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bler
May 3, 2006, 1:30 PM
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Registered: Apr 22, 2004
Posts: 302
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Here is a picture from the photos I took last week. I thought this was a decent pic, didn't get anything spectacular, cause its hard to concentrate on climbing and photography at the same time (for me at least ;) ) (edit) Sorry, guess I didn't link it Weekly Photo
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sonyhome
May 4, 2006, 12:22 AM
Post #3 of 8
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Registered: Jul 5, 2005
Posts: 337
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Nice rock... A few comments: -The photo feels kinda static. -You could cut-out the sky or readjust it to get dark blue with white clouds for texture. -It would've been great if the talent had looked at his right hand for a moment and you shot that instead of his back. -The spotter is too relaxed. A little stress from him would've made more intensity to the photo, maybe timing at a crux would've caught him paying more care to the spot. For those you have to get lucky and have fast reflexes to catch the moment, unless you have people pause or be conscious they are photographed. For ex. shooting from the top it is usefull to tell talents to just look up instead of down. Also good for their climbing to search for holds, and increases your chances of getting a good moment :) -Too much of the back of the boulder makes the talent too centered. It would've been nicer to have the talent and the spotter opposed/symmetrical in the shot. -Bring some life to the shot by saturating it more with a warmer tone, and working the contrast.
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sonyhome
May 4, 2006, 9:00 AM
Post #5 of 8
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Registered: Jul 5, 2005
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Yeah, this angle's better, and the talent cuts out of the rock nicely in an interresting position. Funny that you built the exact same composition. The sky is also more interresting, but needs some massaging to increase cloud depth. The composition still is missing something to be interresting to someone flipping through photos and passing yours. I see you want to keep the whole rock to situate the climber, but at the same time it puts him in the center w/o any geometry making him stand out. I'd still want somehow the photo to counterpoint him with the spotters to help in that regard. Lemme think... Maybe I would've tried another shot with more space right of the spotters. Could turn out as dead space or space that increases the presence of the sky... Depends what's there. Same comment about contrast and saturation. You shot at a time where the light is a little flat. BTW, what kinda format is that? Doesn't look like 4x3 nor 35mm formats. I think it's odd length is not the best for the shape of this rock.
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bler
May 4, 2006, 3:50 PM
Post #6 of 8
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Registered: Apr 22, 2004
Posts: 302
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what exatley do you mean by 'massaging' the sky, using what techniques in PP ? I'm not one to completley replace a sky, I like keeping my photos as 'natural' as possible and bring out what would be represented of someone physically being there. I really havent used any sort of saturation adjustments, it is something that I can work on with my new pictures :) yah, the light was not that great, it was overcast and cloudy, but at times the sun was great.. just happened to be a bad time of light, we were just climbing I was not really out there specifically for photos (otherwise I would have waited for good lighting to get them climbing then) this is standard format of my D50, I did no cropping whatsoever.. I could work on composing my shots differently/better, I'm still a newbie when it comes to photography, I'm just lucky to get some decent shots ;) once again, thanks for the input..
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sonyhome
May 5, 2006, 12:39 AM
Post #7 of 8
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Registered: Jul 5, 2005
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Well depending on the software you use, play with the contrast of highlights and shadows & brightness for the sky to make the cloud textures come out and pop-out more. You will deepen the sky by lowering its brightness. If you use rawshooter essential (free) you can tweak your raw files easilly and fast. It has a fill light for situations where there's too much contrast between dark/bright I like. Don't overdo it though & you don't need it in this shot. You can play with contrast, exposure compensation, saturation etc. It does whole photo, can't select regions. For that, convert to TIFF and move to Photoshop, Gimp or similar.
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novclimbs
May 5, 2006, 3:10 AM
Post #8 of 8
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Registered: Sep 22, 2004
Posts: 26
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the first picture is nice, but the sky is a little bright/washed out and I usually prefer to see the face or at least the profile of the climber. ditto the spotter comment, a little spotting from the spotter would add to the photo. the second picture is better, maybe a slightly tighter crop removing the bystander in red and bringing the climber into better detail/focus.
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