This is my husband modeling for me again. I only had a couple of ideas for Oxymoron - decided to go with this one as the spooky, gothic theme would fit in with Halloween being in a couple of weeks. I like how this turned out - pretty much how I envisioned it but not quite.
At first I tried to capture my husband three times in one exposure but somehow that just didn't work very well, by the time I did the third part of the exposure the human image in the first part almost disappeared.
To do this, I set the camera on ISO 100 with an aperture of F22, so as not to let too much light in, and the shutter to Bulb. Also, I put a #4 Neutral Density Filter on the lens, to keep some light out. Then I had him pose by one tombstone and locked the focus on that, then I put a piece of black foam board over the lens and clicked the shutter all the way and held it for bulb. I lifted the card off the lens and counted to 3 and then put the card back over the lens, Jack posed by the second tombstone and I took the card off the lens and counted to 3 and put the card back and then released the shutter. The camera was on a tripod.
It was a bit windy so you can really see the blur in the grass from in blowing in the wind. I like the way it turned out quite spooky looking! This is the first time I've tried anything like this - it was fun.
I messed around with a lot of shots, they got better as it got a bit darker out and the best ones were right after the sun sank beneath the horizon.
I'm not sure how this will do score wise - hopefully, other people will like it, too.
Editing: Crop; adjustment layers for curves and contrast; flatten image; reduce Hue/Sat by -75, reduce the cyan channel a bit more; shadow/highlight tool - darken highlights +3, increase midtone saturation +9; noise removal with Helicon Noise Filter; adjust levels a bit; resize; smart sharpen; save for web.
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Place: 6 out of 155 Avg (all users): 6.4007 Avg (commenters): 7.9286 Avg (participants): 6.1600 Avg (non-participants): 6.4858 Views since voting: 2779 Views during voting: 476 Votes: 287 Comments: 22 Favorites: 2 (view)
Great photo! Great idea! hahah I never would have thought of that in a million years, but its such an obvious choice for an oxymoron! :D Good use of long exposure. If the gravestones were in focus this picture would have been simply awesome.
Nice idea, composition, pretty well executed. The watch is a little distracting, and I'm debating whether two different people would be better, but I like concept and think that you probably had fun doing it.
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