A Man working in afield of flowers

[Catalina]

[shreds]

So Catalina, you are very good at getting people to pose for you!!

A couple of things to start off with:

1. the horizon bisects his head, which I find distracting. Whilst you probably don't carry a set of step ladders around with you (although I always have some in the car!), just imagine how different this shot might have been if you were higher up, so that the character had a background of flowers? Would resolve the issue and give weight to your title.

2. He has a peaked cap and hood probably due to the weather. Unfortunately the difficult contrasts have lead to his hood being 'blown out' and lost colour and detail. Peaked caps and hoods are always a problem as they cast a shadow over the face, which when trying to balance the darkness of this area with the lightness of the hood creates a range too wide for the camera to cope with.

I would have asked if I could put a white newspaper or cloth in his tub, that would have sent a light reflection into his face area and that would have then allowed a more even range for your meter to cope with. Don't imagine that Pro's don't do these tricks, they use reflectors all the time, its just that you don't see them, or the person holding a proper reflector that gets the lighting 'right' for you. The option here would be a reflector just out of shot to your left which would also help.

Apart from that, a nice interesting shot that shows imagination…how many photographers would have just plumped for an open flower and shot that…..? Much prefer this idea.

[Digital]

This was shot in a portrait mode, why am I seeing it as a landscape?


Bruce

[rpcrowe]

Very nice portrait (although I am viewing it in the landscape mode). When I shoot outdoor portraits of people, I like to use fill flash. This often illuminates the shadows and reduces the dynamic range of the image so that both the subject and the background are equally well exposed...

..

[shreds]

This was shot in a portrait mode, why am I seeing it as a landscape?


Bruce

Maybe Tinypic or whatever the uploader is flipping it?

[Catalina]

you cannot get everything within a frame. But I liked the idea of showing this man working on the mountains of Colombia (to have them as horizon). But I could ask him to come to me a step or two and we would had seen more flowers.He was standing at the top of the hill

Dear Richard: Let me learn first photography with natural day light. I cannot afford flashes, reflectors and for sure he wouldn't pose for me with such "parafrenalia". For this year I will try the natural light do the best for me

The hood was a problem, sure, It cast a shadow in his forehead and much of his eyes.

But the smile is natural. I caught him in the midle of his work.

A flower in his hand would had been a great idea.

And asking him to remove or move the hood so no shadows over his face.


Thanks a lot for the input. The advise to use an aperture 3.5 is great. But I am sure in this case I wanted to show the flowers...or is it too much for a picture.

At least, think for me as a photography lover armed with a simplest nikon camera hunting for that Golden Hour of afternoon that you tought me to look for.

All of you are very nice with me and I appreciate a lot every teaching.

Thanks for being this way,

Cordially,

Catalina

[Shadowman]

Rotated.

[shreds]

Thanks John, I can put the MBP back on the desk now, rather than it being on end.

[Shadowman]

Thanks John, I can put the MBP back on the desk now, rather than it being on end.

I've been rotating my head 90 degrees.

[Manfred M]

Catalina - reflectors can be free or almost free. Any large, stiff white piece of any material will work. I use the back side of a CorPlast project board that my daughter used for a high school project a lot of the time. That being said, you do need an "assistant" to hold it and point it in the right direction for you. Even commercial reflectors can be purchased for relatively low cost.

[Catalina]

Pardon my ignorance but what is a dinamic range?

[Manfred M]

Dynamic range is a way of describing the complete tonal range in a scene, from the darkest shadows to the brightest areas. Human vision is generally being described as being able to distinguish around 20 f-stops, whereas the best modern camera sensors can pick up around 14-stops. Anything darks that are lower that the darkest shadows will be recorded as black; anything brighter than the brightest shades will be recorded as white.

Generally we can live with a bit of loss of shadow details, but with the exception of specular highlights (reflected light; for instance some white spots on waves in the water), this generally does not look good and photographers try to avoid them.