Jay

[Manfred M]

I spent another four hours at the machine shop photographing people at work.

This is Jay who is machining a bright orange sheet of acrylic resin.






It's still not quite done, but I like the PoV.

[Tom Barry]

I really like this one.

[rpcrowe]

I like this the best of your series.

[Round Tuit]

I agree with the others that this one is very effective. You have achieved a good balance between your subject, the milling machine that he is using and the background. The position of Jay's left hand is very unusual and thus intriguing.
I am puzzled by what appears to be a weird artifact at the right end(camera left) of the milling machine. I am not sure if it is an artifact or part of the machine.

[Manfred M]

It's a compressed air gun used to clear chips (blow) off the machine and work piece. In real life it is bright red, so I toned it down a bit so that it is not super distracting.

This is a standard tool that is found at every machine in most machine shops or repair shops I've been in. There is one in many of the shots I took here.

[DanK]

I too think this is a good one. In this case, even though the machine is in front of him, he's connected to it. It's not an obstacle in front of him. You seem to have caught him engaged with the machine.

My one suggestion is to burn the front end of the machine and possibly dodge the shadowed part of the face a bit. I get luminosity readings in parts of the blurred front of the machine as high as 89, and much of it is brighter than the bright part of the face. I'd tone it down to be on average slightly darker than the face.

[Round Tuit]

It's a compressed air gun used to clear chips (blow) off the machine and work piece. In real life it is bright red, so I toned it down a bit so that it is not super distracting.

This is a standard tool that is found at every machine in most machine shops or repair shops I've been in. There is one in many of the shots I took here.

Sorry I was not clear. I was talking about the semi transparent strip apparently resting on the blue end of the milling machine.

[Manfred M]

Sorry I was not clear. I was talking about the semi transparent strip apparently resting on the blue end of the milling machine.

Let me give you another view of the equipment that has not been retouched (to reduce the general "business" of the image).

I suspect what you are seeing is the reflection of that blue container off the crank assembly that is used to manually turn the feed screw on the machine. I can't be certain, but I suspect that the pot holds lubricating grease. One can see the handle of the brush sticking out of the pot that is sitting on the machinist's tool bench. You can see the blue reflection on the crank in this shot. In the the image the machine had not started making the cut and is even further to the camera left side. I burned down that area, so the blue appears to be darker:

[Round Tuit]

Let me give you another view of the equipment that has not been retouched (to reduce the general "business" of the image).

I suspect what you are seeing is the reflection of that blue container off the crank assembly that is used to manually turn the feed screw on the machine. I can't be certain, but I suspect that the pot holds lubricating grease. One can see the handle of the brush sticking out of the pot that is sitting on the machinist's tool bench. You can see the blue reflection on the crank in this shot. In the the image the machine had not started making the cut and is even further to the camera left side. I burned down that area, so the blue appears to be darker:

The artifact is not showing in this view. I circled it on this screen capture:

[DanK]

That's weird. The blur has a clear edge on the right, and it seems to have an edge along the left side going down the red housing. I can't figure out what this is. however, it has a noticeable halo on both edges, extending out from the edge on the top and inward along the edge on the left. Perhaps that's a clue.

[Manfred M]

André and Dan - It's just that large piece of steel that connects the hand crank to the milling machine's table.

Close up and circled here:





The way the machine tool manufacturer built it (a Taiwanese manufacturer, Lilian), the positioning of my studio light / softbox and my camera angle, being a soft (focus) and a bit of poor blending of where I burned in that part all seem to contribute to the look of a piece of plastic film.

Here is the unretouched area we are looking at:





What I usually post here are my 80% complete images and once I have received feedback, I will go back and do all the finishing on the image. That is what I have done here.