Karma's 52. Updated with all!

karmagarda

karmagarda

Good between the sheets
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Ok, I need something to get me off my butt to take some proper photos... I'm new to this forum (and to photography) but I like the idea of the 52s and themes. I'm working on both learning my camera, learning photography, and learning post processing, so hopefully this will spur me on to improve my photos somewhat.

First photo coming up...
 
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I ended up taking 2 photos after thinking about this theme... it was quite a hard theme (despite the subject!) to get a really good photo of :eek:

Anyway, here's my slant on it... both are more like "taking it easy" as opposed to just easy.

#1


#2


All C&C very welcome :) and I've got thick skin so don't be afraid to get right into the nitty gritty ;)
 
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:wave: Hello from another late starter to the 52s.

The first photo is the best for me.
I think you've done well to get the focus and detail on the page of the book - I actually found myself reading it :D
The blurred background really sets it off nicely too.

The second one is good, but TBH it doesn't really draw me into the photo beyond the foreground.
(That could well be because I don't have the faintest idea about cricket, so I'm not really interested in seeing what's going on though :|)
 
Hello and welcome to the 52er's.

I prefer the subject of the first, the book in focus and the rest out of focus works really well, it shows to me, taking it easy within a relaxed context... It looks to me like it needs a whitebalance tweak though, the pages look a sort of orangey pinkish colour.
 
Thanks for the feedback! I think I agree with you both on the first photo being better. I wasn't sure about the second one myself either. If it was any sport but cricket maybe :D

Also, the reason the first one is that colour - I was trying warm it up. When it was whitebalanced it looked at bit cold and uninviting I suppose. But maybe I went a bit too far :D
 
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Hello karmagarda and welcome.

I really like the first shot and as someone else said I found myself reading the page and was pleased with the excellent focus. I agree with you about the warm colouring, I have sooo many books with cream pages, and trying to make them look white wouldn'y work!! well done! :clap:

The second shot is also a winner for me, the only thing I would have done differently is that I would have cropped more of the distance out. The two men are focusing on the players not the shops, so cropping just above their heads with only the bottom quarter of the windows showing makes the eye focus on what they are focussing on, if you see what I mean!!

anyhoo well done!! :clap::clap:
 
adrury said:
Hello karmagarda and welcome.

I really like the first shot and as someone else said I found myself reading the page and was pleased with the excellent focus. I agree with you about the warm colouring, I have sooo many books with cream pages, and trying to make them look white wouldn'y work!! well done! :clap:

The second shot is also a winner for me, the only thing I would have done differently is that I would have cropped more of the distance out. The two men are focusing on the players not the shops, so cropping just above their heads with only the bottom quarter of the windows showing makes the eye focus on what they are focussing on, if you see what I mean!!

anyhoo well done!! :clap::clap:
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Thanks! And I like that idea about the crop. Let me go play with that photo :)
 
#1 is great. I would have preferred the foot out of the shot (but I guess that the theme is Easy and the foot does illustrate the theme). Love the fact that you have the coffee in the shot to show a real nice and relaxed 'easy' theme.
PS Love your shot in the One Week, and Anything Goes….. Or Photography, My Art – Week 5 theme.
 
Kiwi Jaz said:
#1 is great. I would have preferred the foot out of the shot (but I guess that the theme is Easy and the foot does illustrate the theme). Love the fact that you have the coffee in the shot to show a real nice and relaxed 'easy' theme.
PS Love your shot in the One Week, and Anything Goes….. Or Photography, My Art – Week 5 theme.
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Thanks Kiwi. I was thinking about the feet too, and maybe I shouldn't have worn black socks! They are a little distracting now that I look at it.
 
Welcome aboard,

I like both, I think #1 is the stronger image with everything placed to perfection including the cup. #2 is still good and I like the way the two people are sitting in the shade of the tree, although the cricket element isn't strong enough for me though.
 
Welcome to the 52s I really like the pic of the 2 guys relaxing nicely exposed and the cricket just adds to it :D
 
Hi and welcome. :wave:

I found myself reading the book too. Could you just turn the page for me now, please. :D I like the depth of field and at least black socks show up in the background. I like the composition and it definiately fits the theme.

The second shot is interesting. At first I thought you could just have taken the two people in the foreground, but when I looked at it again, I thought the cricket match added context and interest. The fact that the players are around the 2 sets of wickets leads the eye through the various element. My only suggestion would be to have a little more of the shops in view because the cricketers are very close to the top of the frame. Another good take on the theme imho. :thumbs:

Jean
 
Well, I gues that just shows we all have different opinions!!!:lol:

I for one like it better with the crop, but am now not keen on the black border!!

You can please some of the people some of the time....
 
Hello and welcome to the 52ers :wave:

The first image for me is spot on. Good composition, great DoF and I too found myself trying to read the pages. Yes the pages look a litlte pinkish but that could easily be sorted, so well done :clap::clap:

Second one, there´s somthing about the composition that´s not quite right :thinking: I really like the way the posture of the guy on the left leads your eye into the frame but then it seems a bit cramped at the top. Could be you need to show a bit more of the buildings behind the cricketers or maybe a slightly shallower DoF so that you could still make out the game but lose some of the distraction of the buildings.

Anyhoo, I don´t know if any of that makes sense, and like everyone on here, it´s all just a matter of opinion, in this case, mine ;)
 
Thanks for the feedback on the last pictures. Really helps me think about my photography and how to take better photos. Very much appreciated :)

Now, here's a week I oddly struggled on... I most likely won't get another chance to upload so I'm just going to go with a nice colourful sunset instead. In the midst of all the rain yesterday, we had a fantastic evening in Putney and I managed to take advantage of quite a nice sunset.

 
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you have caught some lovely colours in the sky there. I would have been tempted to shoot portait lossing the trees to either side and focused more on the boats and the sky.
 
Well firstly I'm jealous that you even had the opportunity for a sunset this week - all we've had is rain :(

The sky looks beautiful. Lovely colours and cloud detail.
I'm really liking the silhouettes of the boats too.
Is there any chance that you could post it a bit larger though? (it's quite hard to make out the detail at that size)
 
Toothie said:
you have caught some lovely colours in the sky there. I would have been tempted to shoot portait lossing the trees to either side and focused more on the boats and the sky.
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Thanks! Never thought of a portrait version at the time. I won't lie to you, there were pints consumed on the night!

SarahLee said:
Well firstly I'm jealous that you even had the opportunity for a sunset this week - all we've had is rain :(

The sky looks beautiful. Lovely colours and cloud detail.
I'm really liking the silhouettes of the boats too.
Is there any chance that you could post it a bit larger though? (it's quite hard to make out the detail at that size)
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Thanks Sarah! There was quite a nice sunset alright. Wasn't expecting it after the day we had! Also, I've updated to a larger picture :)
 
Lovely... on theme and colourful... I think perhaps cropping in from the sides a little, reducing the black around the edge would help a lot.
 
First of all welcome to the 52s...:wave:

You will learn more from these 52s in a few weeks than any book your likely to read...;)

Easy...the shot with the book works very well for the subject and gives a nice relax feel. The cup of tea/coffee is a nice touch. I think may be both socks in the shot would have been better, and a white balance change to lighter up the pape a little.

The other shot is ok ish, do away with the heavy boarder and a wider shot and it would work much better. Oh and clone out the black part of the hat that sticks out, looks like he go a arrow coming out his head...:lol:

Colour now we are talking...works very well for me, just snip the two end a little and is a winner in my book...Oh and by the way max size on any side only 800pixels...think your over 1000 so it's not all on my sreen in one go...:rules:
 
jeangenie said:
Gorgeous colours in the sky - well done for catching the moment. I like the composition with the trees framing the sides, but I think you could have cropped in a little to reduce their impact.

Definitely fits the Colour theme. :thumbs:

Jean
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jgs001 said:
Lovely... on theme and colourful... I think perhaps cropping in from the sides a little, reducing the black around the edge would help a lot.
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Spartacus said:
First of all welcome to the 52s...:wave:

You will learn more from these 52s in a few weeks than any book your likely to read...;)

Easy...the shot with the book works very well for the subject and gives a nice relax feel. The cup of tea/coffee is a nice touch. I think may be both socks in the shot would have been better, and a white balance change to lighter up the pape a little.

The other shot is ok ish, do away with the heavy boarder and a wider shot and it would work much better. Oh and clone out the black part of the hat that sticks out, looks like he go a arrow coming out his head...:lol:

Colour now we are talking...works very well for me, just snip the two end a little and is a winner in my book...Oh and by the way max size on any side only 800pixels...think your over 1000 so it's not all on my sreen in one go...:rules:
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Thanks all for the feedback! I see what you mean about the cropping. Too much trees on the left and right that really aren't required. I can bring those way in and get a much better natural frame going on.

Spartacus - Funnily enough both socks are in the shot :D, but I can see what you're saying. 1 of my feet does kind of hide the other so it's a little off putting. Also, I think a lighter coloured sock would have worked better. Maybe red/brown... not sure... might revisit this one see if I can improve on it.

Also, in regards to max size, apologies about that! Flickr doesn't give me an 800 option, it's either 500 or around 1000 which is rather annoying.


I'm gonna redo the crop when I get home later see how it turns out...
 
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Your week1 shot is a cracker,really good. A superb first shot.

2nd is not quite as strong, good forground with the two guys but the rest just gets lost a little. Not sure how I would have went about trying to improve it so I'm not much help, sorry.

Your sunset is nice and I wish I could see a bigger view of it, that cant be a bad thing.

You've captured the colour well without letting it get wild, I have a tendency to overcook these and loose the natural colour trying to be striking. Well done.
 
Oh catch up time:)

Week one - love the first of those shots - I too though perhaps a tweak of wb might 'depink' the book - might also make the shot harsher though, less warm! Hmmm Juries out! But it fits the theme to a tee and is agreat idea well executed :)

The cricket shot - I love the idea but would like to have seen more space above the cricketers as it is it feels somehow claustrophobic :)

Colours is lovely but a slight crop to the right would help a little to lose that darkness

But what a lovely scene :thumbs:

Oh and welcome :)
 
Ok, I've done some cropping and have changed my flickr settings so that you can see larger images. I agree that a tighter crop on the sides works much better. I tried an even tighter crop, but I felt I was losing too much definition on the river and boat silhouettes so I think this works best.

Thanks again for the comments and advice all!
 
lovely sunset, well done :thumbs:
Jon
 
I wanted to do something different this week... and I find out today I'm pretty busy for most of it! So I'm gonna post this earlier than I wanted (was hoping to try more stuff). I may add to the weeks theme with more tries if I get time. It also give me the excuse to go buy some pie... obviously just for photographic purposes :nono:

Anyway, here's my photo:



Not as much PP on this as you might think. Rather than using black card or something to get the black background I instead took a long exposure using a mobile phone as my light source. I then did some white balancing levels to black out the bottom part and keep the mushroom as the focal point. There was some minor black fills around the mushroom where the light had created a shine on my work top, but rest was levels and curves.
 
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Ok, so to critique my own work, the main thing I would have done different is used a better Mushroom! But it's a bit late to go shopping :thinking: A whiter mushroom would have generated a better result I feel. Also, I need to get some black card or something so that I can do these shots better. My worktop (probably like most) generates a shine if you use any light source. Time to figure out these black background shots and lighting I think. I'm off to browse the forums for tutorials (or google if TP let's me down :D)
 
I would agree that a bigger better mushroom would help, i also thing the mushroom is just a little too dark and i would have liked to have seen it on a 3rd.

I do like the idea though :)
 
I love the idea behind this (and you know I have a soft spot for black backgrounds)

I think you've said it yourself though - the mushroom needs to be a bit bigger and a bit brighter to really make an impact.
It might have been interesting if you could have found a twisty bit of wood and had a couple of mushrooms arranged the other way up as if they were growing from it . . . but I'm probably wandering off theme here.

BTW did you find anything interesting on the net about creating black backgrounds?
I usually use 2 x A3 black cards, but if there are any tips on better ways to do it I'd be really interested to hear them.
 
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I like it, the mushroom just needs to be a little bigger and a little brighter.
 
I can see what you were trying to do, but as you said yourself it's not looking like you can do much with this shot now, so don't give up we are bound to have a reshoot come up again soon so then you could give it another go...:thumbs:
 
Thanks for all the comments all! I agree with all the feedback, it didn't work out exactly how I wanted. But I'm not letting this one go! I'm going to nail these black background shots regardless some day soon.

I didn't find any really good tutorials or tips out there beyond how to do it out doors. It mentioned a lot of stuff about colour zones and things like that which was quite interesting. Let me see if I can find the link....
 
I agree, better mushroom, a bit more harsher/brighter lighting and it woulda been a good shot, but as is, it doesn't do too much for me. Took me a while to figure out what it was, and you have to 'search' for it.

sorry, but just my personal take on it
 
SarahLee said:
I love the idea behind this (and you know I have a soft spot for black backgrounds)

I think you've said it yourself though - the mushroom needs to be a bit bigger and a bit brighter to really make an impact.
It might have been interesting if you could have found a twisty bit of wood and had a couple of mushrooms arranged the other way up as if they were growing from it . . . but I'm probably wandering off theme here.

BTW did you find anything interesting on the net about creating black backgrounds?
I usually use 2 x A3 black cards, but if there are any tips on better ways to do it I'd be really interested to hear them.
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I agree with that and I have a tip for black backgrounds - black sheet and/or black pillowcase draped over a frame of some sort. It's worked for me so far (just don't get satin :naughty:)
 
Bigger and brighter and you have an ace food shot - simple and wonderfully effective!

Your food shot is an inch away from being ace :) Great idea!
 
Bruja said:
I agree with that and I have a tip for black backgrounds - black sheet and/or black pillowcase draped over a frame of some sort. It's worked for me so far (just don't get satin :naughty:)
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Dark Star said:
Bigger and brighter and you have an ace food shot - simple and wonderfully effective!

Your food shot is an inch away from being ace :) Great idea!
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Thanks for the comments!

Yeah, defo gonna return to reshoot this after the feedback. Really appreciated the comments and tips so thanks all :)
 
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