Request: A Brutally Honest Critique in Exchange for Viewing My Photos

On Wed, 23 Jun 2004 05:53:00 -0500, "No Pork Byproducts"
wrote:



Per your suggestions, I uploaded 3 new versions of some photos that
you commented on. (I'm starting to really see the limitations of
this ancient 15" monitor that I'm working with).

I think I brought out enough detail back into the
"longtailedskipper" photo. And I cropped out some of the black
silhouette around "sunfire", but not all. I think it looks a little
better.

I reverted "buffalovista" to the original photo, without that
drastic multiplier trick to the sky. Now the eye is not fooled into
expecting more from the scenery and to give it back the original
melancholic subdued feeling as intended (my take on it anyway). I
may reconsider this in the future though. It might still be a little
too dark or low contrast/saturation (it's so difficult to judge that
on this monitor). The problem that changing the sky caused in this
one (to the more intense colorful edited version) reinforces my
belief that just because you *can* do something with digital
editing, doesn't mean you should. And also reinforced my
apprehensions to just leave them alone more times than not.

Will play with the other suggestions you gave, as time permits.

I'm still not too sure what to do with "pelicanframes", as any of
the utilities that I've played with to adjust for contrast or color
balance changes the feeling and mood of the photo drastically. With
it being a natural duo-tone to begin with (what you see now is what
it looked like originally), nearly anything can be done with it...
I'll think on it and play with it 'til I find something I might like
better.... but you're right, it needs tweaking of some kind, I'm
just not sure "what" (kind). I can balance for the grays (making the
sky into richer blue clouds), but then I lose the near-sunset yellow
highlights in the water, which I feel gives it its realism. Too much
contrast and I lose the feeling of the cold overcast evening
weather. It's an odd balancing act. Maybe I should just leave it
alone? :-)

The others with luminosity (gamma problems) might (or should) wait
until I get a better monitor perhaps. Which could be years away with
my financial limits. :-)

Thanks again for your input. Comments like yours have proven to be a
valuable learning experience for me.

Is your site down?

"Keoeeit" wrote in message
...
On Wed, 23 Jun 2004 05:53:00 -0500, "No Pork Byproducts"
wrote:



Per your suggestions, I uploaded 3 new versions of some photos that
you commented on. (I'm starting to really see the limitations of
this ancient 15" monitor that I'm working with).

I think I brought out enough detail back into the
"longtailedskipper" photo. And I cropped out some of the black
silhouette around "sunfire", but not all. I think it looks a little
better.

I reverted "buffalovista" to the original photo, without that
drastic multiplier trick to the sky. Now the eye is not fooled into
expecting more from the scenery and to give it back the original
melancholic subdued feeling as intended (my take on it anyway). I
may reconsider this in the future though. It might still be a little
too dark or low contrast/saturation (it's so difficult to judge that
on this monitor). The problem that changing the sky caused in this
one (to the more intense colorful edited version) reinforces my
belief that just because you *can* do something with digital
editing, doesn't mean you should. And also reinforced my
apprehensions to just leave them alone more times than not.

Will play with the other suggestions you gave, as time permits.

I'm still not too sure what to do with "pelicanframes", as any of
the utilities that I've played with to adjust for contrast or color
balance changes the feeling and mood of the photo drastically. With
it being a natural duo-tone to begin with (what you see now is what
it looked like originally), nearly anything can be done with it...
I'll think on it and play with it 'til I find something I might like
better.... but you're right, it needs tweaking of some kind, I'm
just not sure "what" (kind). I can balance for the grays (making the
sky into richer blue clouds), but then I lose the near-sunset yellow
highlights in the water, which I feel gives it its realism. Too much
contrast and I lose the feeling of the cold overcast evening
weather. It's an odd balancing act. Maybe I should just leave it
alone? :-)

The others with luminosity (gamma problems) might (or should) wait
until I get a better monitor perhaps. Which could be years away with
my financial limits. :-)

Thanks again for your input. Comments like yours have proven to be a
valuable learning experience for me.

On Thu, 24 Jun 2004 08:33:33 -0500, "No Pork Byproducts"
wrote:

Is your site down?


No, I just checked it, the index page re-loaded fine (I erase my
cache to double-check things like this). It could be they have some
bandwidth limits in place that I don't know about. I've no idea how
much traffic it might be getting after posting it publicly here.
Someone else this morning in a chat room reported not being able to
access it too, but it loaded fine from my end at that time too.
Might be a net-glitch too.

"Keoeeit" wrote in message
...

I think I brought out enough detail back into the
"longtailedskipper" photo. And I cropped out some of the black
silhouette around "sunfire", but not all. I think it looks a little
better.

Excellent work on the longtailedskipper! I hope to learn how to do that
with PS.

I would come in a little bit more on the right of sunfire to remove the
uneven angle of the tree. Otherwise it looks great!

I reverted "buffalovista" to the original photo, without that
drastic multiplier trick to the sky. Now the eye is not fooled into
expecting more from the scenery and to give it back the original
melancholic subdued feeling as intended (my take on it anyway). I
may reconsider this in the future though. It might still be a little
too dark or low contrast/saturation (it's so difficult to judge that
on this monitor). The problem that changing the sky caused in this
one (to the more intense colorful edited version) reinforces my
belief that just because you *can* do something with digital
editing, doesn't mean you should. And also reinforced my
apprehensions to just leave them alone more times than not.

I think it looks better with the original sky, too.

I'm still not too sure what to do with "pelicanframes", as any of
the utilities that I've played with to adjust for contrast or color
balance changes the feeling and mood of the photo drastically. With
it being a natural duo-tone to begin with (what you see now is what
it looked like originally), nearly anything can be done with it...
I'll think on it and play with it 'til I find something I might like
better.... but you're right, it needs tweaking of some kind, I'm
just not sure "what" (kind). I can balance for the grays (making the
sky into richer blue clouds), but then I lose the near-sunset yellow
highlights in the water, which I feel gives it its realism. Too much
contrast and I lose the feeling of the cold overcast evening
weather. It's an odd balancing act. Maybe I should just leave it
alone? :-)

This is a tough call. . . you might be right and just leave it be. Either
that or do an Andy Warhol kind of thing!!! LOL

On Thu, 24 Jun 2004 10:33:50 -0500, "No Pork Byproducts"
wrote:

I would come in a little bit more on the right of sunfire to remove the
uneven angle of the tree. Otherwise it looks great!


Good spotting. I didn't want to lose the trunk of that tree because
it helped to frame and accent the circular pattern of the sun and
smoke. I just now used a perspective-correction tool (in PSP 8) to
make that tree-trunk vertical, instead of having to lose it
altogether. (Which inadvertently exaggerated (elongated) the
rayed-light/shadows in the smoke, causing even more lead-in to the
sun. A surprising unexpected plus.)

I kept the left side cropped to the center of the large vertical
tree trunk because I liked the way it seamlessly allowed the photo
to go from image and natural patterns to solid-black edge/border (as
well as those branches again mirroring/framing the circular smoke
patterns).

I argued with myself on where to crop the top, and almost cut off
the bit of smoke that bled off the top (just above the bright puff
near the top left-center), to make the image more self-contained and
more circularly symmetric -- but then reconsidered and wanted to
leave that slight superfluous bit, to suggest what was really there,
much more smoke and haze above it in the sky. To lead the viewer off
the image to let the mind's-eye visualize the "much more". Giving
the mind even more to subconsciously process.

(Isn't it strange -- how when doing these things, how much goes on
over such minor changes being made? I usually do this in the camera
in a split-second, never considering nor realizing all the
multitudes of thought-processes taking place in the blink of an eye.
Re-editing some of these has been an interesting slowed-down
investigation of that process.)

"Keoeeit" wrote in message
...
On Thu, 24 Jun 2004 10:33:50 -0500, "No Pork Byproducts"
wrote:

I would come in a little bit more on the right of sunfire to remove the
uneven angle of the tree. Otherwise it looks great!


Good spotting. I didn't want to lose the trunk of that tree because
it helped to frame and accent the circular pattern of the sun and
smoke. I just now used a perspective-correction tool (in PSP 8) to
make that tree-trunk vertical, instead of having to lose it
altogether. (Which inadvertently exaggerated (elongated) the
rayed-light/shadows in the smoke, causing even more lead-in to the
sun. A surprising unexpected plus.)

I kept the left side cropped to the center of the large vertical
tree trunk because I liked the way it seamlessly allowed the photo
to go from image and natural patterns to solid-black edge/border (as
well as those branches again mirroring/framing the circular smoke
patterns).

I argued with myself on where to crop the top, and almost cut off
the bit of smoke that bled off the top (just above the bright puff
near the top left-center), to make the image more self-contained and
more circularly symmetric -- but then reconsidered and wanted to
leave that slight superfluous bit, to suggest what was really there,
much more smoke and haze above it in the sky. To lead the viewer off
the image to let the mind's-eye visualize the "much more". Giving
the mind even more to subconsciously process.

(Isn't it strange -- how when doing these things, how much goes on
over such minor changes being made? I usually do this in the camera
in a split-second, never considering nor realizing all the
multitudes of thought-processes taking place in the blink of an eye.
Re-editing some of these has been an interesting slowed-down
investigation of that process.)


That is perfect. I like the unexpected change to the shadows. Really,
really nice.

I picked up Scott Kelby's "Photoshop CS Book for Digital Photgraphers"
yesterday and seeing your results is making me drool. I may have to go to
Seoul next month for a couple of weeks and I'll sure be bring the camera and
this book with me. (I was stationed in S. Korea 19 years ago and am hoping
I get the assignment. One of the most scenic places I've ever been!)

On Thu, 24 Jun 2004 14:10:32 -0500, "No Pork Byproducts"
wrote:

That is perfect. I like the unexpected change to the shadows. Really,
really nice.

Thanks, but wouldn't have thought to reconsider any of that had I
not had your feed-back.

(So many other photos I had to weed through in the last couple
months, 5500+ photos from a 9-month, 23-state, kayaking/camping
trek, some of which are in that art-gallery collection now. (Putting
up this collection for a critique was an after-thought from doing
those.) Spending this much time on any single one of them was not in
the cards, but is paying off handsomely in learning. If you are
curious or bored, I have the trek-gallery up online at
http://www.intergate.com/~keoeeit/trek.html that I haphazardly threw
together, for all the people I met along the way that wanted to see
the adventure. Please don't critique those though, as most were
posted as-is right from the camera. I have my hands full just from
the suggestions you made so far. :-) Considering the intended
audience I chose more travelogue/post-card type photos for that
gallery than what I considered as more creative use of film (urgh...
I mean photography, not film, I switched to digital for that trek).
But there's still a few goodies there that you might enjoy that I
didn't port over to the "for critiquing" art-gallery page. I had fun
assembling some panoramas for that trek collection too, another side
of the digital coin that's fun to explore and play with. I'm only
just beginning...)


I picked up Scott Kelby's "Photoshop CS Book for Digital Photgraphers"
yesterday and seeing your results is making me drool. I may have to go to
Seoul next month for a couple of weeks and I'll sure be bring the camera and
this book with me. (I was stationed in S. Korea 19 years ago and am hoping
I get the assignment. One of the most scenic places I've ever been!)


A pleasant and safe travels to you! I hope you get to enjoy as much
in this process as I have and have been doing. It's never too late
to learn and try new things, as I'm doing that all the time. I think
you'll get much more out of just playing with a good
digital-darkroom collection of software than any old book though.
(It might be good advice however, I've never read it.) Your comments
already show me that you know what needs to be done. You just have
to play with the software now to see how to do it. Sometimes the
best ways are the ways you discover on your own -- surpassing
anything that anyone's ever done or thought of before.

(...reflected in one of my more favorite quotes, "Innovators and
creative geniuses cannot be reared in schools. They are precisely
the men who defy what the school has taught them." - Ludwig von
Mises)

Thanks again, very much, for all your input and time. It has been
most helpful, and appreciated.