Originally a submission to an Edward Weston challenge that I pulled. It was a wonderful creative exercise. This is my take on his 'shell period' : in some of his works he would combine two nautilus shells. Ghostwheel is my combination of a two different shells
Shot with a tripod near window with natural light on a foggy day.
My reply to a friend and photographer at DA who left a wonderful critique ---->>>I did receive two comments that it needed to be sharper - which I could not understand because I had a fellow photographer look at it before rollover make the same observation that then made me use the sharpening feature (Unsharp Mask) to bring back some more details.
I think it made it look too harsh in contrasts - so here I pulled back and did not do a global USM on the solarius shell but instead just selected the center ring of the shell to do a USM. That is where oddly it was 'soft'. I am beginning to wonder if it is the contrast between the smooth surface of the nautilus shell and the textured surface of the solarius shell that are 'sending' conflicting messages to the eye making one crave 'more focus. I see too that there is darker tones in the nautilus shell that makes it pull back to the backdrop such that the solarius shell pulls to the forefront and pops off the page - making it look real and unreal.
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