Baking chapatis

[Manfred M]

This is an image I'm playing around with some different techniques with to see how they work. I took the image a couple of years ago in the village of Nandgaon, in Northern India. We were invited into the courtyard of the house to photograph there. The woman was making chaptis for the next meal using traditional tools and cooking methods.

[mugge]

I love the composition. I would not open the shadows around her eyes because the light on the nose and cheeks is sufficient for the face. Perhaps increase the saturation of the red and yellow colours a tad.
Cheers Ole

[Shadowman]

Nicely captured.

[Manfred M]

I love the composition. I would not open the shadows around her eyes because the light on the nose and cheeks is sufficient for the face. Perhaps increase the saturation of the red and yellow colours a tad.
Cheers Ole

Let me post the SOOC image for comparison...




The main reason for a lot of the retouching I do is to eliminate and reduce distracting elements. In portraiture the face is generally the most important element and this is effectively an environmental portrait, so balance in the face is critical. Having dark shadows around the eyes will draw too much attention to that area of the face (in a negative way).

In general, I do not add saturation in images, although it can occur optically by other changes to the images, especially when they are done in an RGB colour space.

I just noticed a couple of minor distractions that I missed and will be going back to repair those.


If you open up one of the images in Lightbox and you can flip back and forth between them to see the effect of the changes.

[rpcrowe]

Very nice image on all counts... I like the way you cropped the sides to eliminate some unnecessary and distracting details...

[Rufus]

I really enjoy seeing and comparing "before" and "after" images as they demonstrate just how effective good processing can be and provide an insight into which changes enhance different areas of the image.

[ST1]

An excellent way to demonstrate how conservative post processing can enhance the original image. Well taken and processed Manfred.


Sent from somewhere in Gods County using Tapatalk

[Jim A]

Very nicely composed, Manfred, I like very much the story this tells and the moment you chose to shoot. She seems very at ease with your presence. Also, an interesting thread, with a few different points of view, all with merit.

[Antonio Correia]

I do not know how long you had to take photographs of this woman cooking but perhaps you could have taken a larger field avoiding to cut the basin and other elements on the bottom of the picture.
I know that it happens sometimes.
And perhaps the focal lens used is a bit too wide resulting in some distortions...
The colours are excellent as it happens so often in this part of India. The post processing is fine !
Thank you for posting this image Manfred !

[Manfred M]

I do not know how long you had to take photographs of this woman cooking but perhaps you could have taken a larger field avoiding to cut the basin and other elements on the bottom of the picture.
I know that it happens sometimes.
And perhaps the focal lens used is a bit too wide resulting in some distortions...
The colours are excellent as it happens so often in this part of India. The post processing is fine !
Thank you for posting this image Manfred !

Thanks Antonio - the tough part of taking the shot is that I was with my back to a wall and I could not get any further back. I was concerned with the angle of view (31mm on a full frame camera); that is as wide as I could go to get all of the main content into the shot and even there, I got some edge distortion.

In terms of getting the rest of the cooking equipment in again that was a deliberate choice at the time where I tried to ensure I had enough head room. Getting everything in would have been difficult.

[Antonio Correia]

Thank you Manfred for replying.
I do understand the circumstances, the limitations of the place it does happen.