I cut out a half-circle 58mm in diameter, and placed it in between two lens filters. Screwed the filter loosely on the Sigma 18-50mm, picked f/4.5 for the aperture, focal length 23mm.
Lighting setting: a slave flash some 50cm above the camera, directed above the mirror (so some light reflects off the mirror).
Dressed up (I rarely wear these things), gave my son the jacket, placed him in front of the mirror
Set the shutter on bulb, lights off (not all the lights in the house, so that I could still see the filter), and fired 550EX (1/128th power) in my hand to trigger the slave. Put a cap on the lens, rotated filter 180 degrees so that the left side is exposed next.
Here, I gave the 550ex to my son - that was his condition for participation. I took the jacket, and took the cap off, verified that I have the straight vertical line, and told him to fire off the flash.
He did it straight at me so that created some harsh lighting, but there is no way to talk him into doing this again. So here is what I have.
Edits:
crop top and bottom (original width preserved)
auto curves
Some healing brush on the right side where the wall corner was in the picture
Cloned out the light fixture that was growing out of my head (hopefully not a major element)
Spot-healing brush at my neck line to reduce the shadow caused by the flash
Resize, USM, and very slight Neat Image.
Statistics
Place: 15 out of 109 Avg (all users): 6.4296 Avg (commenters): 7.4348 Avg (participants): 6.0435 Avg (non-participants): 6.5535 Views since voting: 3271 Views during voting: 543 Votes: 284 Comments: 31 Favorites: 1 (view)
I am Kari from the Critique Club. The following is a critique for "big".
First Impression - the most important one: Clever, Clever, Clever .. how the hell did he do that!
Composition: I think that for the subject matter and the picture you have choosen to take the composition is really good. It does not meet the rules that well .. but some of the great photographers never met any rules!
Subject: You have a great imagination and captured the topic extremely well. I remember the feeling well from childhood.
Technical (Colour, focus, and light): You are right the flash is a little harsh .. but hey how old is the kid .. he did a great job!
To grow its vote?: First one over six ... fantastic ... grew the vote would take your child getting older and doing the flash a little better .. so overall awesome job.
Summary: Fantastic ... I saw this as great during the challenge and am pleased it got you your first over 6 ... keep shooting.
if you have any questions on the critique feel free to PM me.
Hmmm..I wouldn't have called this fantasy, more like nightmare. I can't imagine small children fantasizing about growing up so quickly! Nevertheless, an interesting concept, executed fairly well. I would like to have seen some slight blur or something to give it a more "dreamy" quality.
Definitely meets the challenge. A fantasy or dream of every child. The mirror seems a bit high up off the floor level for the boy to stand this close though. Still good job. One of my favorites so far.
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