Hopefully I can get out to give it a go, but rainy season is imminent, so...

 

 

 

Hi.

 

https://fbcdn-sphotos-f-a.akamaihd.net/hphotos-ak-xfp1/t1.0-9/10416970_10152438452814876_5239141371232111476_n.jpg

 

I've still got tonnes more to sort through yet too. Hell, I never even finished going through my autumn pictures, haha!

 

http://i10.photobucket.com/albums/a120/TimeSplitter03/H14D0seninKy14D0to3rdMarch2014_zps13dc250f.jpg

 

Love the second one. A bit too dark though imo. Wouldn't it be better if, in general, you edited not on full brightness?

[Bs]

photo looks too obvious that it is processed

 

Of course it's processed. There's no trying to hide that. That's what I find odd when people start thinking it isn't (ie, the infamous white balance discussion). Some things I want sharper and more in focus, and some things I want softer and less obvious, it's just trying to bring out the details I want more of, and taking away the ones that I want less of.

 

Love the second one. A bit too dark though imo. Wouldn't it be better if, in general, you edited not on full brightness?

 

It would probably be better for everyone else who just wants to have a quick glance at them, but I don't edit my photos for everyone else, I edit them for me, and then share them so people can see them if they want to. It's a bit like the loudness war with music, I guess. I'd rather work on the basis have having all the details there, and if you want to see/hear them, then increase the brightness/volume, than just going "it's too dark/quiet, make it brighter/louder", and losing some of that.

 

[crazybobbles]

Of course it's processed. There's no trying to hide that. That's what I find odd when people start thinking it isn't (ie, the infamous white balance discussion). Some things I want sharper and more in focus, and some things I want softer and less obvious, it's just trying to bring out the details I want more of, and taking away the ones that I want less of.

 

It's not about "trying to hide it", it's trying to do it in such a way that the viewer doesn't get overly distracted by the processing and miss out on the photo. Pretty much why I hate HDR shots.

 

Selective desaturation for me has always been a big cliché, but there are times when it makes absolute sense to do this, the main theme which you've pretty much touched on is focus on a particular subject. However I feel like you've left some areas coloured which makes it hard for a viewer to know exactly where you want to focus, needs to be more concentrated (like a red balloon in a crowd, a girl in a red dress in a crowd, a wild rose in a field, blood on some battlefield, some tumbling phonebooths I took 7 years ago) The iconic shots always focus on red being the primary attention drawing colour, if you're going to spare others then you're only going halfway with the selective desaturation. The red lips has always been the centre of focus for geishas so that's why i suggested to only focus on that (i'm assuming that was the point of the mono makeup).

 

Play with the curves! None of this is definitive "you need to do x to make it a good photo" because all of this is subjective however you should mess around with it just to see if it really is better as it is.

 

if I get another justification reply then this conversation is OVER!

[Bs]

I won't bother then. However, it is perfectly possible that that's not the effect I was going for. I spend plenty of time on each photo tweaking with each setting to get the balance I want. In that particular photo, the main aim was to get rid of the distraction of the background, and increase the attention on the foreground subject. I've done single colour pictures before, but the situation has to be right, and it depends on what I want to achieve with a given scene. As I said, I take and edit pictures for myself. If other people like them then great.

 

[crazybobbles]

Haha you just justified yourself again. I just wanted you to try playing with curves and potentially look at selective colouring, if you don't like it, fine, if you do, better. Even something like "I tried what you suggested earlier but I wasn't keen on it" would suffice.

 

If nothing is going to change no matter what I say, then I might as well say nothing.

[Bs]

Haha you just justified yourself again. I just wanted you to try playing with curves and potentially look at selective colouring, if you don't like it, fine, if you do, better. Even something like "I tried what you suggested earlier but I wasn't keen on it" would suffice.

 

If nothing is going to change no matter what I say, then I might as well say nothing.

 

I just find it funny that I already do both of those things anyway, but you're still arguing about it. Tweaking the tone curve was the key to nailing the look of the sky I wanted on my picture of Toji in the snow back in February, and as I mentioned, I posted a picture of a tiger up ages ago in which all the colour was taken out apart from the vivid orange on its body. It depends on the picture and the look I want to go for, but why try and engage in discussion if you don't want a reply about it?

[mipanda]

 

Here's the original if you're interested.

 

 

 

 

I tend to find that a lot of the colour in pictures is distracting from the forms, shapes, and actual subject and so on, so I tend to take a fair bit of colour out of my pictures in order to increase the attention on details and things like that. The more you take colour out, the more other things become apparent which I quite like. I do like there to be some colour though, so it ends up being somewhere between colour and black and white. I do edit on full brightness though, so I acknowledge they look a bit too greyed out when posted up sometimes.

 

I've said before I'm not a fan of selective colouring so my opinion is pretty worthless. But I didn't actually realise, initially, that's what had happened. I just thought the geisha had strangely grey skin & teeth.

 

The original photo is much warmer.... tbh, I'd do the opposite of you. Bump up the brightness/contrast and saturation so its like POW bright colours.

 

I agree with your detail vs colour argument, for the most part. But sometimes, colour is an important part of the scene. I think different locations and subjects suit different photography styles. So when I was in paris, it was all black & white. Cuba, bright colours. Venice looked best when I used brown sunglasses as a filter. New York was muted colours and wide angle lens shots... Not saying that my way is the RIGHT way, just using examples of how flexible you can be with photography styles.

[crazybobbles]

I just find it funny that I already do both of those things anyway, but you're still arguing about it. Tweaking the tone curve was the key to nailing the look of the sky I wanted on my picture of Toji in the snow back in February, and as I mentioned, I posted a picture of a tiger up ages ago in which all the colour was taken out apart from the vivid orange on its body. It depends on the picture and the look I want to go for, but why try and engage in discussion if you don't want a reply about it?

 

 

Ah didn't know you played with the curves on it. Some areas just looked flat. I like getting into conversations, just you know.. statements like "I shoot for myself" kind of make replying a waste of time. I would never say that for my photos I share and post (because you know, I've shared it with everyone). When I post and share with people I take their criticisms on board because they don't have the ownership and attachment to the photo and can be a bit more objective in getting to something everyone or most folks can agree. Granted I don't get much feedback besides the odd "it's not sharp enough" back in the days (400d was a crippling camera with shit ISO and noise reduction)

 

So yeah, this is why I don't really want to reply. Also Miranda did a better job at explaining the colour desaturation stuff than I did, I was going about the route of boosting the dynamic range of the shot to make it work but I think embracing the colours is much better.

[Bs]

Ah didn't know you played with the curves on it. Some areas just looked flat. I like getting into conversations, just you know.. statements like "I shoot for myself" kind of make replying a waste of time. I would never say that for my photos I share and post (because you know, I've shared it with everyone). When I post and share with people I take their criticisms on board because they don't have the ownership and attachment to the photo and can be a bit more objective in getting to something everyone or most folks can agree. Granted I don't get much feedback besides the odd "it's not sharp enough" back in the days (400d was a crippling camera with shit ISO and noise reduction)

 

So yeah, this is why I don't really want to reply. Also Miranda did a better job at explaining the colour desaturation stuff than I did, I was going about the route of boosting the dynamic range of the shot to make it work but I think embracing the colours is much better.

 

To be honest, I hadn't tried the tone curve thing until you suggested it the first time, so I did appreciate it. I'd played with some of the highlights, shadows, whites, blacks options, but hadn't tried the curve itself before you mentioned it, and like I said, it was the key to getting exactly the look I wanted on one particular picture a few months ago, haha! I'll accept that the pictures can look a bit flat sometimes, although I do like them to look soft somehow. I found the tone curves worked best when I was trying to get a contrast but without losing the detail, so it might be something I go back to on a few photos and see if I can tweak them further at some point. It's probably harder to tell on the final picture when you can't see all the different stages it went through to get it there, so I do accept that. It's hard to judge exactly without seeing it on different screens with different brightnesses too though. I know how I'm seeing the picture when it's finished, but unless I make a brighter version for uploads, there's probably always going to be people who'll complain about some of the softer ones. I do like some dramatic pictures too, and I have some like that, and some that are very saturated with colour, but it needs to be a particular kind of picture I think, and it depends how I'm looking at it and what I'm remembering, I suppose. My only criticism by the way was the whole 'don't try to justify yourself' thing. Of course I'm going to try and explain what I've done if someone says something about it, but that doesn't mean I don't take the other options on board. It just came across a bit like 'your pictures aren't good enough, and don't bother trying to tell me that you think they are, because I'm not interested' - I don't think that was quite the intention, it just came across a bit that way. No harm done obviously. I'll try and sort through some more pictures over the weekend hopefully anyway and see what I can put together.

[inn]

I'm curious to see some of your Japan shots in full colour, only because to me Japan is such a beautiful, colourful place full of nature and tranquillity. But this doesn't come across in the images because they're generally desaturated.

[mipanda]

Cuba!

 

 

[crazybobbles]

To be honest, I hadn't tried the tone curve thing until you suggested it the first time, so I did appreciate it. I'd played with some of the highlights, shadows, whites, blacks options, but hadn't tried the curve itself before you mentioned it, and like I said, it was the key to getting exactly the look I wanted on one particular picture a few months ago, haha! I'll accept that the pictures can look a bit flat sometimes, although I do like them to look soft somehow. I found the tone curves worked best when I was trying to get a contrast but without losing the detail, so it might be something I go back to on a few photos and see if I can tweak them further at some point. It's probably harder to tell on the final picture when you can't see all the different stages it went through to get it there, so I do accept that. It's hard to judge exactly without seeing it on different screens with different brightnesses too though. I know how I'm seeing the picture when it's finished, but unless I make a brighter version for uploads, there's probably always going to be people who'll complain about some of the softer ones. I do like some dramatic pictures too, and I have some like that, and some that are very saturated with colour, but it needs to be a particular kind of picture I think, and it depends how I'm looking at it and what I'm remembering, I suppose. My only criticism by the way was the whole 'don't try to justify yourself' thing. Of course I'm going to try and explain what I've done if someone says something about it, but that doesn't mean I don't take the other options on board. It just came across a bit like 'your pictures aren't good enough, and don't bother trying to tell me that you think they are, because I'm not interested' - I don't think that was quite the intention, it just came across a bit that way. No harm done obviously. I'll try and sort through some more pictures over the weekend hopefully anyway and see what I can put together.

haha well you know me, that's how i roll with giving feedback, most of the time I mean no harm.. and if i do... well, I probably won't post. Think one of your reply was just all about the justification and didn't "respond" to the suggestion.

 

Photoshopping tweaks are probably the least of my worries anyway, you can always revisit them later. I've been relooking at photos I've taken years ago and wow so many of them need more tweaking (plus lightroom has improved in noise reduction and how it processes photos in general so even that is worth relooking at), my style has changed quite a bit which makes me wonder how I'd react when I look at my photos another 3 years later.

 

also here's a photo of a grubby trent reznor, damn thing popped when I added some vignetting

 

[crazybobbles]

Cuba!

 

 

 

love this!

[matthijs]

Sometimes I add vignetting too for popping; works like a charm. Don't overdo it though.

 

Also, great shots, both Trent and Cuba!