Beautiful, and, as Lou says, uncommon settings and I like the compositions - though perhaps the first one could have used a bit of spotlight in the upper left - just a thought . The processing is interesting and appealing, but seems a bit 'hard' for what would generally be seen as low stress settings. My personal preference is for more detail in the water, and better management of the hot spots. All that said, I like the bold colors and deep shadows.
And it's perfect for me too as I'm just getting fairly comfortable with composition in general but have much to learn about relational color and contrast.
These are actually interesting and provocative images. All four of the images have some interesting post processing work. There are many that may not encourage or accept creative and artistic processing. I do, and as art it becomes very subjective. Sometimes the mere use of a word, like hdr turns certain folks off immeadiately and suddenly they see all kinds of problems with an image. Same with composting, and digital art even though primarily a landscape. I could give you suggestions but they would primarily be my subjective views so I'll refrain. If you have or tryout PS CS4, the new approach to layer masks offers an adjustment tool similar to Lightroom 2 with curves and you can use a tool now placed on the image to change levels and it is done in real time. Also new features with the clone brush and blend brush showing you what you're doing and blends with the image very well. Even the dodge and burn tool is finally more effective and will blend with the color instead of just lightening and darkening. Anyway good work, and keep with it!
Randy
The first has a very mysterious feel to it that I like. I find the bright leaves at the bottom a bit distracting though.
2 and 4 are my favourites. Again the foreground leaves in 3 spoil it a little for me.
Look forward to seeing more.
Ute
Actually seeing Ute's comment made me look again at the 3rd image. From her comment trying a crop just about the brightly colored leaves in the foreground which leaves a pano format look that is terrific. Might take a look and see what you think.
Randy
Randy Walton wrote:
Actually seeing Ute's comment made me look again at the 3rd image. From her comment trying a crop just about the brightly colored leaves in the foreground which leaves a pano format look that is terrific. Might take a look and see what you think.
Randy
Yup, just scrolling that section off the screen (dynamic cropping ) shows the look. I like it. Thanks for taking the time to comment Mr. Walton! Very appreciated!
ScaryFox wrote:
The first has a very mysterious feel to it that I like. I find the bright leaves at the bottom a bit distracting though.
2 and 4 are my favourites. Again the foreground leaves in 3 spoil it a little for me.
Look forward to seeing more.
Ute
Oooo... "Mysterious". I like the sound of that. It is rather what I was trying to achieve. Removing or downplaying the detail in order to reveal the larger aspects of it's form. This planet is so awesome and the way we see things can be fantastically altered by the mind's eye or in this case the camera, a little Photoshop, and an LCD.
Thank you for taking the time to reply here Ute! What a cool name! I assume it's pronounced OO-TAY?
Heinz H wrote:
Very nice series. From a classic PoV I like #4, from an artistic view #1 is my favorite. Where in Japan did you take these wonderful shots?
Takayama is a gorgeous city! It's like ancient Japan and although they've added modern fixtures to the place they kept ancient structures so there a lot of buildings, parks, and roads from 200 to 1,000 years old. I'll post some pics of a 250~400 year old shopping area in Takayama City in the next few days if you're interested. I was just there about a week ago so haven't sorted and processed the 400 or so images yet - except for these and a few others. I need faster hands and a better camera so I can process faster with less to do from the start. I love the lens on the camera I'm using but the tiny little sensor just ain't up to snuff. I just sold my D2x so I'm using this until the new announcements for 2009 settle down a bit and I can choose intelligently.
Thanks for the comment! Very appreciated!
Randy Walton wrote:
These are actually interesting and provocative images. All four of the images have some interesting post processing work. There are many that may not encourage or accept creative and artistic processing. I do, and as art it becomes very subjective. Sometimes the mere use of a word, like hdr turns certain folks off immeadiately and suddenly they see all kinds of problems with an image. Same with composting, and digital art even though primarily a landscape. I could give you suggestions but they would primarily be my subjective views so I'll refrain. If you have or tryout PS CS4, the new approach to layer masks offers an adjustment tool similar to Lightroom 2 with curves and you can use a tool now placed on the image to change levels and it is done in real time. Also new features with the clone brush and blend brush showing you what you're doing and blends with the image very well. Even the dodge and burn tool is finally more effective and will blend with the color instead of just lightening and darkening. Anyway good work, and keep with it!
Randy...Show more →
I agree on the subjective nature of art. We all must wrestle with our own preconceived concepts or overcome them as we might. It's an especially difficult task when the concepts arise from or are related to, the purpose of a device such as a camera which at first seems simple, direct, and obvious. I try to keep in mind that all concepts are at once false and relevant (meaningful) to the person and circumstance which formed them - such is the case with subjectivity and conceptualization.
CS4 sounds pretty cool. I taught CS2 ~ PS5 as part of course I designed for CG Animation so I know and like PS quite a lot. Are you saying that CS4 contains tools that operate in a similar fashion to NIK's Viveza http://www.niksoftware.com/viveza/usa/entry.php?tab=2 ? That would be awesome!
Thanks again Mr. Walton! Much appreciated!
Jeffrey wrote:
Nice work, Bif! That place looks very photogenic. The first image has some problems, but if it were gone, the set would be just excellent.
Thanks Jeffery! I agree that the 1st one seems a little out of place in the set so I know just what you mean. I had fun taking these images. There was a guy near me with about $50K worth of dSLR equipment and it was also very entertaining to watch him set up and play with all his gear. We had snack together after - it was a good day!
I certainly appreciate you taking the time to comment! Thanks!
Jfarmer wrote:
Last shot feels the strongest to me.
Jon
Thanks Jon! Good observation IMO! And the comment is appreciated!
kscott_99 wrote:
The second photograph looks like a veil. nicely done.
Hi Scott, and thanks! I don't think many people notice this falls. It's part of the public irrigation system and I just happened to nick a view of it out of the corner of my eye as we rounded a corner passing it. I think I caused quite a traffic jam stopping for it. Well, 6 cars and a truck is probably pretty big for that little road in that area anyway.
Thanks so much for all of your comments! They actually mean something to me. I like to learn and communicate as much as (mmm, more actually than) I enjoy taking the photographs. Life is so awesome! Now if we could just get the bankers and politicians to realize it.
Oct 23, 2008 at 07:53 AM
David Leask Offline • • • • • • • Upload & Sell: Off
I was attracted to #1 because of its oil painting look. Maybe that wasn't your intention but it works for me. The others are sharper and different but equally as nice - hard to pick a favourite from them.
David
The frames are from this: http://www.apparentsoft.com/imageframer
It let's you choose between about 50 or 60 different frames, add any number of matte layers, change their width, hue, saturation, and brightness, or "colorize" any of them (matte layer, frame). It's OK i guess. A few of the frames (10?) are shaded wrong and look bad because of it. It does internal shadows of which you can change direction but it doesn't do drop shadows of the frame on the "wall" - even though I think it's supposed to.. Err, I mean I think it's a broken feature. It also won't allow you to modify the density of the shadows. It's pretty stable - it could be faster but it's not too sluggish. It loads just about every image type I've dropped on it (including 4 kinds or RAW) but only exports in JPG, PNG, or TIFF. Also the drag-to-save you see in the video isn't really there - doesn't work. I haven't tried batch processing yet.
Can you tell I'm fishing for a little critique. 
