Two Thirds Against the Sky

[Bruce Cox]

This was as much as I felt I could frame effectively, but Luis Jimenez's sculpture goes on down to his burning toes.

[John R]

It looks good to me. It has an excellent 3D quality because of the way the light is reflected off the subject. Just get rid of the bottom so as not to detract from the subject. The gray-blue sky is a wonderful backdrop for the colour of the subject.

JR

[Bruce Cox]

It looks good to me. It has an excellent 3D quality because of the way the light is reflected off the subject. Just get rid of the bottom so as not to detract from the subject. The gray-blue sky is a wonderful backdrop for the colour of the subject.

JR

Thanks.  This is my second try with the file and it is full frame.  I started my first try [in B&W] by turning the frame closer to vertical [as can be imagined by the water lines] glad to crop the bottom a little.

However, I now prefer the hint of continuity and context that the space between his legs and the dark corner provide.  My take on the man's fire is not so much escape as involvement in the world.

I was lucky to stumble across graying the sky in photoshop, but I'll claim it.

Bruce

[John R]

Sorry, I meant the bottom right dark area. I wouldn't crop anything, a simple stretch using the transform tool, choose "distort" pulling down and away the right corner should do it. I looked the sculptor up, he is quite an artist. I did not see this particular work. What is it called? It has power and passion.

JR

[Bruce Cox]

I should learn more tools.  I mainly paint bucket things.  Will the transform tool incrementally distort the rest of the image as well?

I think this sculpture is called "Man on Fire".  I saw bright red versions online that may be earlier fiberglass.  I think this one is bronze.

[John R]

The transform tool should have some options, like perspective, free transform, skew and distort. It is mostly used to correct architecture or straighten and/or distort a point of view, horizon, etc. It will slightly stretch the image, but in this case, it would not be noticeable because it so small. But lets say you stretched and made your main subject to wide or buildings too wide, you would then stretch the top or bottom side to correct the subject. The nice thing about this tool is that the parameters (size of file) will remain the same and you don't have to recompose or recrop the image.

JR

[Eric Myrvaagnes]

If you have a recent version of PhotoShop you can use either the healing brush or context-aware fill to get rid of the tiny dark triangle in the bottom right corner.
It does look like bronze, and it seems to me to capture the spirit of the sculpture very well.