Re: Recent Professional Works 2

[JoeKitchen]

Nicely done, Joe.  A couple things... No. 02 the diagonal shadows across the foreground chair and loveseat behind it bug me.  No. 03  ceiling shadows in the background and midground.  These look they're from your lights.  Clean that up, Man.  I always do an exposure with my strobes off to let me clean up ceiling spill and other sloppiness.

The exit signs kill me too.

CB

Thanks Chris.  The shadow does not bug me as much; maybe the one on the love seat needs to go.  The ceiling though could use some more work.  I will probably remove the exit signs too, its just some times, I get really damn tired of removing exit signs!   

[alatreille]

Hey Joe,

That sign looks like the kind you can remove with a couple of credit cards.  Have a close look next time, slide them up either side of the sign to release the catches.
Takes about 5 mins.

I thank my clients any time they spec these signs.

AL

[David Eichler]

Hi Erik, there is no correction involved here. The towers are naturally a bit skewed and the camera was tilted slightly down.

There are certainly styles of photography where it is appropriate to not line up the verticals in architecturally correct fashion, but I don't see the justification for not doing that here. Regardless of what is going on the towers, the homes clearly show the convergence from the downward tilt. I would suggest correcting for this.

Otherwise, I think it is a nice shot.

[MichaelEzra]

Hi Christopher, excellent portrait. Have you considered using a canvas as background instead?

[Christoph B.]

Thank you, Michael!
Hmm a canvas? I don't really like the idea of having a 'premade' Texture that would be pretty similar for all photos.
Somehow I prefer the intimacy of a 'normal wall'.

[synn]

Nice portrait!

Just put some distance between the subject and the wall. The DoF will take care of a lot of the "Cleaning up".

[Christoph B.]

Thank you.
I know a clean background is sometimes better, however I do prefer to have a bit of..substance. Shadows, wall texture and so on - I think it all adds to the mood.

[MarkoRepse]

I know a clean background is sometimes better, however I do prefer to have a bit of..substance. Shadows, wall texture and so on - I think it all adds to the mood.

Yes! Please don't change anything, it is excellent as is.

[ben730]

Yes! Please don't change anything, it is excellent as is.

+1
I like it! It's pure.

[Chris Barrett]

random bits of work that I dig from the last few months... all shot with a crappy little camera.









  Heh... I dropped all the people into this shot later (stolen from other shots from my archive).









CB

[ben730]

Great compositions Chris.
Picture 2: What about turning (with Photoshop) the head of the walking man a bit to the ground? He looks so unrelaxed.
Picture 4 (with the Jacobsen 3300 Series): The light in the middle of the ceiling on the right side, I'm not sure if I like it. 
Is it a reflection of the monitor? But maybe it only doesn't look nice for me because of the JPEG graduations......

Regards,
Ben

[Chris Barrett]

Sharon, yeah I get that.  I actually outlined all of those graphics so I could really make them pop and she does detract from them.
Ben, that's my assistant walking through the shot and something always felt off about his pose.  As for the ceiling light, it comes from the monitor and I was certain we did an exposure with it turned off so that I could retouch that out... never found that file.

[Christoph B.]

Thank you, Marko and Ben!

 

[Craig Lamson]

Thank you, Marko and Ben!

 

I like them all but number one is the strongest IMO.

[synn]

@Chris and david, I finally had some time to rework the image and you were right, correcting for the tilt makes it look much better now. Please see the revised version here:

http://fineartamerica.com/featured/the-dom-in-luebeck-sandeep-murali.html?fb_ref=Default

[Slobodan Blagojevic]

Synn, the towers still look disconcertingly diverging.

[synn]

Synn, the towers still look disconcertingly diverging.

That is because they actually are.
These are centuries old churches and it is actually quite common to see them stand at a non vertical angle from the ground.

[Christoph B.]

I like them all but number one is the strongest IMO.

Number one? 

Err uhm.. I guess you mean the other Chris

[sam@]

towers much improved Synn - although the final effect on a throw pillow / duvet cover / shower curtain may be hard to predict..

Sam

[ben730]

Synn,
for me it's perfect now!
I see, that these towers are not vertical on all sides, because all the houses in front are straight.
And now the picture is strong, the towers look powerful as they are......
 
I have often to fight this problem when I work for the cultural heritage preservation of Switzerland.
Old buildings are never rectangular and it's difficult to find the right balance between correction and reality.
On the pictures the deformations look always a lot worse than in reality.

Maybe, if these towers were more diverging in your memories....(I don't know how these towers look in reality)
you can crop them out and make (only) them more diverging while the houses in front stay straight.....

And, by the way: I love the laundry hanging at the riverside....

Regards,
Ben