xyphoto
TPF Noob!
- Joined
- Dec 12, 2011
- Messages
- 250
- Reaction score
- 30
- Location
- Grand Rapids, MI
- Can others edit my Photos
- Photos NOT OK to edit
Took this photo of my daughter after her dance performance. CC welcome!
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To me there is not enough contrast to make this great photo, plus the shadows on the wall are distracting to me.
The color version was just awful due to non-controllable lighting. I started to realize that one way to recover a bad photo is simply converted it to B&W which can hide some major flaws.
The color version was just awful due to non-controllable lighting. I started to realize that one way to recover a bad photo is simply converted it to B&W which can hide some major flaws.
Bad and uncontrolled lighting is a reason to convert pictures but it doesn't magically make bad pictures good (not that this is bad) and you still need to manage the tone quality of the image to make a good B&W.
If you would allow editing, you would get better and more complete comments.
And if you are going to say that you want to learn to edit yourself I will repeat what I said elsewhere.
Not allowing editing means that the critic must try to define in inadequate words what is much more easily shown in an illustration. You would never say to a dance teacher, don't show me, tell me, because that is a visual medium. So, obviously, is photography. That would handicap the dance teacher, frustrate the teacher as they try to describe in words what is meant to be shown.
In regards to doing and learning on your own, that is certainly a valuable intent but having an example does not mean you can't learn how to do what you want, it merely provides you with a sensible, understandable goal.
Lew
I think it's quite lovely as-is. To be sure, the lighting and shadows could be different and then you'd have a different photograph.
The lighting as-is creates a back-stage after-the-show feel, which is a) precisely what it is and b) precisely what it should look like. While it is certainly true that a b&w conversion won't save a bad photograph, it is also true that sometimes a photograph is quite good as a b&w.
The one quibble I have is that it seems awfully light. On the one hand that creates a lovely ethereal softness, but on the other hand it detracts from the back-stage feel, which I think of as quite dim. I think, to an extent, you may have tried to make this photograph into the portrait others have told you that it is not -- the light is wrong. If so, my suggestion is to not fight the photograph, but let it be itself and process it to bring out what it is rather than what it is not. It is a fine photograph and and of itself, but like most photographs it isn't much good at being something else.