I wanted to explore the feelings of a pencil :). I bought 4 packs of long pencils and cut them down with a hacksaw, then sanded and sharpened them to the right size. Then I blue-tacked them to the sketch pad and drew the picture. Lighting it was very tricky, but I ended up using the light from my bathroom window. This is the most work I've ever done for a DPC challenge!
Statistics
Place: 22 out of 185 Avg (all users): 6.1227 Avg (commenters): 6.8000 Avg (participants): 5.9124 Avg (non-participants): 6.3409 Views since voting: 2103 Votes: 269 Comments: 42 Favorites: 6 (view)
Sigh...I just came across this from your profile page and realized I never got to see it or vote on it because I was travelling all that week. I'm sorry because I really like both the idea and the way you carried it out, and would have boosted your score at least a teensy bit...
Your explanations/analyses are great...I'm curious how you use curves to manipulate color, as that's almost all I use and am always looking for new tricks or effects.
The difference between the users with cameras and users without cameras averages on my photo is really huge! I knew I had a lot of technical problems with this photo, but I was too busy to try it again. Still, I actually liked the way the shadow falls across the pencils, separating the image into the "real" world and the "dream" world compositionally. You're not seeing the whitebalance of the camera there, I took most of the green channel out in the curves and pushed everything else around majorly. If I had a tripod or had bothered to set up something to put my camera on, it would have been sharper, but I'm lazy :).
The colours are deliberately red and blue to emphasise some aspects of my idea. Basically, the red pencil is a non-conformist in a blue pencil world, and struggling to deal with reality. He creates a little red dream world to escape to. I don't know what sparked this idea for me, probably the way pencils are always so uniformly lined up and ordered in their packs. Also I was struggling to find an idea that I couldn't imagine anyone else having, so I was trying to be as non-conformist as possible :). But in the end, my aim was to personalise the pencils since I knew most of the photos would not have any personality or emotion in them, and it snowballed from there. This image appeared in my imagination, and I've never felt so inspired before!
The most prominent feature of this picture is the drawn picture rather than the photographic picture. The idea is nice, though. Why is the picture in the blue part of the spectrum, where this one red pencil is out of place anyway? A little dark in the left hand corner, how did you get this hue?
This is such a cute idea that all the things I could say about the color and the light and the focus just really don't matter. I love this idea. Good Job.
I love it! This one caught me off guard. Good thing I wasn't taking a drink of coffee when it popped up. Extremely creative and original idea. Well done. My only nitpick is that for my taste it could be a bit sharper and I would rather have a bit of fill-in lighting from the left to lessen the shadows and improve the visibility of the pencils. (9)
Cute! A lot of grain in the background, perhaps this is intentional, or down to the camera. The pencils just look so cute. I like the big margin at the bottom - makes me think the composition is very deliberate within the entire frame. 6, Kavey
I'm the red pencil right now. LOL. Except maybe I wish I were in Alaska where it isn't so darn hot and humid. This is a cute idea. It has originality and creativity. Lighting, angle and focus are great. Congrats and good luck with the challenge.
She got sun-burned just thinking about it! LOL. Very original. The drawing is GREAT. The photo is pretty good. The concept is sellable. I could see this idea reproduced as an ad for crayons or colored pencils. Out of curiosity (and not as a complaint) why did you limit yourself to blue and red? 7
I expected to see many photos 'like' this, but because of the talent of the photographer, and the way s/he has composed this shot, this one is special.
very clever...cute even! That little red dreamer...lol well I think you carried this out well, except the pencils are a wee bit underexposed. But still good. 7 Grayce...aka...gracious
Great idea, but the end product is lacking a bit. The colors seem washed out, and the lighting seems a bit off. Theres also a lot of ccd noise, maybe you could use iso ~100 next time? 6 -lennier
I really adore this playful image. You have a good imagination and a fine sense of humor. Thanks to you I really see that red pencil as a living human being who dreams about being in Hawaii and escaping the regimented life. I like the placement of the little pencils; the blue background (drawn by you I presume) makes for a nice little touch. Good light. I really appreciate this. You know I have gone through all the pictures and voted on all of them and I see a lot of pencils doing all sorts of things but often the context doesn't make much sense. Here you, however, has created a nice pencil life. Great job. 8 Journey
I love the idea. That's a 7 just for that. Now the picture: I dunno if its the camera (hope its that so you can get of the hook easy) but it looks blurry. It need more contrast also.
Superb, brilliantly funny, exceptionally well shot. I can't fault this picture technically, and wouldn't if I could - the concept of inanimate objects having holiday fantasies is wickedly amusing and deserves 10 on it's own. The way you have put the idea into action is to be congratulated – first class shot… Winner? May be? Good luck… Easy 10++…
I had to laugh. The pencils dreaming of a vacation just like people do! Is the white balance off or am I just hallucinating? Great shot though. cute idea
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