Yes, another Stockyards pic. It's a great location for me and convenient on the way home from work.
I actually did this one in an HCB fashion. I decided on an interesting location, staked myself out opposite from it, and hoped someone would come by and do something interesting. After about 15 minutes, these two guys came by with skateboards. Just passed by initially, but on the way back a few minutes later, they climbed up on the wall and were looking at something in the water below for a few minutes.
Kind of flat looking, as I was using the b/w mode on my powershot G11. Hoping it has enough visual interest to overcome that aspect. My 50D definitely produces better b/w images straight from the camera. Next time I use this camera for minimal editing, I'll know to use one of the higher contrast color modes and just desaturate it later. Here is an edited version with some more contrast, a slight crop and some perspective correction on the brick wall:
[May. 30th, 2011 09:19:01 PM]
Germaine gets a SpiffyPoint™ for leaving the anticipated critique about the low contrast.
Post-challenge notes:
The performance of this totally surprised the heck out of me. Never expected to ribbon in a challenge like this. I'm extra pleased because I did it in an HCB fashion, just waiting patiently for something to happen in my chosen scene. Thanks!
Statistics
Place: 3 out of 97 Avg (all users): 6.7161 Avg (commenters): 7.3636 Avg (participants): 6.4444 Avg (non-participants): 6.8614 Views since voting: 4870 Views during voting: 403 Votes: 155 Comments: 63 Favorites: 1 (view)
Very cool structure to have handy to shoot, and glad someone wandered by to give you that shot. Great work Grog, Snarfles very proud :-) Congrats on the ribbon!
I have a confession to make. I submitted a ticket on your image as I suspected a rule violation (probably my third or fourth ever) as the aspect ratio seemed to be different from most entries and the bricks seemed to be very level if it was captured by hand. I suspected a rotation and crop was achieved. Glad to see this wasn’t the case and it was just very well taken. Well done!
Oh, by the way, I gave this an 8 and my second highest vote for the challenge.
Well done Steve, and congrats once again. I had a feeling you were due to another ribbon soon. BTW, in regards to your comments on the photo... did you try bumping up the contrast setting a notch or two in camera under the monochrome camera profile settings and perhaps taking the brightness down one notch? I play around with those settings a lot myself, and for a minimal challenge entry I think the results would normally be better compared to a desaturation in software. I also use the color filters in camera to make certain aspects of the scene pop.
Personally, with this photo I think the contrast is just fine and added to the appeal of the HCB challenge. Your black point is in a good place when looking at the shadows and his shoes, you can see detail in his jeans and the whites oh his shirt have some detail in the creases etc. I think much more contrast would have brought out elements in the brick such as the patch job to his left that would have been a bit of distraction. As is your subject popped from the background and there is certainly still enough detail in the building/wall behind him to make it pleasing. It helps make it more of a "period" shot in my opinion. Congrats.
Dave
ETA: I just read Don's comment below mine so it appears we are in agreement that the contract level apparently worked well for this challenge in particular...so there you go. LOL.
amazing sense of scale, yes. I really like the flatness which makes him look like he's about to fall off into thin air. Really nice - Congrats on the ribbon!
On the edge
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