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IR shot of rings and rose

Last post 01-19-2009 12:08 PM by Les Howard. 3 replies.
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  • 01-18-2009 2:55 PM

    IR shot of rings and rose

    Experimenting with IR...


    It's only the giving that makes you what you are.
    • 192.168.1.1
  • 01-18-2009 5:10 PM In reply to

    • Ted Jez
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    • Joined on 02-27-2004
    • Burlington, Ontario
    • Posts 2,049

    Re: IR shot of rings and rose

    I don't think this image works for me because until I read the title "rings and rose" I was trying to figure out what was inside the ring?

    At first I thought it was some material to support the rings.

    Of course this is just my personal opinion.

    Anyhow the creative process requires many different attempts until you find the one that works for you.

    Good thinking.

    The secret to good photography? - Be at the right place - at the right time - with the right gear - and possess the skill to take advantage of the situation.
    There is a fine line between a hobby and mental illness.

    • 24.141.2.151
  • 01-18-2009 5:15 PM In reply to

    Re: IR shot of rings and rose

    Good point, Ted...IR does a nice job on the stones though.

    It's only the giving that makes you what you are.
    • 192.168.1.1
  • 01-19-2009 12:08 PM In reply to

    • Les Howard
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    • Joined on 03-07-2004
    • Barrie, Ontario, Canada
    • Posts 658

    Re: IR shot of rings and rose

    It looks like you're practising your wedding photography so I'll offer this critique in that context.

     

    The monitor I'm using right now is uncalibrated as most of your customers' monitors will be so what I'm seeing may be different from what you see. The photo looks 'muddy' to me which is to say the whites aren't truly white but look to me like a very light gray, and the blacks are not black but just a much darker shade of gray. In other words, the contrast is weak. That's easily fixed.

     

    I recommend you use a smaller fstop to get more depth of field. This is noticeable not just in the bands but in the diamonds too. Focus on the diamonds as they are the important center of interest to the customer. You can also use diffusion for a 'soft' look but if you do that, use an actual diffusion filter on the camera not Gaussian blur in PhotoShop. The two effects are quite different. It may take awhile to find good diffusion filters. I tried many different kinds by Cokin, Tiffen, Hoya, Nikon, etc. before finally finding those made by Harrison & Harrison recommended to me by David Ziser and also Monte Zucker.

     

    Your composition is very good. There are no border merges. Subject placement could be improved a bit - you've used the rule of thirds quite nicely. In this photo, the negative space above the diamond is much larger than the negative space below the band; that makes it look like the rings are falling out the bottom of the picture. Better to loosen up on the 'rule' of thirds in this case and cut the top negative space to be about half the size (ie. smaller than) the bottom negative space. This composition technique is a subtle variant to the rule of thirds; I took the negative space, divided it into thirds and put one third above the subject and two thirds below. You might want to think about this variant for awhile and how it might apply to other subjects like faces, rocks, a duck on a pond - there are endless possibilities.

     

    I agree with Ted's comment - in black & white the rose looks like a piece of fabric. In fact you might try substituting a piece of shiny white satin and use it to create interesting shadows in the folds.

     

    Practise making this same shot in color. My experience is that most customers will want color not black & white most of the time. If you offer to include 'a few' black & whites in their color coverage, they will want it, demand it even. Unfortunately for you, they won't pay extra for it and they won't buy the resulting pictures because a couple of black & whites will look out of place in an otherwise all-color wedding album. So, you wind up doing additional work but get no additional profit. Because it's easy to convert color to black & white but you can't go the other way, I recommend you shoot only color. Having said that, there are some photographers who shoot only black and white and make a good living at it. It becomes their USP ('unique selling proposition' in marketing terms - what makes one product different from any other available to the consumer). It is the main thing that attracts their customers. But ... you must be very good at it and very experienced in order to make it work for you.

     

    Hope that helps. 

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