Chicarcoal

[joethedestroyer]

Chicarcoal

My very amateur site of Chicago scenes, post-processed to look as though they were charcoal sketched. I've sold a few to friends and family for cheap... basically just to cover the cost of acquiring the print. I've always been a bit of a photography/photoshop nerd, and I'm actually trying to break into the hobby aspect of it now as soon as I can acquire a "real" dSLR camera. C&C welcome.

 

[NateWagner]

well, I'm not really sure what exactly you want C&C on.

First of all, I do like the idea of the photos... shots around chicago. I got a bit of a sense what it would be like being there.

However, As I was looking through the photo-sketches the main thing I was noticing was that many of the shots didn't really fit the processing. I mean, that processing can work and be nice on occasion, however one needs to be really careful with it.

The problem is that if these shots were sketches there would be much less information in each sketch, and things that wouldn't need to be there probably wouldn't be. For example, in one of the clock ones there is a big light pole jutting into the photo. That doesn't fit with the shot.

In my opinion in order to make these work you would have to do two things. First, you need to really work on your composition, make sure you have what you want in the photo in the photo, make sure the shot is from a good angle, try to get the whole building into shots (even if you have to hold the camera in portrait position), and work on simplicity of the photo.

Second you should work on your PS skills. eliminate things that don't need to be there that you can crop out. Also, try to keep partial heads of people out of the photo.

Again, I think it's an interesting idea... a little too much charcoal for my tastes, but that's just my opinion. The big thing is that you need to make sure you aren't using the charcoal to cover up random shots. Put thought and effort into your photos composition and use the charcoal to add something to it.

This is just my .02 your mileage may vary