Indian Railways employee - a portrait?

[Manfred M]

I decided to try something a bit unusual with this image. The shot itself is of a shunting engine that is pulling the train we were about to get on to into the New Delhi railway station. What caught my eye was the conductor(?) sitting in an open doorway on the camera left side of the train. The light entering the cabin framed him quite nicely, so I fired off a sequence of shots as the train rolled by me, trying to get an interesting framing

The shot itself was taken around 16:00, so the light was low and getting quite interesting. I used DxO Filmpack 5 in processing the image to give the shot a bit of red overtones. I have tried to use the engine itself to frame the shot and then used the open door to frame the man.

But does it work??

[Marie Hass]

It works, it works, it works!!!!!

A frame within the frame.

Really awesome.

'Rie

[Polar01]

Yes it works great.

Cheers: Allan

[Shadowman]

I think it works, a portrait of a man with his equipment, the lighting on the man prevents him from being overshadowed by the enormity of the engine.

[Donald]

A wonderfully composed image with superb lighting. If you asked someone to give you a picture that said 'India', this would be on the shortlist.

[bnnrcn]

I like the framing idea very much, very nice image

[wmoore]

I also like the framing, but the glow on his forehead bothers me a little bit. (Just a bit)

[Manfred M]

I also like the framing, but the glow on his forehead bothers me a little bit. (Just a bit)

Thanks for the thought Warrick - I initially did that in one of my drafts, but found it did not work as well as with the shine. Somehow the brightness draws the viewers eyes to the figure in the train more so than when it has been reduced. Here is a version with the shine having been reduced.



The image just does not have the same power to draw in the viewer's eyes.

[truonda]

Nice shot, Manfred. The only thing that is really bugging me is how bright your main subject seems in comparison to the man on the other side of the train; seems kind of unnatural.

[Manfred M]

Nice shot, Manfred. The only thing that is really bugging me is how bright your main subject seems in comparison to the man on the other side of the train; seems kind of unnatural.

Actually no, the light was coming in from camera left and the driver (camera right) was in shadow. What you see is exactly how the lighting fell on the train. This is the SOOC image (jpeg), so you can see the relatively minimal work done to both the train and man in the final image. Mostly a crop and reduction of the highlight areas. The shot was taken just before the engine entered the station overhang.





This is the next image in the sequence. You can see how far back the man is setting back from the nose of the engine. The engine is in full shade (under the station overhang) so the whole area is dark in this image.

[truonda]

Very interesting. Thanks for the explanation!

[John 2]

That's a nice capture Manfred but I prefer the shine reduced version. It still achieves your objective of drawing attention to the figure without dominating.

[Stagecoach]

I like it very much and it certainly portrays man and his train. I can't decide if a slight ACW rotation correction would help or not but the track was likely unlevel

[IzzieK]

I like the edited version but then the light at the bottom of the train is distracting. In the original post, at least they are the same in intensity, which should then be lessened -- the light of the train or the man's shine on his face to draw attention to only one? I like the concept of frame within the frame and it works here...

[Manfred M]

I like it very much and it certainly portrays man and his train. I can't decide if a slight ACW rotation correction would help or not but the track was likely unlevel

Thanks Grahame - I had actually straightend out the image in post; the original is a handheld shot, so the alignment with the horizontal was not perfect. As well, there is always perspective; my shot was taken at a slight angle, both horizontally; I was near the edge of the platform, not standing in the centre of the track. The same issue vertically, I was not shooting from the centre line of the train, so was shooting slightly up.

I did drop a horizontal guideline to ensure my rotation was correct, but would have to use the perspective warp tool to get all the lines horizontal and vertical, which introduces a whole batch of other visual issues. I tried to make sure the top of the engine was parallel to the upper edge of the image, as this was the most noticable place where the skewing showed up and left the other areas alone. I have a sneaking suspicion that certain parts of the train (railing) might be a bit skewed in real life, not just in the image (or that the correction algorithms in my camera are off a bit; mFT has automatic in-camera lens correction that cannot be disabled and it does affect the RAW files).




I normally plaster my images with guidelines to ensure my straightening is good, and the horizontal lines at the tops and bottoms are pretty good, but the middle is off by a degree or so. This makes me suspect the camera; another strike against mFT (although I have read that Sony does this across all their cameras as well).



I could probably do a bit more tweaking, but suspect that it might not be worth the effort.

[Manfred M]

I like the edited version but then the light at the bottom of the train is distracting. In the original post, at least they are the same in intensity, which should then be lessened -- the light of the train or the man's shine on his face to draw attention to only one? I like the concept of frame within the frame and it works here...

Interesting. I suspect that this might be an optical illusion, as the only change between the two versions (I think) was my adding an extra blank layer and cloning out the shine on the man's face (a highly localized area of work). I wonder if the slight decrease in brightness in one area draws the eyes attention to another.

[rpcrowe]

Great capture and I like the PP....

[ragman]

It's hot in India, expect a forehead to shine. The shot puts you there. Love it like it is.

[Jameshsuen]

I am a new member to this forum. I am amazed at the wealth of information that is available here.
Manfred, thank you for posting the original image that gives all of us to see the post processing that can be done to transform the image to a stunning,well composed, dynamic image with tremendous impact. Your post is much appreciated.
James H