Well sure as heck wasn´t going to enter this one but when I went online earlier today to submit my free study entry I noticed there were only about 50 entries on this one. I figured why not at least try if I had the time since there were so few entries, I mean you never know, right? Of course since it was newyears eve the only thing I could shoot was the easiest one, the five rings.
That means for only the second time since I entered DPC, I am entering a shot for the sole purpouse to hunt for a ribbon (the other time was Superstition where I wasn´t going to enter either but saw that there were few submissions). I do NOT expect this to ribbon though, the shot is about as unoriginal as you can get but hopefully other people were busy between christmas and newyears and I´ll be enough. Have always wanted to take the "dirty hand cliche photo anyway" and this was as good a time as any.
Anyway, this is actually shot at about 3 am on January 1st 2007 local time here in Iceland or about 2 hours before deadline since we are EST +5 hours. Henny is holding the rings, we used the same technique as we did in my recent "Dirt" shot to get her hands dirty, she put on a black t-shirt as the backround and we snapped a handful of pictures. We had to scramble to find five gold rings and we just barely scraped them together by using our wedding rings, mine is the one second from the left and her´s is the one in the middle. This was the one I liked best of those and then I spent about 5-10 minutes editing.
Lit with a single bowens monolight with a 60x60cm softbox from above, left.
Editing is just raw conversion where I increased contrast and decreased saturation. Cropped it, increased contrast and decreased saturation even more in PS and finally dodge/burned it a little bit to even out the lighting and finally sharpened after resizing.
Yeehaw! First "sub 7" ribbon I have ever gotten here at DPC, did not expect to wake up getting one for this score :), was sure I would get another 6th place for it!
Oh and I do agree about the angle of the hands, the black backround is just her t-shirt and she had to hold the hands so close to her to get the black backround, if I had to reshoot this today I would agree and put a black backround on her and have her hold the hands out more naturally...
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Congratulations on your Ribbon, Larus!! Your versitility astounds me! I actually find the "dirty hands" gift carries great meaning, a gift seems more heartfelt from the poor than from the wealthy.
Great shot - Congrats!
Guess I'm in the minority, but the dirty hands doesn't do it for me. I can't put the gold rings and dirty hands together in the same mindset. But nonetheless, it's a winner so rejoice! : )
Hey bud, I bet your glad that you had some left over dirt eh? Awesome idea and shot. Love the dirt with the rings, it really brings out the detail of the hands so much more with the dirt. Nice work.
This is awesome! I thought it might be Philup's. It's so dramatic and beautiful! congratulations again! they are going to have to make your profile page 2 pages to fit all your ribbons in :)
Interesting shot, but the dirty hands seem to be there just because you wanted to shoot some dirty hands. By themselves, the hands are full of interesting texture and geometry, but it just feels forced here.
Very emotive shot. The contrast between the rings and the hands has a lot of feeling and meaning to it, and it really comes across. On top of which, the technicals are very good as well.
A simple but effective composition. Soiled hands offering the rings, as a supplicant would offer something found or created in the course of their labours, but of which they are not worthy.
I like the idea - the dirty hands indicating to me hard work to pay for gold, r that gold is of the earth, the heart-shape of the hands indicating love, the presentation of the rings as a gift.
I like the saturation and the contrast between the dirty hands with the precious rings. I'd like to see their colour more gold/yellow though, but that's fine. The odd thing here is the angle between the arm(s) and the hand(s) as it seems the wrists were broken...
Boy, you see this kind of photo work so many times but I have to say this isn't one of them. The rings get lost in the hands. 5 for effort though and at least having the right number of items unlike most others.
5th day of christmas
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