Boston: 1 C&C

[Pepperpwni]

Just wondering peoples comments on this photo I shot the other day of my brother and I waiting for the T in Boston.

Be harsh, I don't care. Helps me grow. I have some of my own thoughts and so does a friend of mine but we kind of disagree.. curious to see what anyone else brings up.

Thanks!

 

[Juice]

Looks like a snap shot. Underexposed. The composition is meh, it looks like one of those poles is growing out of the top of is head.

 

[Pepperpwni]

Looks like a snap shot. Underexposed. The composition is meh, it looks like one of those poles is growing out of the top of is head.

Agree with you on everything except the exposure. Maybe you can help me out there. Yeah, he looks really dark, but hes wearing dark clothes; I think that in contrast to the snow is leading you to think its underexposed.. or leading me to think its correctly exposed. The rest of the shot seems pretty well exposed to me.. so yeah help me understand your thoughts on that and I would appreciate it.


Surprised you didn't mention cropping at all.

 

[Juice]

I don't mind the crop. If you'd give me permission, I'd show you how I would change the exposure.

 

[Pepperpwni]

I don't mind the crop. If you'd give me permission, I'd show you how I would change the exposure.

Please do, I would love to see.

 

[Juice]

My edit is on the left:

 

[Juice]

Also, if I were going to crop it, I would do this:

 

[Pepperpwni]

Wow, what a difference. Thank you.
How much did you step it up?

Guess my eye needs more training.. now that I see the two side by side I completely agree.

 

[Juice]

I didn't only adjust the exposure, simply stepping up the exposure would blow out the sky. I made various adjustments in LR3 to get that result.

 

[Pepperpwni]

Yeah I have CS5 available to me at work, but I need to play around with it more obviously. You've already done a lot but could you give me a fast run down of what you did? I want to try to mimick to learn. Obviously I don't have Lightroom so it wont be exact.. maybe I should invest in it

 

[Juice]

I bumped up the exposure, overall contrast, and fill light. Then, in the contrast settings, I lowered the highlights and lights to keep the sky from blowing out. Then a very slight PC Vignette to help the subject pop a little more.

I am by no means a LR expert, and get most of my results by just tinkering with settings until I get what I want.

 

[Pepperpwni]

Well, I learned a ton in the past hour. Thanks again.

 

[Infidel]

...I think that in contrast to the snow is leading you to think its underexposed.. or leading me to think its correctly exposed...

I think this is the issue. Snow is white, not gray. The camera meter thinks everything should be 18% (or something close to 18%) gray, but snow is white. If there is a lot of snow in the scene, the photo will be underexposed. Did I mention that snow is white?