Challenge:Hidden Faces (Advanced Editing III) Camera:Canon PowerShot A70 Location: a block away from my home, in Markham, ON Date: Dec 25, 2004 Aperture: f 4.80 ISO: (Auto) - 50 ? Shutter: 1/1002 Galleries:Humorous Date Uploaded: Dec 26, 2004
This caught my eye as I drove by early Christmas morning - it reminded me about a "hidden faces" challenge I had recently read about, that maybe was still on. When I got back home, after verifying that the challenge was indeed still open, I walked back to the scene and took the shot.
My first submission. For the heck of it. I hope it brings you a smile.
Very little editing: crop, adjusted levels, unsharp mask 70%.
Statistics
Place: 52 out of 97 Avg (all users): 5.1388 Avg (commenters): 5.8889 Avg (participants): 4.8696 Avg (non-participants): 5.2714 Views since voting: 891 Views during voting: 346 Votes: 209 Comments: 11 Favorites: 0
First off, welcome to DPC! Glad to see some new submitters here.
A strong first entry --- 5.1388/47% is nothing to be ashamed about. As far as working with this image itself, I would have liked to see a closer crop on the face, which is the focal point of the photo. By getting rid of the distractions, the major element really stands out and is more obvious to people. This also helps give it a less of a snapshot feel to it as the viewer subconsciously realizes that extra time and effort was put into the making of the photograph. When people see a snapshot on DPC, they tend to vote it down because the effort is not there. To me, this was borderline and overlooking some things, I gave it a six as above average.
If I were to go back to this location and reshoot for this challenge, I would have braved the snowbanks and gotten nice in and close to the hydrant. In that instance, without worrying about a distracting background, you could then really understand the focal point immediately and more obviously than in the way you have presented it here.
Techinically, this shot is not terrible. The focus is fine and on. The snow seems underexposed which is a common fault in modern camera light meters. The way around this is, if your camera has the options to manually overexpose the shot by 2/3 of a stop or more until the snow is a nice white color. You could always bracket exposure to assure that you get the right exposure. Alternatively, you could use a handheld light meter to measure the amount of light falling on the snow rather than the amount of light reflected off of the snow which you camera reads.
Overall, I think this image is good, but there is always room for improvement. Good luck with you future submissions!
If you have any questions or comments feel free to Private Message me from my Profile.
Sharp! There's just no question why you took this photo. Snapshot-like, sure. But show it to an uncorrupted grade-schooler and their sure to laugh at what you saw and perfectly conveyed. ( I suppose you could also color correct so that there's less of a yellow cast to the snow, but I live in a valley where this is the reality.)
Sort of busy. I might have gone for a horizontal drop and try to eliminate more of the foreground and background.
Oops, thanks for the PM. That was a typo. I meant Crop instead of Drop. Anyway, I thought if you had cropped it Landscaped instead of Portrait it might have focused more on the hydrant.
Would be better with a tighter crop. The subject was very good and fitted the challenge. A close up or fill the frame would be my suggestion Good find though
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