I took this shot while on vacation in Europe in April 2004. We only did a day trip into Barcelona, and our first stop was the Poble Espanyol de Montejuic, an authentic Spanish village with specialty artisan shops. I saw these four glassblowers taking a smoke break just as the urgent need for a bathroom struck me. I grabbed the shot and ran- I got lucky that the one and only picture I captured of these craftsmen was the best photograph I took all year.
-Rotated to make paint line at their heads level with the ground
-cropped then filled in white space in the corners
-Neat Image
-Auto Contrast
-Auto Levels
-Master saturation +20
-Blues saturation +10
-resize to 640 x 465
-convert to lab color
-USM lightness channel 200%, .5 pixel radius, 2 level threshold
-convert to RGB
-save for web
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Place: 234 out of 530 Avg (all users): 5.7414 Avg (commenters): 6.5882 Avg (participants): 5.6538 Avg (non-participants): 6.0000 Views since voting: 1857 Views during voting: 514 Votes: 348 Comments: 21 Favorites: 7 (view)
The horizon is pretty crooked, but given that this was a condid moment, I think you did an excellent job composing the scene. The windows above add a great sense of scale and the jump suit colors really pop. The interaction between the 2 guys in the middle looks great too.
Every picture tells a story, and this one is begging for a script. Great pic! --- Here's my take on these guys, left to right ---- (1) This guy doesn't like his job much, probably suffering from burn-out. (2) Here is the guy you can mooch smokes from.... but won't let you use his lighter. (3) This guy seems like a easy going guy, but can't kick the habit. (4) Last, the story-teller, but current company has heard this one before.
This image has potential, IMHO, but suffers from a tilted horizon (needs rotating clockwise or perhaps a slight perspective shift), flat lighting, and not much of a centralized focal point. My eyes are drawn up to the busy paintings and the whitish splotches on the left side, which IMHO compete for the attention away from the glassblowers. Focusing in on one or the other might make a big difference. The colors are nice, which helps, but the light is rather uninteresting at best. The title, which is fine, is a bit of a misnomer as we have no idea if these guys are glassblowers or not just by looking at this image. You obviously have an eye for candid moments, which some of us (myself included) just don't have. Keep shooting and pay attention to where your eye is pulled in the image...what draws your focus... and you'll be ribboning in no time. :o)
You can't not laugh at these guys. Focus seems a little soft on the glassblowers, but I think that might just be the resizing. This shot (thanks to its subjects and your skillful composition) has a lot of character.
1) So what did you have for dinner last night?
2) Paella, again, paella. You know my wife cant cook.
3) I had a sausage, sooo big. Now it gives me gas! Pwwfffrrrtt
4) And I've got to work with this bunch?
I love candids like this. It reminds me of a shot I did of some construction workers on a smoke break. I love the guy on the left looking off into the distance. His face tells of an interesting life. Great photo.
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