This is a small (about 30-inches tall) angel statue that my mom has in her garden. I have photographed it several times before, but I thought it would be a good experiment in 'bokeh' for this challenge. I'm intrigued with this subject because of the way light and weathering creates a somber mood. I think it has a rather sad effect on me. The angel appears to be mourning some sort of loss.
As for the bokeh element of this photo, I used my 50mm f/1.4 lens at f/1.4 to work in some very shallow depth of field. I positioned my camera to keep the hands and face in sharp focus, while letting the body get soft at one level, the wings at the second level, and the grass in the background completely lost.
The outdoor lighting conditions for this photo were nice. The sky was rather cloudy and producing a nicely diffused soft light for the statue. In basic editing, I wasn't really able to finish this photo the way I wanted to. There is some dodging and burning I used in the final version to make it more appealing to me.
Post Processing:
Levels and curves to produce desired contrast, channel mixer to monochrome and 100% on the blue channel, toned with my 'silver' curve, sharpened, resized, and added the border for the challenge.
EXIF:
File: IMG_9160.JPG
File size: 2,138KB
Image Serial Number: 191-9160
Camera Model: Canon EOS 20D
Camera serial number: 0420100366
Firmware: Firmware 2.0.3
Owner: John M. Setzler, Jr.
Date/Time: 2006:10:22 11:23:16
Shutter speed: 1/250 sec
Aperture: 1.4
Exposure mode: Av
Flash: Off
Metering mode: Evaluative
Drive mode: Continuous: frame 1
ISO: 100
Lens: 50mm
Focal length: 50mm
AF mode: One-shot AF
Image size: 3504 x 2336
Rotation: none
Image quality: Fine
White balance: Auto
Color space: sRGB
Saturation: Normal
Sharpness: Normal
Contrast: Normal
Picture Effect: Normal
Sharpness level: 0
Tone: Normal
Custom Functions:
CFn 2: Long exposure noise reduction: On
CFn 8: ISO expansion: On
Statistics
Place: 237 out of 440 Avg (all users): 5.0656 Avg (commenters): 6.8333 Avg (participants): 4.8729 Avg (non-participants): 5.2460 Views since voting: 1321 Views during voting: 319 Votes: 244 Comments: 7 Favorites: 1 (view)
The bokeh is there but unfortunately is doesn't really enhance the photo as the black/white (gray) statue really needs some color contrast in the background or a solid dark color. The colors all blend with one another here.
Just not excited by a photo of a statue. It is bokeh, but the lack of color hurts it a bit more for me. Technically, it's good, but the subject matter is just lackluster to my way of thinking.
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