Valmet

[John R Smith]

I know this photograph has probably got a rather limited appeal. Some quirk in my nature means I have always had this thing about big machines – trucks, earthmovers, railway locomotives – and I find it very hard to resist them. So when our local plantation was being felled recently, I just had to make a portrait of this Valmet logging tractor, especially as the light was so good. Well, even if you don’t like it, it would probably be a great dps for “Lumberjack Monthly” or whatever . . .  

Your comments, as ever, are welcome.

John

[stamper]

Your tones are almost magical. Contrast and composition very good. Somebody might mention the wires in the background but I won't One of your best John.

[Slobodan Blagojevic]

Your tones are almost magical. Contrast and composition very good. Somebody might mention the wires in the background but I won't One of your best John.

+1


P.S. You see, Stamper, I can agree with you (occasionally) 

[Jeremy Roussak]

Your tones are almost magical. Contrast and composition very good. Somebody might mention the wires in the background but I won't One of your best John.

I'll mention the wires (and suggest removing them)! Otherwise, I agree that it's a great shot. I particularly like the sky, which adds a certain brooding menace.

Jeremy

[wolfnowl]

Yeah, about those wires... 

Mike.

[John R Smith]

Well, that's nice. I didn't think anybody much would like it. Thank you all for your feedback.

Yes, the wires. Anywhere I shoot up and down our lane they are always a feature of the shot - we have a phone line, and the mains power supply as well. I do try to avoid them if I can, but if they are in shot they stay in shot. That's because all these pictures are meant to be an honest representation of the place where I live, and also because I really don't want to compromise the cloud detail in the sky with some poor cloning. Funnily enough, if the wires were absolutely horizontal they would bother me a lot more, and I probably would not have printed the picture at all. But because they run at a strong diagonal, I don't feel that they detract from the composition. This is really a quasi-industrial subject, after all, not some sylvan paradise 

John

[Patricia Sheley]

John, I find myself thinking of all the farming images I have seen from you and your locale since my arrival at Lula and I almost feel as if you share with us every now and then a beloved image from your secret book...you have a strong affinity for this and I would hope you keep working to collect them in a well thought out and balanced collection of just such images...They are very satisfying and resonate deeply of labour and the land...

[Andres Bonilla]

I like the photo a lot but I am a little curious about the vignetting, is that done in Lightroom? Is it the lens? I think it works fine for the photo but I have seen it used before.

[stamper]

+1


P.S. You see, Stamper, I can agree with you (occasionally) 

Still room for improvement though.

[John R Smith]

I like the photo a lot but I am a little curious about the vignetting, is that done in Lightroom? Is it the lens? I think it works fine for the photo but I have seen it used before.

Andres

The lens was the good old Zeiss 80mm Planar, and while it does vignette a bit it certainly doesn't vignette that much. No, this was all done in Lightroom, using the Vignette tool with highlight priority. I confess I did crank it up a bit on this frame, but essentially I was enhancing a mood which was already there rather than forcing the picture in a direction which it did not want to go. I would probably have done much the same in the wet darkroom with a series of edge burns. In a previous post, I did make this little commentary on the LR Vignette -

The vignette tool in LR is now very powerful, and it is well worth exploring it in some depth. All I am doing, really, is an edge burn as Ansel explains in “The Print”, but with very precise control. The best way of getting this right is to apply a very strong vignette and take all the feather off. Then we can see the exact shape of the mask, and adjust it to affect just those parts of the image which should be darkened. One does this by altering midpoint and roundness, so we can confine the vignette to just the corners, or add in darkening of all the edges. The highlight priority allows us to reduce or eliminate the darkening in highlight areas, which is something we could not do in the darkroom. Then we adjust feather to spread the effect across the picture to taste, and then finally back off amount until you can barely see the result. Another useful tip is to remember that you can neutralise the vignette in a specific area of the image by using a reverse (lightening) grad filter.

The whole object of a very subtle vignette is to concentrate the viewer’s attention in the centre subject of the picture, and to prevent the eye “falling” out of the frame. But sometimes we can use it as an end in itself, to create mood, by intensifying the effect and making the vignette very obvious.

Anyway, I'm pleased that you enjoyed the picture.

John

[Eric Myrvaagnes]

I like it a lot, too, John, and I hadn't thought about the vignetting at all -- mainly because I would have done exactly the same thing in the wet darkroom (Thanks, Ansel!).

Eric

[Riaan van Wyk]

Your tones are almost magical.

They are..