KevD3x's 52 2010 - Week 2 Poetry

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rookie

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Ok, here we go. Joined TP recently and decided to take on the 52 week challenge to improve my “out of box” skills. Been out of togging for a good while and thought it would help me brush my skills up. Main work to date is weddings, photojournalism and sports.

My weakness is on the creative side, hence the above. The other area is PP, most of done so far is brightness/contrast/cropping that about it, so I’m hoping the challenge will improve both areas!!

Due to work and other things this is going to basically a “Sunday shot” - a least I’ll have the rest of the week to think about it and tie myself in knots!! Not sure the shot this week is to far from my normal stuff - “shoot what’s there”. I’ve lived about 100/200 yards from these old/scrape bull nose for about 20 years, on a nearby farm, and as it was getting close decided to have a walk round and took the shot of the engine, still in the truck, as a back up!!!

Did a little PP, cropped it a closer to engine parts, sharpened and lifted the contrast a little.

C&C welcomed !! (and I wish I’d made the rule about looking at other until I’d posted mine - but I didn’t even think of that myself!!)

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Hi Kevin.
Good to see you taking on a project to get you out of your comfort zone - and this challenge will certainly do that :thumbs:

Very good shot to start with. Lots of curves and nicely composed. I particularly like the contrast of the green ivy against the rusty engine.
I'm finding the splashes of light in the background just a little bit distracting though . . .I'd be tempted to have a go at cloning them out.
 
certainly curvy
nice contrast between the green and purple
well spotted

have to agree with Sarah about the bright spots though

nice start - hope to see more! :clap:
 
Thanks Sarah and mmcp42, and I would agree with you, I found that it draws the eye away quiet easily and its one of the areas I need to tackle, PP so think I do a bit of research and give it ago. And lesson learnt : if it looks wrong it is wrong and do something about if you can!! :bonk: Cheers
 
Hi Kevin and welcome,

Nice start and well spotted.
 
Maybe a tighter crop would work here? I like the contrasting colours in this and the way the ivy is just starting to claim it and hide it away. :thumbs:
 
Lovely colours and textures, with good curves to them. I have to agree about the bright spots in the background though. As for the rule about not looking, it's a very good one to follow... We discovered that about 2 weeks in last year...
 
I think I'm going to be the only one who'd like to see a tiny bit more space around it to give it a better context.
 
Ok week 2 Poetry! Decided to post before looking at what other people were doing. Thought literary about it and thought I'd see if I could do something local – in so doing found out that Lord Alfred Tennyson (Poet Laureate to Queen Victoria) was a Lincolnshire lad – next due to the weather decided it would be indoors – another test for me!! First 'studio' shot!!

Anyway came across a Poem by Tennyson called (sorry if anyone can make this a 'clicky' please do so thanks) http://tennysonpoetry.home.att.net/flower.htm
PHP: 
The Flower
- so my 52 Week 2 Poetry

Would welcome c&c - My owe points are; the flower is not right, should have been larger and would have been better facing the camera and maybe a bit lower, also tried to give it a little backlighting, which I've over done and needs toning down. There quite a bit of PP - for me, but don't want to say any more until get some feed back!!

 
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Lovely interpretation but I think the ivy detracts the eye from the flower, I would have preferred a more close up of the rose with a little bit of grrrrnery but then that is just my opinion.

Lovely piccy though well done:thumbs:
 
Nice interpretation. :clap:

For me, the light is a little bit too bright and harsh on the right hand side, if that was turned down a little bit, or diffused slightly then I think it would make all the difference.

In a way I agree with Briony - would be interesting to see an almost-macro of the rose - but I also think the setup you have done works :thumbs:
 
I would agree about the flower and the lighting, the flower is a bit 'lost' and certainly the back light needs reducing - I maybe should have said that I was trying to represent the three elements in the poem; seed, flower and weed
 
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I like the isolated and basicness of Week 2 just feel the Ivy in the left of the image is slightly too dark and doesn't contrast as well as the rest of the image.
 
Just a suggestion... but as the images we post here are supposed to represent our photography, save your jpegs on the highest possible setting. There's some 'orrible artifacts in the second image.
 
68lbs said:
Just a suggestion... but as the images we post here are supposed to represent our photography, save your jpegs on the highest possible setting. There's some 'orrible artifacts in the second image.
Click to expand...

Thanks 68ibs, wonder if I could trouble you for a bit of advice on both areas, I have to admit to have taken the 'easy route' and just down loaded the jpeg image and worked on that - and simply resized it in the one of the free downloads I've got - the other confussion is that one of my objectives I set my self was to take on some PP, so be grateful for any more details of the 'orrible artifacts' - I was not to impressed with some of my results with aspects of the tools I used?
 
A good start to the project :) I like the first picture, I like pictures of old bits and pieces and there are plenty of curves in there to fit the theme. I also like the second picture :thumbs:
 
Do I spot another theme running in here? Ivy....

Like the 2nd shot but think I would prefer to see the rose isolated a bit more, too much else going on for me but good start.
 
Week 1: Your image of some old metal pieces amonst the ivy could do with a bit of a lift with some better lighting, the flat lighting has not really helped accentuate the detail or the graphic shapes..
 
Great interpretation, I like the image. Regarding the flower size it depends what you are after. I think the composition works as a whole, but if you wanted just the flower zoom right in on the top 1/4 of the image and take that instead. It's an entirely different concept, it would work, and it could complement this image.
 
Kevin, I like the Poem shot, the Rose is good, although a little bright on the petals... the flow from the Ivy up to the Rose itself is very good, but I feel there's a little too much of the Ivy there.
 
KevD3x said:
Ok week 2 Poetry! Decided to post before looking at what other people were doing. Thought literary about it and thought I'd see if I could do something local – in so doing found out that Lord Alfred Tennyson (Poet Laureate to Queen Victoria) was a Lincolnshire lad – next due to the weather decided it would be indoors – another test for me!! First 'studio' shot!!
Click to expand...

Good to see that the 52 is working then!
Here's a clicky linky to the poem for you too. If you quote this reply you'll see how I did it : The Flower

Compositionally I think this is actually very strong. I may be in a minority, but I love the use of the ivy cascading over the side of the vase. I think it gives a bit more structure and shape to the whole thing. I think that the Rose could maybe have done with a bit of a rotation so that it's facing front, but other than that the way you've set it up is actually very appealing to me - and of course fits with the 3 parts of the poem.

The lighting is what's not quite working though IMO. Overall it looks very dark, particularly the ivy and the leaves on the rose. Instead of backlighting I think you would have benefited from a bit more light to the sides and the front or a longer exposure time. As you've already pointed out the backlighting has also over-brightened the rose and you've lost quite a bit of definition and colour from the flower head.

KevD3x said:
the other confussion is that one of my objectives I set my self was to take on some PP, so be grateful for any more details of the 'orrible artifacts'
Click to expand...

These are most visible on the black background, particularly around the edges of the flower head and leaves. If you look closely, you'll see areas that look pixelated.

As Lee said, if you save your jpeg file at the highest quality setting once you've finished your PP, you're less likely to get them. (Not sure what software you're using, but in Photoshop, when you save a jpeg you get an option to choose the quality level)
If they're still visible, the advantage with a black background is that they can be easily removed with some selective burning or by hand painting over the affected areas with black.
 
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