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  • Originally posted by swampfrog View Post
    Thanks for this, it was helpful. Enrolling in some kind of art class would be interesting if I could find the time. All of the different ways compositions can be influenced could likely take a lifetime of learning.



    I really like the first one, it illustrates my previous question. There are several actual lines leading into the picture, are the lines stronger if the enter the picture precisely at the corner as in the lower right? Or from the sides or bottom?

    [ATTACH]8309[/ATTACH]
    Guess I didn't directly answer your question—sorry. Yes, generally the lines are stronger if they enter from the bottom, right or left, approximate to the intersection point of the rule of thirds grid your are using in your composition. Why? Because we are earth bound creatures. We see the world from the bottom up, not the top down. That's one of the reasons drone footage is often mesmerizing—for the first time it truly gives us a view of the world from a vantage point that is approximate in size and speed and movement to that of a small bird.

    There is the issue of visual field to consider. Visual field, both mechanically and philosophically, refers to the limits of the frame only showing what is intended to be seen or illustrated within the boundary of the frame, but there of course is a much larger world outside that boundary that is left to the viewer to construct using their imagination. Looking at my image you attached above it is easy for the viewer to imagine they are standing on earth looking up at the tree, because prior experience tells the viewer that that is typically how an earth bound creature often (yearly) experiences such a scene. Positioning the trunk of the tree (actual lines) where I did (bottom left corner leading to a rule of thirds intersection point) allow me as artist to manipulate the viewer's eye to follow the trunk (lines) and get lost in the yellow field of colour, leaving and returning again and again via the branches, as you have noted with your drawn lines.

    In your night image of the scaffolding you have expertly done the same, whether or not you knew you were doing it. The most important lines in that image are the seam lines in the sidewalk. Everything else just accentuates those lines leading the eye off to the gateway, which happens (it was planned by your great photographic eye) to sit exactly at a rule of thirds grid intersection point. Simply, our head spends much more time looking down at where our feet can take us, as opposed to looking up or even straight ahead, precisely because walking is our standard mode of mobility.
    Last edited by tooblue; 10-22-2017, 07:26 PM.

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    • Originally posted by tooblue View Post
      Guess I didn't directly answer your question—sorry. Yes, generally the lines are stronger if they enter from the bottom, right or left, approximate to the intersection point of the rule of thirds grid your are using in your composition. Why? Because we are earth bound creatures. We see the world from the bottom up, not the top down. That's one of the reasons drone footage is often mesmerizing—for the first time it truly gives us a view of the world from a vantage point that is approximate in size and speed and movement to a small bird.

      There is the issue of visual field to consider. Visual field, both mechanically and philosophically, refers to the limits of the frame only showing what is intended to be seen or illustrated within the boundary of the frame, but there of course is a much larger world outside that boundary that is left to the viewer to construct using their imagination. Looking at my image you attached above it is easy for the viewer to imagine they are standing on earth looking up at the tree, because prior experience tells the viewer that that is typically how an earth bound creature often (yearly) experiences such a scene. Positioning the trunk of the tree (actual lines) where I did (bottom left corner leading to a rule of thirds intersection point) allow me as artist to manipulate the viewer's eye to follow the trunk (lines) and get lost in the yellow field of colour, leaving and returning again and again via the branches, as you have noted with your drawn lines.

      In your night image of the scaffolding you have expertly done the same, whether or not you knew you were doing it. The most important lines in that image are the seam lines in the sidewalk. Everything else just accentuates those lines leading the eye off to the gateway, which happens (it was planned by your great photographic eye) to sit exactly at a rule of thirds grid intersection point. Simply, our head spends much more time looking down at where our feet can take us, as opposed to looking up or even straight ahead, precisely because walking is our standard mode of mobility.
      Thanks for the clarification. I generally try to leave the bottom edge unbroken by lines (but not always), and as uniform in color and texture as I can. As far as the scaffolding shot, I think I mentioned previously that I came around a corner, saw it, and knew there was a great image there somewhere. I almost cloned out the yellow texture in the lower left corner, but decided it provided interest and a bit of a visual anchor. Wanted the blue light against the orange, wanted the other end of the tunnel to have its lines square to the image frame. As I was standing there trying different compositions, left and right, back and forth, the square opening was always on the upper third line (more or less) making the sidewalk take up much of the image (bottom 2/3rds). The line of lights kept bothering me, didn't feel right. Then I sat down, inched backwards and there it was, the lights were now a prominent element. I knew I had to tone them down via HDR merge, so I setup the tripod and lowered it to the same height as I was sitting, and took several series of 3 frames which I later merged in Lightroom. It's in my top 10 favorite images I've made.

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      • Some more senior photos from Seaside, OR.


        1C2A9517-Edit.jpg


        1C2A9558-Edit.jpg

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        • Interesting processing. On the top image, why not darken that white rectangle near her right hand? On first glance, I thought it was a cigarette. The brightness of it drew my eye there.

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          • Originally posted by mtnbiker View Post
            Interesting processing. On the top image, why not darken that white rectangle near her right hand? On first glance, I thought it was a cigarette. The brightness of it drew my eye there.
            You are right, in other ones, I did take the time to do just that, in this one, I may just remove it completely. Thanks.

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            • Originally posted by mtnbiker View Post
              Interesting processing. On the top image, why not darken that white rectangle near her right hand? On first glance, I thought it was a cigarette. The brightness of it drew my eye there.
              What rectangle?


              1C2A9517-Edit.jpg
              , on Flickr

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              • Strong shots of your daughter Swamp, though I find the one with her arms crossed a little too dark. Also, I really like your black and white cathedral shot and how it tricks the eye in terms of depth perception.

                I was out with my son today, and the only shot I really liked is this one:

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                • Originally posted by tooblue View Post
                  Strong shots of your daughter Swamp, though I find the one with her arms crossed a little too dark. Also, I really like your black and white cathedral shot and how it tricks the eye in terms of depth perception.

                  I was out with my son today, and the only shot I really liked is this one:

                  Like that a lot, both the path and the line of brown trees leading to the yellow. is there anything in the sky worth recovering?

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                  • Originally posted by swampfrog View Post
                    Like that a lot, both the path and the line of brown trees leading to the yellow. is there anything in the sky worth recovering?
                    I tried, but it was such a solid grey sky with no cloud definition, and the shot was around 2:00 pm. We wanted to get out before the rain came, otherwise there might have been something I could do.

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                    • It's week 4 of the strike. So, when I am need of a break from writing I often go on a hike. I like this still shot I took with my drone today. It's not a high end drone, but not a low-end one either. It's shoots stills in RAW and video in 4k, it's just the lens is very small:

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                      • Happy Veterans Day. Haven't been out much for personal stuff. Been shooting events for a local online magazine. Mostly sports and theatre. Out to shoot local Veteran's day parade and shot these.











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                        • Quick question. How do you decide which photos to process and which to just discard. I'm having a hard time prioritizing, so I wind up ignoring.
                          “Every player dreams of being a Yankee, and if they don’t it’s because they never got the chance.” Aroldis Chapman

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                          • Originally posted by Copelius View Post
                            Quick question. How do you decide which photos to process and which to just discard. I'm having a hard time prioritizing, so I wind up ignoring.
                            The easy answer is I buy a bigger hard drive. I have over 3 terabytes of photos at this point. I keep intending to take the time to clean up the catalog, but so far it hasn't happened. I get better with each passing month, but I still keep too many.

                            Luckily, if I'm shooting in the same light or situation, the basic processing is quite simple for all of the pictures, I use Lightroom to process the first photo to where I have it balanced for color, sharpness, and lighting the way I want it, and then apply those edits to the entire batch with a few clicks of the mouse. I can then revisit each individually if the results weren't quite right for that specific image. I can run through several hundred sports images in an hour that way.

                            There's a process I go through when I'm culling a shoot for the "keepers", I run through the first pass and flag any blurry or obvious instant deletes (because I cut off an arm, wing, bird flew away, etc.), on the same pass I also mark those that are obviously better than average.

                            I then delete all of the ones flagged. I then visit each specific scene I photographed. For instance shooting I-5 bridge between Vancouver and Portland. I had several dozen tries at this. The ones that I ended up choosing had no blurry cars, no cars cut by the bottom edge, and the fewest cars cut by or touching the side edges. Also had some color with the two red vehicles that I liked. I will also compare for sharpness between shots and keep only the sharpest ones. It's rare that I will delete every shot of a scene, though it does happen when I am mostly looking at it and can't remember why I shot it in the first place.

                            With the I-5 image, there are two things I don't like, one which I should have fixed easily, and the second just a timing thing. The first is I should have moved a couple of feet to my left, and the other is the truck that intersects with the lamppost, if it was an important shot I wanted to print, I would take out that truck.

                            I takes time and reviewing lots of photographs before some things become obvious insta-deletes. While I don't agree with everything Mr. Rockwell has to say, there is something to his contention that if you are strolling along and something catches your eye, stop and figure out what it is that caught your eye, and then make sure that is prioritized. When deciding distance, aperture, exposure, etc.--you should be doing that knowing what it is that should be receiving the emphasis. Sometimes that something interesting is because of the setting it is in, sometimes not, so deciding how much of the surroundings to include varies.

                            I've also learned to simply stop shooting a lot of stuff because I'm already aware nothing very good is going to come of it. Like bright sun, my wife has to twist my are before I'll shoot the kids in that kind of light.

                            I'll stop rambling now, but some of it is also determined by the purpose of the photo, is it art, or just capturing something I want a permanent record of.

                            Comment


                            • Originally posted by swampfrog View Post
                              The easy answer is I buy a bigger hard drive. I have over 3 terabytes of photos at this point. I keep intending to take the time to clean up the catalog, but so far it hasn't happened. I get better with each passing month, but I still keep too many.

                              Luckily, if I'm shooting in the same light or situation, the basic processing is quite simple for all of the pictures, I use Lightroom to process the first photo to where I have it balanced for color, sharpness, and lighting the way I want it, and then apply those edits to the entire batch with a few clicks of the mouse. I can then revisit each individually if the results weren't quite right for that specific image. I can run through several hundred sports images in an hour that way.

                              There's a process I go through when I'm culling a shoot for the "keepers", I run through the first pass and flag any blurry or obvious instant deletes (because I cut off an arm, wing, bird flew away, etc.), on the same pass I also mark those that are obviously better than average.

                              I then delete all of the ones flagged. I then visit each specific scene I photographed. For instance shooting I-5 bridge between Vancouver and Portland. I had several dozen tries at this. The ones that I ended up choosing had no blurry cars, no cars cut by the bottom edge, and the fewest cars cut by or touching the side edges. Also had some color with the two red vehicles that I liked. I will also compare for sharpness between shots and keep only the sharpest ones. It's rare that I will delete every shot of a scene, though it does happen when I am mostly looking at it and can't remember why I shot it in the first place.

                              With the I-5 image, there are two things I don't like, one which I should have fixed easily, and the second just a timing thing. The first is I should have moved a couple of feet to my left, and the other is the truck that intersects with the lamppost, if it was an important shot I wanted to print, I would take out that truck.

                              I takes time and reviewing lots of photographs before some things become obvious insta-deletes. While I don't agree with everything Mr. Rockwell has to say, there is something to his contention that if you are strolling along and something catches your eye, stop and figure out what it is that caught your eye, and then make sure that is prioritized. When deciding distance, aperture, exposure, etc.--you should be doing that knowing what it is that should be receiving the emphasis. Sometimes that something interesting is because of the setting it is in, sometimes not, so deciding how much of the surroundings to include varies.

                              I've also learned to simply stop shooting a lot of stuff because I'm already aware nothing very good is going to come of it. Like bright sun, my wife has to twist my are before I'll shoot the kids in that kind of light.

                              I'll stop rambling now, but some of it is also determined by the purpose of the photo, is it art, or just capturing something I want a permanent record of.
                              Quite like the band photo. I need to get better at organizing and culling my photos—just not enough hours in a day.

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                              • Nice thoughts. Thanks.
                                “Every player dreams of being a Yankee, and if they don’t it’s because they never got the chance.” Aroldis Chapman

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