Another rain forest shot from NZ SI

[Dave (Isle of Skye)]

And before anyone says anything, I was stood on a small bridge over 'The Chasm' in a clearing looking into the rain forest that surrounded me, with the light coming from over my shoulder and above. I have also added a vignette.

I don't work in monochrome very much, but decided to have a go with this image because it was just so green. I like the old world film look of how it came out.

That is not a footprint at the bottom BTW, it is where the rock has been worn away by the river.

Dave

[Eric Myrvaagnes]

Neat! Nice mood! I think the conversion works well for this.

[Slobodan Blagojevic]

This needs to be printed huge to be appreciated! So much detail there. The 800 jpeg does not do it justice. Did you use any kind of Orton effect is that the result of jpeg compression?

[louoates]

Nicely done. Hope you do a series of these.

[Mjollnir]

Too busy, for my taste.  Like a B&W needlepoint with WAY too much to say.

The frame's too filled up w/zero use of negative space.

Have you considered posting a version in color?

[MartinSpence]

It's a nice conversion, near like an Infrared shot...

However I find the image too cluttered/busy... Nothing to really draw my eyes to as I'm busy looking all around the photo...

Just my thoughts tho 

[RSL]

I'm with Slobodan, Dave. There's no way on earth for this picture to work on a 72ppi computer monitor, but printed huge I suspect it would be really striking.

[Riaan van Wyk]

From what I see here, I'm in the "too busy for my taste" camp Dave. It will probably look different viewed large though.

[Dave (Isle of Skye)]

Did you use any kind of Orton effect ..?

No Slobodan, it isn’t the Orton effect - the effect (if indeed this is what you would wish to call it) is something I have sort of developed over the years, but it isn't a series of quantifiable steps that can be set out like a recipe I am afraid, but none the less in the spirit of sharing with you all, here is the best way I can describe what I did from memory.

I turned the colour image into black and white using a green filter in PS and added a slightly warm tint, which seemed to work nicely on this mainly green image. I then duplicated the original layer, then over-sharpened the new second layer and also added some contrast. I then duplicated the sharp/contrast layer and added quite a bit of Gaussian blur to soften the second sharp/contrast layer - yes I know, blurring a duplicate over-sharpened layer sounds counter intuitive. I then blended them and the original layer together using the opacity sliders, at say 30% for the sharp layer and 60% for the soft/sharp layer, over the original background layer. I then did a Ctrl_Alt_Shift+E to make a compound layer from all the layers below, then I added a vignette, where the vignette is achieved by darkening the dark to mid tones and lightening the mid to light tones with highlight and inverse highlight curves selections (Ctrl+click RGB Channel for light tones and the same selection but inverted for the dark tones, then push/pull the curves centrally) and then masking them in to taste over the compound layer.

All in all and if I am honest, there is probably much more to it than this simplified version (yes really!), but after much fiddling about, the idea I was aiming for was to produce a monochrome image with a sort of sharp, contrasty yet soft effect, that in this case also just happens to look a bit like it has the glow of old infrared film and which if I tried to do it again, it would probably look completely different.

Dave

[BFoto]

This needs to be printed huge to be appreciated! So much detail there. The 800 jpeg does not do it justice. Did you use any kind of Orton effect is that the result of jpeg compression?

+1

[Kerry L]

Well done Dave. Great look.
Truly satisfying when one's vison translates into an image.

Was this taken with this in mind?

[popnfresh]

It's an interesting image to be sure. I guess my main criticism is that it doesn't look much like a photograph. Whether you think that's a good or bad thing is completely a matter of personal taste.

[jule]

It doesn't worry me if it doesn't look like a photograph. I think most definately it would work beautifully if printed HUGE! I don't want to hijack the thread and am not inviting discussion about whether signatures/watermarks should be added to a print...but boy is it one of my pet peeves... even when printed and mounted in a gallery, I feel the image should be standing on its own, unencumbered.

Julie

[popnfresh]

It doesn't worry me if it doesn't look like a photograph. I think most definately it would work beautifully if printed HUGE! I don't want to hijack the thread and am not inviting discussion about whether signatures/watermarks should be added to a print...but boy is it one of my pet peeves... even when printed and mounted in a gallery, I feel the image should be standing on its own, unencumbered.

Julie

I think it's fine to plaster your name on photos you post online if only to bake some attribution into it in case someone uses it on another site. But I agree 100% about doing that with a print. A print should be signed under the photograph, not in it.

[Slobodan Blagojevic]

... A print should be signed under the photograph, not in it.

Out of curiosity, why? Aren't most paintings signed in it?

[popnfresh]

Out of curiosity, why? Aren't most paintings signed in it?

Yes, they are. But it's a tradition in fine art photography to sign below the photograph. In the early days of photography artists did place their signature within the photograph because that's the way painters did it. But ever since Paul Strand most fine art photographers place it below where it's not intruding into the frame. I doubt you'll see one print in the top galleries, like the Weston or Photography West in Carmel or the Wirtz gallery in S.F. or Kasher in NYC where the print has been signed inside the photograph, made since around 1930 anyway, with the possible exception of some of the more famous portrait photographers. But I don't think even Karsh signed inside the photograph.

[Slobodan Blagojevic]

I understand... however, given the popularity of canvas, metal, and face-mount prints, where do you sign?

[popnfresh]

I understand... however, given the popularity of canvas, metal, and face-mount prints, where do you sign?

Well, in the case of non-traditional print media all bets are off. But many would sign on the back. There are even many painters these days who only sign on the back.

[jule]

I understand... however, given the popularity of canvas, metal, and face-mount prints, where do you sign?

On the back... the signing is to authenticate the work - not as part of it... so it isn't necessary to be a part of the visual at the front. It is about the work.. not the signature of the artist.

Julie

[Slobodan Blagojevic]

... It is about the work.. not the signature of the artist...

And again, why? If it was good for hundreds of years for paintings, why not for photographs? Why is it good for, say, oil on canvas, but not photo on canvas? What I can accept as the reason, is that it is a matter of personal preference, rather than a well-reasoned argument.