To start off, I had no intention in using this technique when I first thought of this photo; I know many are bored with it and I'm expecting a lot of negative comments about that. I started with the idea of a hanging water droplet causing this sad/happy reversed effect, but quickly realized I couldn't get a water droplet big and round enough to give the happy-face effect. So I thought of putting a large droplet on glass, and then another, and then to make a sun shape out of it, and before I knew it, I was copying the well known technique. I suppose my subconcious led me towards it, having been blown away by it before.
Well, I comforted myself by trying to make it a bit more interesting than the rest. Instead of using a background that's symmetric, or senseless when inverted, I went for an inversion which completely changed the meaning of it.
Designed and printed sad faces in CorelDraw and then created a water pattern using a syringe.
The original image looks very close to this one (to comfort traditionialists like John Setzler) minus the very saturated yellow (I only found average yellow cardboard) and contrast. All other modifications were just for kicks, and because I'm disgustingly perfectionist. NO effects were used; the way I got the drops to be so round is by applying a coat of some toxic hydrophobic chemical from the biology lab which I once used for electrophoresis. I forget what it's called. Same idea as Rain-X(as mentioned in Setzler's tutorial) but I think a bit more powerful.
Post-Processing:
Cloning certain reflections out, slightly reshaping existing reflection (decided to keep some for that plastic happy-face effect), slightly refocusing the pair of big eyes in the center (They were slightly out of focus at the expense of focusing on the droplets themselves), slight gaussian blur on the background instead of removing dust and defects, desaturation of the background (+ color balance to return to yellow) done to remove brownish hue around the black-to-yellow blur, 50%desaturate + color balance of droplets to partially remove chromatic aberration (50% was to keep redish glow of the droplets and maintain some contrast), contrast enhancement (ie slight gamma correction + clipping of input values to clip black regions), cropped out fraction of a drop on the right side which was bothering me.
Statistics
Place: 2 out of 174 Avg (all users): 6.7143 Avg (commenters): 7.7353 Avg (participants): 6.4602 Avg (non-participants): 7.0921 Views since voting: 11411 Votes: 189 Comments: 58 Favorites: 47 (view)
Greetings from the CC, well congrats on your ribbon to start! I am not sure what I can say to critique your photo to be honest, it is sharp, clever i.e. reversed smiles, well composed. Technically it is very well doen and the voters aptly rewarded you for it. I think in response to your comment, despite having been 'done' your twist of expressions really boosted this shots originality. I also think whether or not we get rewarded for trying a technique that has been done before, they can be very beneficial in learning and that is what this site is about. I have learned a lot from trying things and then when I am ready to take a more 'me' shot I have the technical know how to accomplish it... so do not feel bad about learning things here! Very well done, my favorite part of your shot is the composition of the drops of happy faces, very well placed, excellent work keep shooting and congrats again!!
Having not voted in this challegne, when I saw this on the front page and recognized the droplet technique I admit that I cringed and said to myself "how the hell did another unoriginal copycat technique win another ribbon?" Then I looked at it up close, and saw the frowning/smiling face effect from the inversion, and I smiled really big. You earned this one by adding your creativity to a stale technique and pushing it to the next level. I respect that. Congratulations.
This is a good example of taking an idea and giving it your own spin. I'm glad it won. Technically, it's perfect. Happy and sad. Great idea that can be interperted in many different ways.
Congratulations Aleks. I still think this is more about deign than photography, but have no problem with being in a minority here. What I am particularly glad about is that this, the most interesting use of the technique submitted here, has scored well enough to give you a ribbon.
The good thing with being gone for 2 years is that I'm not tired of the water shots yet. I thought it was fabulous, I still think it is... Awesome job! Congrats on a well deserved ribbon!
I see from your comments that you did indeed get a number of people referring to the previous images using similar technique, previously submitted on DPC. My feeling is that your version is very creative, as you said in your own comments, the reversing effect of the droplets completely changes the symbolism of the images and, by use of shallow DOF, the image reinforces your titular suggestion to focus on happiness. I think your ribbon is well-deserved. Too many voters here seem to believe that if they haven't seen a technique or idea before on DPC then it must be original/ better whereas it can often mean that the photographer looks further afield than DPC archives for inspiration.
Congrats to your first ribbon! You used the drop-technique extremely creative by not only showing some blurred backround sharp in them, but rather make an object (the simley) in them.
Way to go.
As much as I hate to, I must give a little bit of a bonus for originality on this one example of the very overused water drop shot. However, your lighting is very uneven on the background. Also IMHO your DOF should be shallower, making the background more fuzzy but still retaining enough detail to see the frowns turned around.
TC
Of all the DPC images ever submitted using the water drop technique this one is technically the best, that includes the DPC famous "Liberty and Justice" winner.
Use of the ROT and overall general effect make this an outstanding image. This is the class of the field in this challenge.
I love smiley faces! This is outstanding, you managed to capture the yellow without it being too bright, the clarity of the drops are great this is a 10 in my book. Congrats on a great shot. 10
Awesome! Just awesome. Yes....this technique has been a million times but making sure that there was only 1 large drop that draws your eyes to it is what makes this work. - 10
Not again........ This trick has been overused in last challenges.The effect is ALWAYS beautiful, we all agree on that. Unfortunately it becomes so repetitive.
Very creative, I like the sad/smiley face idea. You put a new and intresting idea to this technique. The DOF and detail is great, and the lighting is perfect. Good luck...
damn, someone finally did something significantly different with this old trick. Technically excellent work, the purity of those drops is wonderfully well done, but for me, as with all these shots, it's about craft of construction way more than about photography. I'm sure you'll still score very well, however.
Focus On Happiness
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