Girl vs. Wine

[Karm Redland]

I really like this picture of Erin (obviously, the girl) but I am a bit bothered by the distortions in the rest of the image. All comments appreciated and welcomed.


Girl vs. wine by Karm Redland, on Flickr

Karm

[Shadowman]

It's always the lens. What were you shooting with?

[FrankMi]

Hi Karm, if by distortions you are referring to the cabinet and door not being vertical, that is caused by not having the camera level. In this case the camera is pointed down from level causing vertical lines to be further apart at the top of the image. If the camera was pointed up from level, the vertical lines would be further apart at the bottom of the image.

You can correct this by adjusting the image skew in post processing. This can also occur when pointing the camera left or right of the center of the image. You can see the effect of the left/right alignment and how to correct for it in this post Project 52 by Frank Miller. The process is the same for correcting up or down alignment.

Hope this helps!

[Karm Redland]

Frank, good info. I'll try your suggestion. I didn't try it earlier because I assumed it would end up distorting Erin. If it works I'll repost the image.

Karm

[FrankMi]

Frank, good info. I'll try your suggestion. I didn't try it earlier because I assumed it would end up distorting Erin. If it works I'll repost the image.

Karm

To get Erin where she is most effective in the image, you may need to drop the camera down a bit in order to get it level. Some cameras and some tripods have levels attached for this purpose. Before I learned how to do the de-skew in post processing I used the Green Cube http://www.gadgetvenue.com/camera-cu...evel-08131325/ for this purpose and I still use it on occasion.

[Karm Redland]

John, read Frank's post. I use a Leica point-and-shoot camera, model D-Lux 5. It has a decent quality lens. I think Frank did a nice job explaining the photo's distortion.

Karm

[Shadowman]

John, read Frank's post. I use a Leica point-and-shoot camera, model D-Lux 5. It has a decent quality lens. I think Frank did a nice job explaining the photo's distortion.

Karm

Karm,

Not a problem, just looked like wide angle distortion. Just how elevated are you over your model?

[Karm Redland]

John, Erin is just about 5 feet tall. I'm about 5'10. I don't remember, but she might have also been sitting down.

Karm

[gcowan]

Hi Karm,

You could try cropping the door out of the picture so that you have a square with Erin to the right side. The out of vertical left- hand side is not so intrusive and it preserves the point of view.
If you straighten the verticals I think you will distort your subject. I am short so when I photograph people I often have outward sloping verticals, so when I am photographing people I just try to exploit the different viewpoint.
She looks to be putting up a good struggle.

Graham

[Karm Redland]

Thanks Graham. Yeah, you are right. It's the distortion on the right side that is distracting to me. I try your suggestion.

Karm

[stevewe88]

It's a great expression and showing the slight movement in her hand is really good. Taking all of the dislike of the background into account, have you considered (depending on your PP skills), removing her from the background completely so that the focus is purely on Erin and her "struggle" rather than the background elements competing for attention?

[oldgreygary]

Hello Karm,

I agree with what Steve about the background which takes away from the focus on the subject(Erin). I downloaded the image and cropped the image to show just Erin. A couple of things that stood out to me. One was the calendar/picture on the top of her head. The other was that her arms are forming a sort of frame which directed my eye away from her and to the object in the background. Maybe, next time you could use an aperture to create a shallow depth of field. This would then fully focus on Erin as the subject.
Or as Steve suggests doing some PP work to place her with a different background.

Cheers for now

Gary

[stevewe88]

This is very crudely done but just to give you an idea of what I was suggesting. if you object to me editing your image please let me know and I will take it down.

[Karm Redland]

Steve and Gary, I agree with everything you guys are saying. I like the image of Erin but dislike everything else in the photo. This was not a posed image. I use a point-and-shoot camera that I keep on my person 24/7. When Erin pulled out our next bottle of wine I immediately took a picture of her opening it. I saved and processed the picture because the expression in her mouth perfectly captured the act of someone struggling to open a bottle of wine. I also like her hand movement. I agree with the aperture comment. My camera was in program mode and selected the aperture and shutter speed. No, I don't mind you guys or anyone else demonstrating to me alternative ways of presenting one of my images.

Karm