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Author Topic: Afternoon Stroll  (Read 1176 times)

seamus finn

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Afternoon Stroll
« on: February 10, 2016, 02:09:54 pm »

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RSL

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Re: Afternoon Stroll
« Reply #1 on: February 10, 2016, 04:00:05 pm »

Great use of backlight, Seamus! Love it.
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Eric Myrvaagnes

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Re: Afternoon Stroll
« Reply #2 on: February 10, 2016, 04:00:28 pm »

You have a great way with shadows and high contrast. Nice one!
(Doesn't look much like London, or even Glasgow.   ;)  )
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seamus finn

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Re: Afternoon Stroll
« Reply #3 on: February 11, 2016, 05:44:57 am »

You have a great way with shadows and high contrast. Nice one!
(Doesn't look much like London, or even Glasgow.   ;)  )

None of the above, Eric - this was taken yesterday on a rare sunny day in the North West of Ireland in my native county, Sligo, whose beauty inspired some of the poet W.B Yeats' best-known work.

The location was Mullaghmore, where Lord Mountbatten was murdered by the IRA in 1979.  Mountbatten, his grandson Nicholas, and two others were killed when a bomb on his fishing boat, the Shadow V, was detonated. It was one of the most infamous days of the so-called 'Troubles' in Ireland.
 
You're right about the shadows - I love the drama they bring to black and white images. For this one, I was shooting almost directly into the sun, which is just to the right of the image, and could barely see what I was looking at through my Fuji XT1 viewfinder. While fiddling with the exposure compensation dial, the two ladies and their dog strolled into the shot so I pulled the trigger and hoped for the best - pure serendipity as with most shots of this kind.

There was a lot of lens flare in the front hedge, so I darkened it down to eliminate that distraction, thanks to Lightrooom.  When I think of the time, energy and paper I would have wasted to achieve a similar result in the old, wet darkroom, the mind boggles. I'm sure old-timers like yourself, Russ and others here, who were reared in the traditional darkroom, continue to be astonished at what can be achieved nowadays on the computer.

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RSL

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Re: Afternoon Stroll
« Reply #4 on: February 11, 2016, 09:04:33 am »

While fiddling with the exposure compensation dial, the two ladies and their dog strolled into the shot so I pulled the trigger and hoped for the best - pure serendipity as with most shots of this kind.

As HCB said with respect to street photography: "It's always luck. You just have to be receptive, that's all."
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Eric Myrvaagnes

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Re: Afternoon Stroll
« Reply #5 on: February 11, 2016, 09:32:55 am »

Ah, Sligo! That is an evocative name for me. When I'm not playing photographer, I play the flute, and I have attended several times a summer flute festival in Nova Scotia, called Boxwood. There I have met and heard some wonderful flutists from Sligo, playing Irish traditional tunes. Mesmerizing music.

As for the good old wet darkroom days, I well remember a transitional moment when I had acquired a copy of Photoshop, a scanner, and a small Epson printer, and I was trying hard to learn how to deal with numbers and sliders, etc., in Photoshop, trying to get digital prints from scanned negatives that might be good enough to show people. In frustration I often gave up on Photoshop and went back into my darkroom to make some "real prints."

On one such occasion, I was just checking the first wet print, considering how to burn and dodge to improve it, when it suddenly occurred to me that what I wanted to do would be so much easier in Photoshop.

And that's how I went over to the Dark Side, and bought a digital camera soon after.

Cheers,

Eric
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Rob C

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Re: Afternoon Stroll
« Reply #6 on: February 11, 2016, 10:09:57 am »


On one such occasion, I was just checking the first wet print, considering how to burn and dodge to improve it, when it suddenly occurred to me that what I wanted to do would be so much easier in Photoshop.

And that's how I went over to the Dark Side, and bought a digital camera soon after.

Cheers,

Eric



The slippery path to perdition.

Yes, PS is easier in some ways, but for me, certainly not as easy as was shading a sky, for example, with my hand or a card, and getting a beautiful blend of tones from top to horizon. There's something depressingly mechanical about PSing images: it becomes a matter of learning and memorizing 'steps' that are not organic, as it were, but by programme, if you see the difference I'm trying to describe.

I've been spending hours these past few afternoons looking at various slick PS tutorials about retouching faces etc., stretching bodies and tucking-in, expanding and so on. At the end of it, I found myself bloody depressed at the falseness of everything. Was a time it was all about lighting, choice of cast and knowing how to take a decent photograph; today, it's more about how to reconstruct upon a basic original template. How sad and contrary to the natural flow of life. If there's anything misogynistic about the photography of women, then I think that's where it lives.

In fact, I suspect that for many of us, especially for me, the very fact of digital is why we produce so much that we wouldn't have dreamed of doing in the darkroom: that brought in basic value judgements, such as is this thing worth the money doing?

Rob

GrahamBy

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Re: Afternoon Stroll
« Reply #7 on: February 11, 2016, 10:59:06 am »


I've been spending hours these past few afternoons looking at various slick PS tutorials about retouching faces etc., stretching bodies and tucking-in, expanding and so on. At the end of it, I found myself bloody depressed at the falseness of everything.

Just say no.

It's easy for me to say, I don't have to make money that way...

And then, I was reading the essay in the book of an exhibition of Weston's nudes and portraits... which recounted his disgust at having to spend hours falsifying (that's the word he used) portraits to make a buck. After accepting a final batch of work that paid him $400, he used it to by a 4x5 and put a sign in his window advertising unretouched portraits.
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seamus finn

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Re: Afternoon Stroll
« Reply #8 on: February 12, 2016, 02:57:42 pm »

Ah, Sligo! That is an evocative name for me. When I'm not playing photographer, I play the flute, and I have attended several times a summer flute festival in Nova Scotia, called Boxwood. There I have met and heard some wonderful flutists from Sligo, playing Irish traditional tunes. Mesmerizing music.

Yep, Eric, Sligo is very well known for its exponents of traditional Irish music. One of its sons, Michael Coleman, a violin player, is to Irish music what HCB is to photography!
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MattBurt

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Re: Afternoon Stroll
« Reply #9 on: February 12, 2016, 04:55:42 pm »

Great shot! The shadows are so nice and black and the rim light effect on the people is a nice touch. I really like the shape of those trees too. Lots to like here.
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-MattB
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