Nabuta Festival Japan, C+C Please

[Neil S.]

I shot this at the 06' Nabuta festival in Aomori Japan.

It’s pretty much Japan's biggest festival every year. They roll these things down the street, and dance+play music. Large quantities of alcohol are usually involved as well lol.

These are made from paper, and are lit from the inside. Easily one of the coolest things I have ever had the pleasure of photographing.

I feel this was my best and most interesting shot of the night.

I welcome any advice on what I could have done different when shooting or editing this.

EOS 30D/EF-S 17-85mm f/4-5.6
35mm
f/5
1/50th sec
Iso-200
Handheld

I did not use a tripod because it was very crowded there that night.

I stepped out into the street (into the path of this thing) for just a few seconds to clear my foreground of people and get the shot.

 

[Robin Usagani]

What is the purpose of this festival?

 

[Neil S.]

What is the purpose of this festival?

Hey Schwetty!!!


I just realized I spelled it wrong....It's Nebuta.

The point of the festival is to get drunk and mate with hot Japanese girls!!!

Seriously though this is the quick rundown from Wikipedia:

"The most widely-known explanation is that the festival originated from the flutes and taikos future shogun Sakanoue no Tamuramaro used to attract the attention of the enemy during a battle in Mutsu Province."

Pretty cool origin methinks.

Did you know there is a Japanese fertility festival? Look it up because I dont want to say too much about it here, or post pics. It's X-Rated lol!!! :mrgreen:

 

[Robin Usagani]

Yeah. I've seen the pic of that festival. They carry a huge dildo down the street LOL

 

[Neil S.]

Yeah. I've seen the pic of that festival. They carry a huge dildo down the street LOL

Ya its pretty funny.

I have never been, and I can't even remember where it is.

They got lollipops that are shaped like.....well use your imagination lol.

 

[Newnan3]

I think if you could have gotten people into the frame admiring the float it would have given the picture more scale.......Kinda like this but in less dangerous way:thumbup:

Daredevil Photo, India Wallpaper - National Geographic Photo of the Day

 

[Neil S.]

I think if you could have gotten people into the frame admiring the float it would have given the picture more scale.......Kinda like this but in less dangerous way:thumbup:

Daredevil Photo, India Wallpaper - National Geographic Photo of the Day

Thank you for the useful and constructive post. :mrgreen:

Thank you also for not trolling my thread lol. :thumbup:

You may very well be right about the people watching.

Its funny you mention this, because I actually shot it wider, and just cropped it down.

Be right back with a looser crop. We can see which is better.

 

[Neil S.]

This is as wide as it was shot.

I just think the people and background are too dark. If I had more ps skills, I would try to make only them brighter.

What do you think?

 

[subscuck]

Now I'll give my C&C. The colors are great, the pic is sharp, but without any detail of the surroundings, it looks like it's just floating in the air. If it was shot in raw, try some fill light to see if you can bring out some more detail in the surrounding area.

 

[subscuck]

Like this?

This gives it some context.

 

[Neil S.]

[Now I'll give my C&C. The colors are great, the pic is sharp, but without any detail of the surroundings, it looks like it's just floating in the air. If it was shot in raw, try some fill light to see if you can bring out some more detail in the surrounding area.

Why couldn’t you just say this to begin with lol? The name of my thread wasn't "Please come join me in a discussion about bumping threads, and give us your personal opinions on forum etiquette"

When people choose to post irrelevant and argumentative stuff in my threads, especially about me personally, we are going to have a problem. That is just the bottom line.

I will try to resolve differences to the best of my ability, and if that fails I will just ignore you (which I don't like doing).

That being said, I think that I overreacted to your post. I would like to apologize for this.

I really appreciate the feedback. :thumbup:

You make some very good points here.

I think you are right about the background detail and darkness. I mentioned this before just now.

I would like to think that I had the correct exposure when shooting it though. I probably would have blown highlights on the float otherwise, this is just a guess though.

I did shoot it in RAW, but I have since lost the vast majority of my RAW files from this time period. There was a valuable lesson learned on that one lol.

Does fill light just affect the background or something? I would have to read about it, which is probably what I am going to do now that you mentioned it.

Thanks again for the input. :mrgreen:

 

[Neil S.]

Like this?

This gives it some context.

How did you do this lol? It does look much better. :thumbup:

I have CS5, but I am a total noob with it.

 

[Neil S.]

Heres a quick attempt at it myself.

I increased exposure and brightness. I also dodged most of the background midtones and shadows.

It just made it look noisy to me though.

Was this good stuff to do? I couldnt even find fill light lol.

 

[subscuck]

Apology accepted. Fill light is a slider in ACR. You can open a jpeg in ACR and do some limited editing. I right clicked on your pic and selected "open in camera raw". I slid the fill light slider to the right til I got the look I wanted. Fill light works on the lower mid tones, so it won't affect high lights, but it can affect shadows, especially if you have to go way over to the right. If it does, move the "blacks" slider to the right to bring your shadows back. IMHO, dodging and burning are good for small areas, not so much for large areas. Others may disagree. I didn't want to change exposure because I liked the colors on the float the way they were. Brightness is a global adjustment, and again, I didn't want to change anything except the lower mid tones.

I would suggest getting Scott Kelby's book for CS5. He's a little corny sometimes, but he knows his stuff and his books on photoshop for beginners are well worth having. It'll get you a long way down the road in PPing.

 

[Neil S.]

Apology accepted. Fill light is a slider in ACR. You can open a jpeg in ACR and do some limited editing. I right clicked on your pic and selected "open in camera raw". I slid the fill light slider to the right til I got the look I wanted. Fill light works on the lower mid tones, so it won't affect high lights, but it can affect shadows, especially if you have to go way over to the right. If it does, move the "blacks" slider to the right to bring your shadows back. IMHO, dodging and burning are good for small areas, not so much for large areas. Others may disagree. I didn't want to change exposure because I liked the colors on the float the way they were. Brightness is a global adjustment, and again, I didn't want to change anything except the lower mid tones.

I would suggest getting Scott Kelby's book for CS5. He's a little corny sometimes, but he knows his stuff and his books on photoshop for beginners are well worth having. It'll get you a long way down the road in PPing.

Thanks for the Photoshop tips.

I do need to learn a lot about it, and I would like it to be soon.

Right now I am more focused on learning my new gear and shooting though.

I enjoy to shoot so much more than editing lol, at least at this point.

Thanks for the book suggestion. I probably should buy a book on CS5....