Aids Memorial Take 2

[sam_justice]

To catch up with this thread, the first one is here
http://www.thephotoforum.com/forum/...orial-my-first-print-im-thinking-selling.html

Here is the night shot, I'm not happy with the stars I think I will change that.

 

[reznap]

Literally a night and day difference (harhar) from the first... but they're both really good I think. I like the statue on this one, but I like the scale and wide breadth of the daytime (first take) image.

What bothers you about the stars? I thought they looked a little too blueish..

Assuming that's a single exposure; If you had tried making an HDR here, you could have had the buildings brighter/more visible without overexposing the statue.

 

[sam_justice]

Literally a night and day difference (harhar) from the first... but they're both really good I think. I like the statue on this one, but I like the scale and wide breadth of the daytime (first take) image.

What bothers you about the stars? I thought they looked a little too blueish..

Assuming that's a single exposure; If you had tried making an HDR here, you could have had the buildings brighter/more visible without overexposing the statue.

Thanks for the kind words.
They're a little to fake, I think I need to tone them down a bit. You never get stars in Brighton thanks to light pollution but I feel as though these ones almost have a fantasy feel to them.

That's 3 exposures (just to get the lighting in the statue evenly exposed) but I didn't want the buildings in this one as it was found to be to distracting.

 

[sleist]

My problem with this shot is not so much technical, but emotional.

This photo is too sterile given the subject matter. I would get more out of this if there was some link to the human toll of the disease that this memorial is raising awareness for. The image lacks humanity. I can't connect to it from my gut - and AIDS has touched my family. I'm also bothered by the perspective. I feel like I'm looking at the back of the monument, and the base of the monument is too dominant. I'm not from the UK so I don't know what the sculptures look like, but I don't think you've done them justice_sam .

My too cents.

Steve

 

[tevo]

hm, i would shoot it with a deeper depth of field, not necessarily blurred out, but simply so it looks like there is more space from the statue and the background

(sorry if that doesnt make sense, im sick in bed right now, and im running at half mental capacity)

but besides that, i love the statue, the lighting brings it out a lot more, and catches your eye.

my advice: similar lighting, with the first picture and the epic clouds.

youll get there, im sure of it. keep up the good work

 

[tevo]

Assuming that's a single exposure; If you had tried making an HDR here, you could have had the buildings brighter/more visible without overexposing the statue.

i agree, this could make a really nice HDR

 

[reznap]

The sky right around the horizon is blacked out, looks a bit edited. I may be wrong - I already was in this thread..

i agree, this could make a really nice HDR

It is, I was wrong. 3 exposures he said.

 

[sam_justice]

Assuming that's a single exposure; If you had tried making an HDR here, you could have had the buildings brighter/more visible without overexposing the statue.

i agree, this could make a really nice HDR

ugh, HDR. It's disgusting.

Digital blending is a much more natural and clean looking way.

 

[tevo]

just the range of colors and contrast would look nice - HDR or not

 

[sam_justice]

My problem with this shot is not so much technical, but emotional.

This photo is too sterile given the subject matter. I would get more out of this if there was some link to the human toll of the disease that this memorial is raising awareness for. The image lacks humanity. I can't connect to it from my gut - and AIDS has touched my family. I'm also bothered by the perspective. I feel like I'm looking at the back of the monument, and the base of the monument is too dominant. I'm not from the UK so I don't know what the sculptures look like, but I don't think you've done them justice_sam .

My too cents.

Steve

I actually agree, it's not an emotional photo. I hope this causes no disrepect. I wanted to capture the statue as an entirety, I think if I were to get an emotional response from the image in terms of loss then the entire composition would be different. But I don't think you can really get a sense of loss from the statue itself. It's an extremely odd statue for a memorial, it's not like a war statue where you can get an emotional response just by the sheer amount of names cast into the stone.

 

[c.cloudwalker]

I am not going to get into what is good or bad about this new shot. However, it does not seem to work any better than the last one.

I think you need to forget about this statue for a while, go shoot some new stuff, and in a couple weeks or months, try it again with a refreshed mind.

 

[sleist]

My problem with this shot is not so much technical, but emotional.

This photo is too sterile given the subject matter. I would get more out of this if there was some link to the human toll of the disease that this memorial is raising awareness for. The image lacks humanity. I can't connect to it from my gut - and AIDS has touched my family. I'm also bothered by the perspective. I feel like I'm looking at the back of the monument, and the base of the monument is too dominant. I'm not from the UK so I don't know what the sculptures look like, but I don't think you've done them justice_sam .

My too cents.

Steve

I actually agree, it's not an emotional photo. I hope this causes no disrepect. I wanted to capture the statue as an entirety, I think if I were to get an emotional response from the image in terms of loss then the entire composition would be different. But I don't think you can really get a sense of loss from the statue itself. It's an extremely odd statue for a memorial, it's not like a war statue where you can get an emotional response just by the sheer amount of names cast into the stone.

Not at all - just an opinion - as wrong as anyone's . I realize the sculptor was trying to invoke the image of the ribbon everyone uses for such causes. I know that the first impulse may be to show this in your photograph by choosing this perspective. I'm just not sure this perspective is compelling enough to get me to buy it as an image.

I do like the use of stars as opposed to your earlier shots. I like the connection of heaven and earth that it conveys.

 

[sam_justice]

My problem with this shot is not so much technical, but emotional.

This photo is too sterile given the subject matter. I would get more out of this if there was some link to the human toll of the disease that this memorial is raising awareness for. The image lacks humanity. I can't connect to it from my gut - and AIDS has touched my family. I'm also bothered by the perspective. I feel like I'm looking at the back of the monument, and the base of the monument is too dominant. I'm not from the UK so I don't know what the sculptures look like, but I don't think you've done them justice_sam .

My too cents.

Steve

I actually agree, it's not an emotional photo. I hope this causes no disrepect. I wanted to capture the statue as an entirety, I think if I were to get an emotional response from the image in terms of loss then the entire composition would be different. But I don't think you can really get a sense of loss from the statue itself. It's an extremely odd statue for a memorial, it's not like a war statue where you can get an emotional response just by the sheer amount of names cast into the stone.

Not at all - just an opinion - as wrong as anyone's . I realize the sculptor was trying to invoke the image of the ribbon everyone uses for such causes. I know that the first impulse may be to show this in your photograph by choosing this perspective. I'm just not sure this perspective is compelling enough to get me to buy it as an image.

I do like the use of stars as opposed to your earlier shots. I like the connection of heaven and earth that it conveys.

I'm thinking the base and stale grass background is what's really making the composition flat and uninspiring. I'm thinking of getting an image of just the metal structure itself as opposed to base, garden and environment it's in. Attempt no.3! I think that might nail it though (I hope), in at least giving an interesting composition. Probably not much more emotionally responsive than this one, but at least more interesting. This way the structure will fill the frame as well.