National Gallery of Canada - Shadows

[Manfred M]

The long hallway between the street level entrance and the area where the display galleries are located are connected by a long ramp with windows on one side. On sunny days the shadows on the floor and wall nicely complement the building architecture.

The second image is one of the windows seen on the left. It is laminated safety glass and was cracked and broken, with interesting lighting and shadows filtered by the granules of broken glass.

1. Sloped Walkway





2. Broken window

[FootLoose]

I like the first shot. There are so many horizontal lines receding into the vanishing point that it seems like the Enterprise accelerating at warp speed. (This one will probably make Brian dizzy ) Well composed and executed Manfred.

[george013]

The long hallway between the street level entrance and the area where the display galleries are located are connected by a long ramp with windows on one side. On sunny days the shadows on the floor and wall nicely complement the building architecture.

The second image is one of the windows seen on the left. It is laminated safety glass and was cracked and broken, with interesting lighting and shadows filtered by the granules of broken glass.

1. Sloped Walkway




2. Broken window

Renovation? The first one.
A lot of vertical lines but slightly hanging to the left. Shouldn't be in a picture like this.
I wonder how it would look a bit harder, more contrast.

George

[Manfred M]

Renovation? The first one.
A lot of vertical lines but slightly hanging to the left. Shouldn't be in a picture like this.
I wonder how it would look a bit harder, more contrast.

George

Yes, there is construction; there is protective plywood all the way up on the right hand side. The building is 30 years old and all of the windows are being replaced.


The verticals are vertical (camera was quite level for the shot and I always drop guidelines to to check and correct. The plywood on the right hand side is not perfectly vertical or in fact straight as this is a temporary plywood cladding to protect the walls from damage while the work is being done.

[george013]

Yes, there is construction; there is protective plywood all the way up on the right hand side. The building is 30 years old and all of the windows are being replaced.


The verticals are vertical (camera was quite level for the shot and I always drop guidelines to to check and correct. The plywood on the right hand side is not perfectly vertical or in fact straight as this is a temporary plywood cladding to protect the walls from damage while the work is being done.

Look carefully. It's hanging a little to the left. Not much but once you see it, it's there.

George

[Manfred M]

Look carefully. It's hanging a little to the left. Not much but once you see it, it's there.

George

Thanks George - I went back and you are right, the verticals are off a tiny bit. What's more, the wall does not seem to be straight and shows a bow. I suspect the problem is uncorrected lens distortion, as when I correct,there is a bow in the middle of the wall. I'm probably going to have to either manually correct this or go to DxO PhotoLab and do the raw conversion there. Historically, their lens corrections have been better that Adobe's.

[Donald]

Thanks George - I went back and you are right, the verticals are off a tiny bit.

Does it matter? Can we not enjoy the image for what it is? Why does it need to be technically correct? Why don't we appreciate it as an image that tells us about a wonderful building and speaks to us of light and shade, of shapes and of depth.

[george013]

Does it matter? Can we not enjoy the image for what it is? Why does it need to be technically correct? Why don't we appreciate it as an image that tells us about a wonderful building and speaks to us of light and shade, of shapes and of depth.

The essence of this kind of pictures is the game with the lines. There's not much wonderful building to see. It's also where one focuses on, I mean the observer. Many times I wonder why people are debating of cloning away some leave, halo's I don't see, etc.

George

[Round Tuit]

Does it matter?

To me yes, a tilt in a building introduce tension in the image. To you no. There is no right answer.

Why does it need to be technically correct?

It does not need to be technically correct it simply appeals more to some of us when it is. Does it speak to you less of light and shapes and shade and depth when it is technically correct? I would think not. I cannot think of any of Ansel Adams' pictures not being technically correct yet most were artistic masterpieces. The same can be said of Yosef Karsh's portraits. If a photographer intentionally tilts his photo for artistic effect the photo is technically correct but if the tilt was accidental, what is wrong with fixing it?

André

[Manfred M]

It took DxO PhotoLab's more sophisticated lens correction algorithms to get the verticals looking straight in this shot. I suppose I could have tried to manually adjust them in Photoshop, but if the distortion in non-linear, it will add problems elsewhere.







The question of technical "correctness" is always an interesting one to discuss. Photographers tend to try to create an image that is "good enough" in their eyes because that is how we gauge our output. This is the type of shot I would normally take using a tripod that has been leveled. Unfortunately, museums and especially art galleries do not permit this type of equipment, so squaring up the shot by hand was as good as it gets in one of these situations. I have a technique that works reasonably well, but not perfectly. Add to that any issues with lens distortion, especially around the periphery of the lens, and other complications set in. The editing tools have limitations as well. In Photoshop, rotations are dictated by rotating a full-size image, rather than being able to key in on a specific area of the image, so the tool I use has limitations.

The other question is the aesthetics. I personally thought that the image I posted worked, otherwise I would not have done so. Some of us are more visually sensitized to things we look at than others. Dave Humphries, for instance will spot Chromatic Aberration in an image at posted size, whereas I need to get to 100% before I pick it up, while others need even greater magnification to make it out. I tend to not like perspective distortion in my shots (depending on the image, of course), but others tend not to notice. As Andre and George correctly point out, there is no right answer and it really depends on the viewer.