Forgotten Vehicle - Have I done it justice

[Soozie B]

Hi everyone.

I took this pic last week while on a break from the world. As I drove past it in a far back paddock of the property I was staying on it caught my eye and I had to stop and click.

It was taken on a canon EOS 550D and stats go as follows: ISO 100, f/6.3, 1/200, 109mm (as I have been taking pics since Jan this year and no technical knowledge behind me I dont quite understand all this yet).

I was aiming towards a nostalgic feel which is why I converted to mono. Perhaps I am biased but I can feel it! It is located in my album if you want a larger view of it

Any feedback would be appreciated. Perhaps someone could have a look at my album and tell me what my "style" could be described as well please

Many thanks

Soozie

[Donald]

Soozie - First thing is that we need to get you embedding your images into your messages and posting them at a size that people can see. This one is at something like 240 pixels on the long edge, which is far too small to see properly.

Have you read - HELP THREAD: How can I post images here?. That walks you through how to post images.

The site will resize images down to 700 pixels on the longest edge, but you can post them up at say, 1200. Then when they appear we can click on them and the come out at the larger size in a new window - the lightbox. That way, everyone can really see them at a good size.

If you have any questions after reading the above link, please shout out.

[Soozie B]

Ohh my goodness, see technical stuff I dont do so well with!

I tried to follow the instructions before and it wouldnt let me upload from a file (I presume it was too large). So I'll have a go at pasting in the flicker BB code


[IMG] Forgotten Vehicle by Soozie_Lou_B, on Flickr[/IMG]

Hopefully this works better

[Donald]

Bingo!

But you could get it even bigger. I see this is at 640 pixels along the top and bottom edge. Save one at 1200 and try it.

First reaction to the image?

Brilliantly conceived (like the stuff in your album). I think I'd want to crop it to lose that bit of tree trunk on the left hand side.

Don't know if you've come across the term 'Local Contrast Enhancement' If not, have a read of this CiC tutorial. It's a great method for getting more 'pop' into your images and works like a gem on B & Ws like this. Now, of course, at the end of the day it is all a matter of personal preference on the part of the photographer as to what vision he/she had for the final image and whether or not they apply LCE to one or another image. But it's a good tool to have in the toolkit.

Like I said in my reply to your introductory post in the 'New Member... ' thread, you may feel you have a lot to learn in terms of the technical stuff, but it's very obvious you have the ability to 'see' an image.

By the way, what post-processing software do you have? That will help probably help with some of the answers in the future.

[Soozie B]

Hi again,

I will read what you have linked me to as I haven't come across that particular term. As far as post processing software I have Corel Paintshop Pro 4 (although like everything else in this highly technical world I don't know how to use yet heheh). In saying that I do know how to crop and how to ask the software what settings it suggests I use (not that I always agree as it cant see the world as I do)

[Coinneachmhor]

Hi Soozie - I love this image and if this is you after 9 months then look out world!!! As a fellow newcomer to digital photography, I too am learning and would agree that cropping out the tree on the right would work well. Until very recently, I thought that cropping was for fixing mistakes but have learned very quickly that it can really enhance an image or even allow you to create several from the one image. It's a really clever technique to create a series of images. I hope you don't mind but I did a couple to show you what I mean. Donald will need to keep you right on resizing as I don't have that skill yet!!

Keep up the good work!

[Soozie B]

I hope you don't mind but I did a couple to show you what I mean. Donald will need to keep you right on resizing as I don't have that skill yet!!

Hello there Coinneachmhor,

Thanks so much for the feedback and the lovely encouraging words. As far as minding you did a couple of crops, I dont mind at all (In fact if I possessed jealousy as an emotion I might just be feeling it about now that I didnt think of doing that hehehe). I think what you have done is fabulous and an expansion of what I made. Did you just cut out the parts you like? and then is the process simply to resize?

My simple mind is telling me if you resize something that small then shouldnt the clarity get distorted?

[Coinneachmhor]

Hi Soozie,

My daughter recently graduated with a fine art degree and was encouraging me to review several of my images and pick the areas or elements within them and crop the photo so that I could work out what my "style" was. I found it fascinating and I simply use the cropping tool and save the smaller element as a version of the original so I can easily find them later. Apparently I like texture/contrast/atmosphere and the interaction between nature and man made objects which is why your image appeals so much.

As for resizing, when I do this I need to ensure the original has sufficient detail to allow me to increase the size of the crop and not distort the image. However, I usually leave them smaller than the original as I find it draws the viewer in and emphasised the fact that they are part of the larger original so helps pick out relevant details. I say that not having shown any of my own photos until last week but we are in the process of preparing for a Christmas craft fair and putting together some images for our family stall, some of which will be in this format.

Hope that helps.

[Soozie B]

Hi again Coinneachmhor,

You have been incredibly helpful and I cant thank you enough. I have learnt more tonight having one discussion that I have managed to glean in 9 months trying to make sense of it all by myself. As I said to Donald, I am very pleased I stumbled across this site.