DigaPixBlog

Have you ever liked a photograph and not know why?  Perhaps it’s just something you relate too or the feeling it evokes deep down inside that have no explanation.  It just feels good to look at it.

This is one of those images for me.  Looking down this fairway there is nothing in particular that captures our attention.  But there is something clean and fresh about this scene.  The air is fresh and the grass is green.  It just makes me want to take off my shoes and walk to the distant lake.  This appears to be a golf course in Tucson surrounded by condominiums.  The time is late afternoon and it is a perfect day.  There is something refreshing about the image.

I Like the texture in the grass and the rich blues of the sky.  There are just enough clouds on the horizon to balance the strong foot hills lit by the setting sun.  The single condo overlooking this landscape makes me want to move there and enjoy the view.

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There are times when we come across a scene that just screams history.  And we try to set the photograph in such a way to make it appear like an old image.  The first thing that must be done is to remove any trace of modern life form the scene.  This often involves isolating the subject.

The photograph submitted here of the old sailing ship does an excellent job of isolating the object of our attention.  I particularly like the second old ship in the distance.  Obviously if there had been a modern boat back there this could have turned into a record shot of the foreground vassal.  Lighting on the sales gives detail in the whites which stands off quite well from the background sky.  The white line down the side of the ship adds information.  Otherwise the boat would have been nothing more than a black silhouette.  I like the reflection in the smooth water next to the subject.

I might suggest to the photo-artist that they remove a little of the foreground water and make the horizon one third of the way from the bottom of the frame.  This will make the scene more traditional and at the same time make the viewer feel they are closer to the ship.

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There are all sorts of interesting and colorful caricatures out there.  And there are some just plain weird ones.  When we have the opportunity to capture most of them it is in environments that may not be conducive to a good or interesting photograph.  But we can’t pass up the chance to get what we can.

This is truly an interesting character.  Yes this is a human and not a statue from someone’s wrapped imagination.  The photographer has used computer filters to exaggerate the weirdness of the subject and in so doing creating a creature we would only expect to see in an extremely distorted nightmare.

I like the three dimensional effects this illustration creates which increases the imaginary threat this haunting image presents.  It would have been nice if we could have eliminated the street scene background, the white in the lower left hand corner is distracting.

Please, don’t hang this photograph on the wall of any room in my house!  I want to sleep at night.

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Taking the ordinary and seeing it in a fresh way is what good photography is all about.  Sometimes we have to get in close and sometimes we need to step back and just capture the light.  But always the photographer has to keep experimenting until they find what  makes them say this is the image I was after.  

This photographer has taken a hole in the ground, gotten down to an abnormal angel, and shown it to us from a new perspective.  Taken in the late afternoon the light adds drama and texture.  The out of focus background tells us part of the story to be told.  I have never paid that much attention to the grass around a putting green but this stuff looks to perfect to be real.

The one thing this image lacks is drama.  There is nothing going on.  I know it would be a cliche but where’s the ball?  A golf ball on the edge or near the hole would tell more of a story and add a little theater to the scene.  A trick the photographer may want to consider is to have some sort of white reflector board with them and bounce some light back onto the flag pole to give it more shape and dimension.

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Man in nature is an interesting combination in photography.  Our relationship to the rest of creation has more often than not been to the benefit of man and the detriment of the other inhabitants of the earth.  Where is the balance between our needs and nature?

This photographer has selected one of those inventions of man that may strike that balance, the wind farms of Southern California.  These majestic structures rise above the desert in passes where consistent wind provides energy to generate electricity.  I find it interesting that this photograph captures the wind turbine generators in the traditional landscape layers of foreground, middle ground and distance, while the hills are all in the distance plain.  The shutter speed selected by the photographer captured just the right amount of movement in the blades to indicate rotation.  The low hanging clouds tell us that weather is involved in the story of the wind mills.

I would like to make a couple of suggestions concerning the sky.  I like the clouds but by allowing us to see the clear sky above them we have defined their size.  If the sky were cropped down just below the top of the clouds our imagination will tell us they are much larger and more threatening.  Also the clouds are a little muddy in tone and could be lightened up a little in the highlight areas and darkened in the shadows to give more contrast.  I think this would add additional drama to the image.

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The golden hour or sometimes called the magic hour is caused by sunlight traveling further thought the atmosphere because it is at a low angle.  This light has softer highlights and shadows in addition to the often seen warm hue.  This is perfect light for landscape and portrait photography.

The image presented here is an excellent example of this beautiful time of day.  You will note the excellent detail in the shadows both in the foreground and the hills in the distance.  Colors that normally would have been drab gray are now rich golden where they receive direct sun light.  Can you imagine how much would have been lost of the photographer had not included the yellow grass along the bottom edge of the frame?  It would have taken a lot of death away from this image. 

The photographer has cropped this image in a square format for effect.  This is reminiscent of the medium film format size of 6cm x 6cm (2 1/4 x 2 1/4) used by Hassleblad and other cameras.  A few years ago this format was a sign that the photographer was using quality camera equipment.  It was like the BMW of camera formats.

In this image the square format works well except I would have liked to have a little more dramatic sky considering the amount of area it represents.

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       Same Location in Mid-Day Light 

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It’s fun to play with filters and see what you get.  Sometimes it is worthwhile but often we just say YUCK! and hit Ctrl Z.  There are times when we get something so wild we just have to keep it.   Our photo-artist has taken what is an unusual image to start with and made it out of this world.  This looks like something out of a 1960s SiFi film long before CG effects. 

I like the pattern of the palm trees with the first two doing their own thing.  The fact the photographer added an inferred effect to the plants just adds to the overall effect of other worldlyness.  The graduated colors in the clouds from orange to purple works well.  The clear band of sky wondering through the image helps to tie the trees together.  It is also interesting how all the palms extend from the bottom of the frame except the one on the far left which protrudes out of the center of the left edge of the frame.

This is a fun photograph.

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Festivals, parades and ethnic gatherings are great times to photograph people in costume.  You can also see some interesting correctors.  The difficulties are poor quality backgrounds and lighting that may not favor your subject.  But with a little persuasion you can get people to pose for you or move to a different location for a better shot.  After all they are there to show themselves off to the spectators.  You should, if they work with you, sent them a copy of any good photographs taken.This photograph of a Native American young man was aberrantly taken at an Indian gathering. 

The photographer has done a nice job of isolating the background or stripping if out during post processing.  Like most of these events they are held during the middle of the day when the light is not at its best.  But the photographer was able to get good light on the face by having the sun behind the subject.  There is a nice catch light in the boy’s eye. 

The subject’s costume is exotic and colorful but we must look beyond that and evaluate the photograph with the thought “If this boy were not in costume would it be a good photograph?”  It would be nice if we could captured him while performing some action or relating to the photographer in some way.  When taking this sort of photograph there is not much control over the subject’s actions. 

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Some photo-artists take photographs in the field than may not stand on their own but they have a sense that it could be combined with another image in the future. Thus they build up a file of skies, frames, textures, etc. that they may be able to use at some unknown time. It takes talent to combine images to get the light just right, the size compatible and other factors to be able to meld two or more photographs together.

The image presented here appears to be such a combination of images. The photo-artist has solved the lighting issue by placing the horseman deep into the scene where the lighting would be expected to be different and thus has a plausible explanation. The trail under the trees on the right side leads to the subject and therefore ties the two images together once again. I like the contract between the low key color of the foreground and the bright light of the distance. The lighting recalls nineteenth century landscape painting.

This illustration must have taken a lot of time and effort to produce on the computer. The light from the distance comes through the branches and leaves without a trace of selection hay lows. When you look at the foreground in particular you will notice some modifications to the saturation that gives it that strong rich mood.

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Framing is one of the oldest tools used by photographers to give depth to the two dimensional medium of photography.  The frame can take many forms; an overhanging branch, a view through an arch way, or as is this case the view through a window.  Some techniques are subtle and some are direct. 

This shop window image is designed to carry the story of the delicate world of a pastel tea party. It is a kind of dreamy and idealized world.  I like how you have included a portion of the bottom window frame to act as an anchor which tells us just how large the window is in one direction.  The exposure in the whites is excellent giving the maximum amount of detail.   The photographer has done a wonderful job of avoiding reflections in the glass.

There are a couple things that the photographer may wish to take a look at.  For some reason the corner of the table at the upper left hand frame appears to be too strong for this delicate image.  At the same time if the left edge of the window were removed we would get less of a feeling of tapering of the pains.  The final observation has to do with the overall color cast, which appears to be on the gray side, if you wish this can be modified using levels to bring the whites and blacks closer and curves to modify the contrast.

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How lucky we are to find art all around us.  Much of it goes unnoticed.  It adds to the pleasure of life and the richness of our communities.  When we see manmade objects that enrich us we should give thanks to the artist in our hearts.

This photographer has come across just such a wonder.  The painter created a colorful representation of the growing vines that intrigues and amuses us.  The photographer went one step further by using enhancing filters on the computer to increase the feeling of the painted wall and apply it to the sunlit area in the bottom left hand corner.  This adds confusion as to what is real and what is imagined.  A little touch like this takes the image form a record of someone else’s art work to an interpreted version.

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Environmental portraits are generally meant to tell us something about our subject and well as capture their likeness.  If your subject is a pianist you would most likely photograph them sitting at their piano or in some way surrounded by music.  If they were an astronaut your most likely would not picture them at a base ball game.  There are reasons you would break the rules but the important point is that you want to tell a story about the subject.

This image of the mannequin tells her story in an indirect way.  Because of who (what) the subject is we automatically assume the out of focus background is some sort of store or shopping mall.  At first glance you might think she is moving through the scene.  The placement of the head off to the side allows us to see beyond her into the environment.

Perhaps the color or contrast could be altered to give her face a little less gray tone.  She does not look alive, what am I talking about she is not alive.  I wish the photographer could have gotten a little more detail and less black into the surroundings.  Also note the dark shadow under the chin.  It may have been caused by an on camera flash or just bad existing lighting.  At least you won’t get red eye with this model.

By the way I hope my wife doesn’t come home in this get up.

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When most travelers return from their vacation they have taken a bunch of “Me in front of ……” photos; Me in front of the Eifel Tower, Me in front of my aunt Tilley’s house, Me in front of …., you get the idea.  These are fine if you want to remember what you looked like, and to prove where you’ve been in the world.  But they hold little interest to other people.

This photographer his traveled and done more than just record where they have been.  They have photographed and interpreted their experience and created an image that others will want to explore.  The photo-artist has replaced a background where we would expect to see the sky with a portion of a work of art that tells us immediately that this image is intended to represent a painting rather than a straight photograph.  Then a dry brush painterly filter was added to the rest of the image. 

I find it interesting that the boat is coming out of the frame and into the scene.  This gives us the illusion that we are close to the gondola and shearing the view of the water front.  The people are all looking into the picture and this adds to the feeling that we as fellow observers should look beyond the foreground subject.  Another element that takes us deeper into the illustration is the fact that the boat and boatman are both black while the buildings are all light colors and our eyes are drawn to the brighter objects.

This photograph was taken on a very cold day in Venice. Even though it is a sunny day why else would the passenger in the gondola be wearing a knit cap?

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Whenever a craftsman or an artisan creates a product they put something of their own personality into the design.  The end result may be considered folk-art if the craftsman makes one of a kind objects.  But people that design for mass consumption also put thought into the final appearance of their product.  And as such a hundred years from now they too may achieve the status of artistic designs.

This photograph would make a fine catalog illustration for the lighting company.  This is a well made product shot.  It shows the lamp clearly, has dimension and stands out from the background.  I partially like the hint of gold light on the crown. 

I would like the photographer to consider the original subject as a work of art and as such the photo-artist must do more than record someone else’s art and find a way of interpreting the subject in a way that only you can.  As a commercial photograph you may want to increase the contrast a little to get the lamp to stand out more from the wall.  This will also brighten up the stone.

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When we photograph things that are under our control we take on the responsibility of making sure that everything about our subject is just the way we expect it to be in the final illustration.  This is particularly true of still life or table top photography.  We have the time, we have the ability to select our subject and we have the human eyes to see any imperfections that exist and correct them.

I like the orientation of the subject in this photograph.  With the tip of the stigma just peeking over the rim of the corolla like a small golden sun rising.  The lighting is nice and shows good contour and texture in the whites.  The overall shape of the peddles is pleasing and fluid.

There are a few things I would like to call to the attention of the photographer.  First there is what appears to be dust on in the white areas of the subject.  Upon closer examination some look like dust on the flower and some appear to be small round circles that may be the result on dust on the lens or dust on the photo receptors in the camera.  I would suggest that you do some tests with your camera to make sure your camera’s sensors are not dirty.

On the right side of the flower there appears to be a crease in the peddle, possibly caused by handling.  If you see this in the future you may wish to select another subject, after all shouldn’t a lily be perfect? 

There are two other things you may want to consider.  I would be nice if we had a greater depth of focus.  The focus point appears to be at the rear of the flower leaving the front tip soft.  Look into hyper focal focusing.  And last of all you want to watch getting the types of the subject tangent to the edge of the frame.  You are ok here but very close and I think you would have a tough time printing and matting this photograph without making one of the tips touch the edge of the frame.

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There are those judges that do not consider heavily manipulated images qualified as photographs.  It is my feeling that the photo-artist must be the solitary determinate of what tools they use to create their personal vision.  We as viewers have the responsibility to evaluate the end result and accept or reject what is presented. 

The work presented here is an amalgam of photography and computer manipulation.  The white heron was striped out of a photograph, altered with computer photo filters and dropped onto an abstract background.  I like the lighting on the subject; it gives nice detail to the white surfaces of the wings.  The background has the appearance of sunset clouds cast in marble.  The nearly square format selected works well with this subject.

There are a few observations I would like to make.  The photographer may want to consider moving the subject a little more to the right to allow more room in front of the moving bird.  And while you are at it why not make the frame totally square?  The computer filter used on the heron has had the effect of blocking up the creature’s legs and feet making them appear thicker and heavier than nature.  The same is true of the orange beak; shorter and heaver.  The painterly quality is nice but in these two areas in particular the distortion caused looks too unnatural.

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Macro photography allows us to enter an unseen world.  It can be like another dimension of things we see all the time but actually never see.  As we know the macro lens has a limited focal distance which we can use to work in our favor by allowing us to select what will be sharp and what will be soft background.

This macro shot has called our attention to the droplets of water on the underside of the tulip.  Please notice the detail in the very small mist droplets.  This has added a texture to the surface of the flower where none existed before.  I particularly like the shadow crossing the face of the subject.  This selective light inserts drama to surface of the flower and helps to bring out the sparkle in the major water drops.  The limited depth of focus shows us the stem of the plant as well as another  in the near distance without causing a distraction for the subject.

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We see our old friend Mount Hood once again in one of its many moods.  In this image the mountains importance has been diminished by the human element the house and barn in the foreground.  You will note that the lighting on the buildings corresponds to or perhaps is a little brighter then the light on the mountain.  Because of the man made component our attention is balanced between the two main elements even though they are dramatically different in size.

The afterglow lighting is stunning.  The peak of over 11,000 feet is the last point to receive sun light after the rest of the land is in shadow.  It is amazing there is still strong light on the buildings which are set off by the nearly black trees.  The horizontal element of the dark brown earth running across the entire width of the image gives the appearance that the house and the trees are sitting on a shelf at the edge of a precipice.

There is one suggestion I would like to make.  There is nearly no detail in the foreground and the upper portion of the sky lacks any interesting detail so the photo-artist may wish to crop this image into a semi-panorama.  I know I am always cropping.  Sometimes negative space is warranted and important but in this image I think a strong horizontal makes a dramatic statement.  The photographer may wish to keep the extra height and that works for me also.

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There are some scenes that are so pretty they attract or cameras like a moth to a flame.  Red object reflected in still water draws our attention immediately. 

This image in the oriental garden is framed by the various plants in bloom.  It’s almost like looking down a tunnel of green, red and pink, a nice setting for this image.  The light has found its way through the upper foliage to light the man made structure and cast a strong reflection.  Our eye has nowhere to go but to the subject in this photograph.  The exposure and contrast is excellent with good detail in the whites of the overhanging flowers and the grain of the black bridge support.

I would like to see this illustration without the two people crossing the moon bridge.  Their pink/red shirts do not blend well with the orange/red of the paint and their postures lack interest or action.  I know they are just walking but we see very little animation in their movement.

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       Revised by Photographer 

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Mount Hood rises over eleven thousand feet and is host to twelve glaciers.  It is considered a potentially active volcano located only fifty miles from Portland Oregon.  With the constantly changing weather conditions and light it is probably the most photographed landmark in the north western United States.

This photograph represents the mountain in its full winter dress and most beautiful.   The clouds at the peak appear to be blowing snow off the crest.  I like the way the image is broken up into three distinct bands graduating from bottom to top - dark to light.  The early morning light has given us distinction in the mountain ridges thus adding shape and texture.

I might suggest that the sky does not have much in the way of interest and could be reduced in order to focus our attention on the mountain and thus giving a more proportional balance to the dark trees at the bottom of the frame.  For some reason there appears to be a vertical line in the sky.  It appears to be some imperfection in the processing of this image.

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When you require a black and white image with color in selected areas it is easily achieved on the computer by creating a desiderate layer mask and painting out the areas where you want the color to show through by using black on your paint brush.  This can create an interesting effect. 

It appears that this truck is participating in some sort of hill climb event.  The photographer has captured the excitement of the spinning wheels and the flying dirt.  He has elected to highlight the red truck cap which draws our attention immediately.  This is a nice sports action image.

There are some things the photographer may wish to consider on their next project.  First of all we are not sure if this truck is climbing a hill or the photographer’s perspective is just above the subject.  We need some sort of reference point to tell us this is a hill.

He may want to clone out the white sticker in the rear window.  This is a visual distraction that does not need to be there. 

There is one more detail that could be easily corrected.  When the brush tool was applied to the cab of the truck the brush must have gone outside the bounds of the hood at the front and we can see a sliver of orange color that is not part of the truck.  This can be fixed by using the white brush and painting back in the black and white. 

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Sometimes improving an image is not a matter of big changes but very subtle alteration that is almost imperceptible.  Sometimes we want a 20 pound sledge hammer and sometimes a tack hammer to do the job.

This photographer wanted to capture the feeling of a rainy day in the garden.  The original image they started with was flat with a distracting background.  By lifting the contrast and saturation the photo-artist was able to bring some life to the subject without giving it the look and feel of a sunny day.  The cropping is not extreme but just enough to eliminate most of the hectic background. 

Below are shown the presented image, the photographer’s original shot, and one that I have over modified with color.  My over modified image looses the feeling of an overcast day and becomes a totally different story.

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Bruges (Brugge) Belgium was established in the first century BC by the Romans, and subsequently taken over by the Franks and then by the Vikings.  The modern city that we know now was started in 1128 AD.  Today it is the capital of the province of West Flanders.  So much for the history lesson.

The photograph presented here has a feeling of other worldliness right out of the imagination of Bram Stoker.  The use of inferred manipulation and the subtle brown tinting gives this ancient building and tower a hunted feeling.  The composition is nice with the tree and tower acting as counter balancing centers of interest.  They are both required to tell the story.

I would suggest cropping out the shadow of the tree at the base of the photograph.  Is does not appear to serve any purpose and for some reason wants to draw my attention away for the subject.  If this were a more amorphous shadow I think it would work but it is obvious that it is the shadow of a tree. The building itself does not look menacing enough to tell us that this is a true horror picture we are seeing.

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When we got our first copy of Photoshop the first thing we did was play around with the cool filters.  Some of them made little or no perceptible change and others were so crazy we could not imagine what in the world we would ever use them for.  The next stage was to take the filters we liked and apply them to bad photographs until we got something unusual that we thought others would like, but generally they were just bad photographs with a filter applied.

This photo-artist is a master of the filters tools.  This is not just some image where someone played around with the filters pallet; this is an image where the knowledgeable artist applied filters to get a desired result.

This manipulated image has all the detail and felling of a water color wash pen and ink drawing by a master.  This is an illustration that draws us into the details and makes us want to look closer and closer.  The subject is the crowd and the crowd is in a flowing motion that draws us into the center of this throng of humanity.  You cannot appreciate this image unless you can blow it up to the largest size possible and study the detail.

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This photograph was taken at Biddeford Pool a large tide pool on Saco Bay in southern Maine.  It is near the first permanent European settlement in Maine called Winter Harbor.  The light house in the distance is the 1910 Wood Island Light.

The photographer has captured the crest of the wave breaking over the beach rocks using a fast shutter speed.  The light on the foreground rocks is quite good and the color of the sea is a stunning azure.  The placement of the light house was determined by the amount of wave the photographer desired to include in the image.  About one third of the way in from the left frame it is nicely situated.

Perhaps the photographer would conside