Luminous Landscape Forum
The Art of Photography => User Critiques => Topic started by: RSL on March 31, 2017, 04:03:55 pm
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St. Augustine after dark.
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Nicely seen.
Sort of a blend of Russ Lewis and BobDavid.
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St. Augustine? Very nice.
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Got time yesterday to come back to this one and do some work on it. Finally printed it and framed it 12 x 16 for display in a community hallway.
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Russ, I actually like the SOOC version better. I feel like there's a genre of street night photography here that you ought to explore.
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Russ, I actually like the SOOC version better...
+1
The other, too HDR-ish (rhymes with garish ;))
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Nice, I like to take these kinds of shots too. I probably like the first one the best but both have merit.
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Thanks all.
David, I'd love to spend more time on St. George street and its tributaries at night, but it's not easy to get over there for a couple nights. I hope it'll happen more now that I'm no longer a snowbird.
And Slobodan. Actually it's not HDR, and I understand that you used the word, HDR-ish (that is a word, right?). The mood's completely different in the two versions, and I'm still working on deciding which I like best. The first is moody. The second is more realistic, and more like what I saw when I raised the camera. The problem is that when you have the kind of lighting I had here, you end up with some of the more important things — the stones in the street — underexposed, but when you correct for that you lose some of the moodiness.
And Matt, I get the feeling you're just about as undecided as I am.
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One thing I should add. I've printed both versions, and in a print the second wins hands down.
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On my screen the first version looks a bit too dark and the newer version looks a bit too light.
If you produce one that is about half-way betweenm then Goldilocks might say "That one is just right."
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On my screen the first version looks a bit too dark and the newer version looks a bit too light...
There is a reason nights are dark...duh!
Unless the purpose of the second version is to sell it to the two girls, there is absolutely no reason to clearly see their faces or what they are wearing. The worst offender of the faux-HDR attempt is visible in the girl's legs, where too much clarity or faux-HDR made them look dirty, as if she just got out of a mud-wrestling competition. The same goes for the walls in the foreground - nothing of interest there, they are best left hidden in the dark of the night, without showing how dirty they are (another faux-HDR victim).
Then look at the sky: the original has a beautiful, deep blue, as blue-hour skies often are. The faux-HDR turned that into a puke-green!?
The mood of the original was the charm of small-town side streets, late evening stroll, dark and mysterious. No need for details, recognizable faces and identifiable clothing.
Sorry, Russ, for being so critical, but that's what friends are for sometimes, to save us from ourselves ;)
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Hi Slobodan, Believe it or not, I appreciate your critique. I wish you could see the print, but of course you can't. It's different from the .jpeg, and I think better than the .jpeg. I think I agree with you that of the two .jpegs the first is better. Here's an intermediate version of the .jpeg. This one brings up the cobblestones a bit without messing with the colors. It's pretty close to Eric's middle-of-the-road approach.
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Much better.
I admit that the first one would be really difficult to print, especially on matte papers, as many of those dark areas would turn muddy if not absolutely careful and having a spot-on printer profile.
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Much better.
Absolutely.
Jeremy
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+1
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Excellent!
Now send a print to everyone on LuLa so we can see how good the print is. ;)
Eric
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Much better.
I admit that the first one would be really difficult to print, especially on matte papers, as many of those dark areas would turn muddy if not absolutely careful and having a spot-on printer profile.
Thanks Slobodan, and everybody else who's commented. Slobodan, I always print on matte papers and I do have spot on printer profiles that I make with Spyder Print 5. The downloadable profiles from Epson are good, but my own profiles are a tiny bit better -- for my own equipment and locale. I'll take a shot with the third version and see, but I think that on paper the second version still is going to be best. The flaws that you pointed out pretty much disappear in the print.
I'm reminded of the cover of the USAF's monthly flying safety magazine when I was flying. It said, "Flying without wings is not easy." I'd convert that to "Photographing in the dark is not easy."
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Can't say I like either, so the decision is easy! I fail to see the artistic or technical or emotional merit of this photograph. I guess I must be missing something that others relish.
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Fair enough, Terry. I guess you're like Brooks Jensen and just "don't understand street photography." I'll confess this isn't my best street, but I kind of like the atmosphere of the busy tourist town as the sun departs. Just realized I haven't seen any of your work for a while. Are you just commenting, not photographing?
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Can't say I like either, so the decision is easy! I fail to see the artistic or technical or emotional merit of this photograph. I guess I must be missing something that others relish.
I do not think that we even went there (art, etc.). The discussion has been mostly about post-processing. Some images might miss all the categories you mentioned, and yet retain one: utilitarian value. This one might work nicely as a part of a tourist brochure or magazine article, say in a section about nightlife or shopping in that town. It does have certain esthetic redeeming qualities: blue/orange combination, blue-hour sky, perspective composition, visitors, etc. But high art it isn't, agreed.
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Can't say I like either, so the decision is easy! I fail to see the artistic or technical or emotional merit of this photograph. I guess I must be missing something that others relish.
Slobodan's made a good point, Terry. Nobody ever claimed this is fine art. It was posted as an interesting technical exercise.
While we're on the subject, how about posting some of your work that contains artistic, technical, and emotional merit? That's a fascinating combination. We need an example.