Blacksmith

[mwilson263]

Beautiful picture - love the colors in the original, but do like the crop that Darrel did. The only distraction for me isn't the pencil or its color (to me it adds to the "hard-working man" vision), but the green tag on the overalls distracts me a bit (I'm sure that's just me).

The "story" of this image goes beyond the frame for me. I find myself wondering what his hands look like. Are they rugged, wrinkled, and calloused as I would envision them to match the rugged & worn look of his face? I'm also drawn to the look of contemplation on his face. What's he thinking about? He looks like he would have a million life experiences to share.

Again, great capture.

 

[birdbonkers84]

Lovely portrait JC,

I actually prefer the original, his skin tone looks fine to me on my calibrated monitor at work, my brother is generally red faced (due to a narrowing of his aorta) so I personally just assumed that is the gentleman's skin tone. He has that hard working liked a gin or two type of face and nose. I would love to see this in B&W.

If I was to be really picky it would be to remove that stick sticking out the left side of his hat if I was to do any editing on it.

 

[jcdeboever]

Loved the SOOC and all the re-imaginations of it since!

Not posting this as a proposed 'improvement'- just my take. Selected only the clothing and de-saturated a bit (his kerchief was so vibrant that it could potentially distract)- then desaturated the whole image a small bit. This one also makes a glorious B/W as well BTW.

Such a classic shot! Thanks so much for sharing. Really inspiring.
View attachment 145213

Here is the black & white version. Converted to custom Acros simulation in camera. I only burned the pencil, no crop.