POTM [06-07/08] Yearning over a loved one

[zabe]

Hey guys,

I've been pretty inactive this past month... too much working in advance for the fall semester (I'm teaching a whole new program), plus my car stopped working 3 weeks ago and for some misterious reason (play the X-files tune while reading) Seat still can't get a hold of the pieces my car needs... so haven't had much opportunity to go out 'n' look for good shots to take with my (now very much loved) XSi...

Anyways, 2 weeks ago or so I had a lunch with some american people in the beautiful town of Plentzia here in the north of Spain, and one of my basque friends agreed to do a few shots for the "Emotion" theme... She hadn't seen her fiancee in about a month and a half, so melancholy was flowing when around her...

Hope ya like

~zabe

[Fod]

uh... missing image?

[zabe]

Originally Posted by Fod

uh... missing image?

wow, that was fast, haha... it took me 3 mins from writing the post to uploading the pic but now it's here

[kempez]

I like the look she's giving but the her left side is a little blurry, including her eye which I assume is supposed to be the focus of the picture, puts me off a little

Nice piccy tho apart from that

[padrejones2001]

Personally, I think if you take it in on the right, just left of her ear, and you take it in on the left to get rid of that very annoying and distracting black line. The thing of it is if your subject is looking to your left, you want to give them nose room in order to avoid dead space. It doesn't take much to express that you're depicting a human face, so don't be too scared to really push in and crop your photos. Also, humans, when viewing photos, look at the brightest spot of the photo, which, in this case, is not her face.
Also, if you use a longer lens, her forearm won't look so darn big.
Check it out.

[zabe]

Originally Posted by padrejones2001

Personally, I think if you take it in on the right, just left of her ear, and you take it in on the left to get rid of that very annoying and distracting black line. The thing of it is if your subject is looking to your left, you want to give them nose room in order to avoid dead space. It doesn't take much to express that you're depicting a human face, so don't be too scared to really push in and crop your photos. Also, humans, when viewing photos, look at the brightest spot of the photo, which, in this case, is not her face.
Also, if you use a longer lens, her forearm won't look so darn big.
Check it out.

WOW that was a big crop!! I agree with kempez in that the black bar in the left could be removed, at first I though it would provide a "frame" for the whole pic. The cropping you suggest, I understand now what you mean about nose room, but would you really crop SO much of the picture? I kind of miss part of it only leaving so little...

maybe something like this?

[padrejones2001]

If it made the picture stronger, absolutely I would crop it. Also, I usually shoot square format, both digitally (a la Phase One backs or Leaf backs) and with film, both with my Hasselblads. I would definitely try to play with the way you crop photos as well as the way you compose them. As said before, a different focal length would be immensely beneficial to this photo.

EDIT: The way you cropped it is better than the original, but it's still not enough to really have a whole lot of tension. If you look at the eyes, they're almost dead center and there's a lot of dead space on the right still. For me, if you don't need it, get rid of it.

[Da Dego]

Oddly, I see exactly what padrejones is talking about. This could easily be a "less is more" picture and I'd look at applying the good ol' rule of thirds by taking her eyes as the line across the upper third. This will crop a LOT of material out of the picture, but to me the only part that needs to be there is from her left cheek (on the right of the frame) to her thumb (at the left). It would help encourage a lot more of a "pining" feel.

Let her eyes be one focal point and her hand on her cheek being the other. Right now her arm and her ear become natural focal points because of the sharp contrast transitions. Remember, we don't JUST look for the brightest point - we look for the points with the most contrast. look at her ear and how much contrast there is there with the dark hair - it becomes a natural focal point. Same with the bracelet on her wrist. If you want us looking at her eyes and her expression instead, those areas have to either be subdued (through lighting choice) or cropped out.

[zabe]

Originally Posted by Da Dego

Oddly, I see exactly what padrejones is talking about. This could easily be a "less is more" picture... This will crop a LOT of material out of the picture...

Huh... funny how once I started trying different crops the one proposed by padrejones now doesn't even seem too cropped, now I feel that forearm is bothering me when I look at the picture... so I decided to get rid of it.

I'm not used to cropping so I feel a bit like I'm betraying my shot but I think that now with this last crop attention goes directly to her eyes... and I left a little bit more than the thumb that Da Dego suggested to add a bit of color with the bracelet... Also, there were 3-4 hairs in her cheek and in front of the eyes that were very visible now that attention is focusing in the eyes and around them, so I just cloned them out.

What do you guys think?

[zabe]

hmmm... ok now that I'm comparing between padrejones' crop and my last one, I like his better, mine feels like she's lit up unnaturally... probably cos I'm realizing now that when cropping out the forearm I also cropped out that nose room he was suggesting... god this is confusing... I think in the end I'll go with a crop like the one padrejones said... but for now I'm going for a walk, I'm getting dizzy with so many different crops I don't even know what I'm doing anymore

[Da Dego]

WAAAAAAYYYYYYYY BETTER....

Look at that vs. the original - there's absolutely no comparison, it looks almost like a totally different shot.

In regard to your point on cropping - don't EVER be afraid to crop. We don't have 8+MP sensors for the joy of leaving an image just how it was framed in-camera. Try things out, find what works. You're not betraying a shot, honest.

I look at a lot of photography as a hybrid between painting and sculpting. The painting is everything up to the image being recorded, using light as your pigment and a CCD as your canvas. The sculpting is what comes after that in the post-process stage - taking the raw image and polishing, chiseling and shaping it into the mood and feel you want. This includes cropping, tonal adjustment, B&W conversion, etc.

As long as you shoot RAW and therefore have the "negative" safely unmolested, always always always experiment!

EDIT: zabe, I don't think she looks lit unnaturally at all. I get the feeling she's looking out a window. You should take a "post process" pass through photoshop though for more than the crop. Unsharp mask, stepping up the contrast (around the nose in particular) and maybe some "recovery" through use of a darken layer will help

[zabe]

Originally Posted by Da Dego

In regard to your point on cropping - don't EVER be afraid to crop.

OK, I'll try to think that way from now on
I tried what that unsharp mask etc but I'm still very "green" in CS3, so I can only do so much... I added a little more contrast to the shot and it took a bit of a golden tone, which I think fits nicely, but maybe it's a little too much?

[OleJ]

I highly prefer the first crop. Winner so far in my book. Title and expression accompany each other very well.

[zabe]

Originally Posted by OleJ

I highly prefer the first crop. Winner so far in my book. Title and expression accompany each other very well.

which of the crops are you referring to? the one where the forearm and the ear are still visible? or the first of the two square crops that has lesser contrast?

[OleJ]

Originally Posted by zabe

the one where the forearm and the ear are still visible

[zabe]

yeah, I'm still undecided on which one to choose for the POTM, but I'm more keen to the one you suggest too... the crops do focus the attention on the eyes... but I still feel there's too much out of the picture... I still can't decide...

EDIT: The square crops still leave me feeling like there's something missing... so I just did a little tweaking before going to bed, couldn't resist... I went back to the forearm+ear crop, and since I agree with everyone saying that the ear was quite distracting from the eyes as the focus, I added a gradient adjustment layer on top of it to darken it a little so that it's not as visible. Then I added a little contrast to the whole thing and now the ear doesn't make such an impact and we can focus on the eyes (I think).

Does it look unnatural? What do you guys think?

thanks for all the comments by the way, they're being super helpful for me to try new things which enforces creativity

[mvagusta]

I like the second crop the best, as the third is a bit too much i think. It's a really good pic and she's a good model for emotion.
And i like the added gradient to hide the ear

I think that maybe cropping just a little more from the second one, so that her ear is still just in, and enough taken from the left so that the eyes are centered would be nice! It would also look great to smooth her skin, but i dunno if that's going too far for potm?

[zabe]

Hmmm...

After some thinking, I believe the square crop is too much for my liking... might not be as pro, but I like it better with the wider space. I cropped it a little more and left the shot a little bit more contrasty. This is what I'll be using for the potm.

Hope you like the end result

[Tyr]

Is the photo supposed to be focused on the wall behind her? That is the only part of the photo in focus... Would be really nice to see the same shot focused on the front eye as the composition is really good.

[zabe]

Originally Posted by Tyr

Is the photo supposed to be focused on the wall behind her?

No, as it would seem logical, I wanted to focus on her. But for some reason, and even though her face occupies almost ALL the shot, my XSi decided it would be fun to focus on the wall instead of her face, thus that slight out of focus appearance... it's really annoying, because I don't notice those things when viewing the shot in the XSi's screen, and then when I transfer everything to my pc I find out this kind of thing... quite frustrating.

I guess it's the 18-55 IS lens what screws up focusing from time to time? Because, let's face it, I might be new to dSLRs, but I've been shooting casual and artistic shots with a point&shoot for 7 years now, and when a face occupies 90% of the picture, I'd say it's kind of difficult for me to screw up the focusing myself if not done intentionally...