Took this photo of the Enola Gay a few years ago. Because of how the plane is displayed and how large it is, it was impossible from me to take exactly the kind of shot I wanted -- very close with a very wide angle and aperture wide open to get the shallowest depth of field. So I did the best I could given the layout and then did my best to get the the feel I wanted in processing it.
Crop to the main fuselage and get rid of the wind and prop on the left and some of the background clutter? Other ideas?
Grateful for all feedback.
Thanks,
Pablo www.modernstills.com -- My new photo webpage - If you get a chance, take a look & let me know what you think
I'm not fond of the busy OOF background. I see what you were trying to do with the picture, and it mostly works for me, but the shallow DoF is a distraction to me.
I agree that a little MORE DOF would be desireable. not sure why you wanted it so shallow.
I like this shot a lot, but what I don't like is the reflections in the gunner's window. Perhaps a POLA filter would have cut that out, letting us see more detail inside the plane?
In thinking about this shot a little more, and why it works for me, I think it IS the abruptness of the DOF change that adds action, impact, and contributes to the mood. The very abruptness imparts a feeling of the lethal nose of the plane jumping out of the past, into the present, and into prominence.
I think the very abruptness of the DOF change also imparts a feeling of immediancy and action.
When I was originally thinking about how I wanted this to look like, it was very much along those lines -- ideally sort of like a plane coming out of a thick cloud bank, almost right at you. Of course I had forgotten how incredibly cluttered the background was, how little light there was, and how far I had t be from the nose of the plane. Since all of these things worked against me I had no option but to do some post processing.
I think that it pretty much works, the one thing that I've toyed with is cropping everything but the fuselage to.
declutter. However, the prop has kind of grown on me, along my original idea of a plane coming right at you... now a prop is coming right at you.. or I could still crop it: (which by the way in the full res version you can read "... Thru Glass Emergency" below the last window that is in focus, which I LOVE"
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