This was taken at a birthday bash. I was trying to take shots of people with interesting faces. Took about 100 in horrendous light and was able to edit three. I like both the woman in focus and the look on the blurry woman's face.
Process:
Cropped the photo tight.
Resized.
Saturated 100% red, yellow, magenta.
Desaturated the whole thing.
Upped the contrast by 40% or so.
Blurred entire backgound heavily with blur tool.
Added layer and blackened background, used soft light and gaussian blur to blend it in.
USM for more contrast.
Bit of Neat Image to make it slide down better.
Added border and saved for web.
Statistics
Place: 274 out of 448 Avg (all users): 5.3262 Avg (commenters): 6.1111 Avg (participants): 5.2323 Avg (non-participants): 5.5476 Views since voting: 783 Views during voting: 251 Votes: 141 Comments: 12 Favorites: 2 (view)
I look at this and start feeling dizzy as though I have had too much to drink...I think that's great, it has the feel of a very cool indie film, blurry and shakey at all the right moments...
you know I am not sure why people would want to provide you with technical criticism on this..to me this is a gut reaction shot, it either hits you or it doesn't...it hitsme, I would like to see you getting out there and producing a whole late night series, and laugh at you struggling to find a shot that isn't too blurry...
maybe you should just pretend to get really drunk and hang with everyone, while you are only kinda drunk...and get a gorilla pod it should be cool enough to draw the right kind of attention/discussion...
ok I'll back off, just thinking..:)
I like it, it's got that late night 'moment in time' feel which appeals to me. My initial thought is 7 but I'll see if that changes.
There's a bit of blurring in the subject which is a feature -- where it counts (his face, hand) it is sharp. I wish his face was a little sharper, but this must have been a pretty long shutter and that would be hard. I like that the secondary subject is very blurred, it is a really nice effect.
I definitely like the desat in this case -- at night, our ability to see color diminishes so B&W always seems right for nighttime shots to me.
Composition is good, but I really wish his hand was not at the edge of the photo. That hurts the photo a lot for me, especially in terms of the title. It doesn't help that his hand blew out a bit too -- I wish that was more featured. But his face draws me in, and that's the way it is supposed to be. I like the border, didn't even notice it at first, but it enhances the darkness idea.
One final comment, more about the subject than the photo -- I've called the subject a man, but he has some feminine aspects (shirt, necklace, earring). He has manly aspects too (arms, watch, hair, etc). Is he transgender? I think it adds a lot to the image, the non-obvious combination of male and female traits and adds a little mystery.
So, I'll stick to a 7. The hand is the main flaw that keeps me from going higher (and the slight blurring of his face).
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