C&C Please on something a little different

OrionsByte · Mar 6, 2011

Took this shot for my 365 project because my theme for the week is "vegetables." I wanted to give the scene a "lit by the television" feel so I used a blue gel on a strobe shot in to an umbrella. Do you think I pulled off the look? What do you think of the photo overall? Just dull and cliche or do you like it?

It's okay if you hate it.

Any and all C&C is appreciated.

RockstarPhotography · Mar 6, 2011

i like the idea. perhaps some mister potato head props to round it out?..lol

Bitter Jeweler · Mar 6, 2011

Please correct me if I am wrong, but itvseems you missed focus on the potato, and got the fabric behind it instead.
Cliché aside, I think the scale doesn't work well. I also think the light could be bluer. But that's me.

OrionsByte · Mar 6, 2011

RockstarPhotography said:
i like the idea. perhaps some mister potato head props to round it out?..lol

Ya know initially I was going to include a bag of chips (not potato chips, 'cause that would have been just twisted) and maybe a bottle of soda or something, but the reason I didn't was the scale problem that Bitter mentioned.

Bitter Jeweler said:
Please correct me if I am wrong, but itvseems you missed focus on the potato, and got the fabric behind it instead.
Cliché aside, I think the scale doesn't work well. I also think the light could be bluer. But that's me.

Well, you might not be wrong, but honestly I had a hard time telling because the potato was actually rather featureless. The fabric behind it is definitely in focus, but so is the fabric on the armrest at the same distance from the camera as the potato and the fabric it's sitting on top of, so I THINK it's in focus. The softness is could be due to some overly heavy-handed noise reduction. However, the more I look at it, it's probably just missed focus.

So the blue gel I put on my flash made the whole scene VERY blue... like HOLY CRAP blue (I don't think that's in Crayola's official list) so I actually brought the blue saturation down in Lightroom. I wanted a faint hint of blue, but I may have over-corrected. Could be a matter of taste.

Thank you both for your comments.

OrionsByte · Mar 6, 2011

I think Mr. Potato Head parts would still be too big, but if I had some smaller props in there do you think that would help the scale problem, or would it still be little-potato-big-couch?

LittleMike · Mar 6, 2011

Just buy a potato from Idaho. Some of those things are the size of small melons.

vtf · Mar 6, 2011

I would like to see a reflection on back of couch or on a glass of the tv.
If you use Photoshop, size is easily enlarged.

Robin Usagani · Mar 6, 2011

perhaps a simpler couch? Too busy. Stop being a couch potato and do it right!

EckoZero · Mar 6, 2011

On this one I can instantly see what you're going for... my only comment would be that the potato lacks perspective on the couch.
If you had either a (much) bigger potato or used a model couch then the potato would become the prominent feature.

That way you could have the couch in any style you like - Schwettylens says that the couch is too busy, I quite like it however I think that the potato being too small makes the couch feel too busy.

Does that make sense? Or am I rambling?

OrionsByte · Mar 6, 2011

Alright well I got a lot more good ideas from everyone than I was expecting, so I'll probably take another shot at this.

I don't really have another couch to use, but I have a couple ideas for making it less busy. One, I could borrow my wife's white bathrobe and set it up like it's just casually draped over the couch with the potato on top of it. The other idea is just to control the DOF better so that the back of the couch isn't quite so sharp (getting the focus ON the potato would help too of course).

I'm going to stop by the store and pick up a nice big potato instead of the little russets I just happened to have in the house. I'll also attempt to make it bigger in post, hopefully not more than double-sized. Technically I figured I'd cut the potato out and reduce the size of the background so that I don't lose any quality from up-rezzing. Is that a good way to go or is there an easier/better approach?

I also figure that if I'm going to increase the size of the potato, I'm going to need to be very mindful of the DOF because if I increase the size of the potato and it ends up in front of the focal plane it will look wierd.

As far as props, I'm still not sure. I like the idea of something reflecting the TV, even if it's not really there. Reflecting the blue-lit umbrella in something like a bottle might add some effect though.

All this for such a silly shot. :lol:

Anything else I should think about?

Bitter Jeweler · Mar 6, 2011

The potato should be eating popcorn!

Robin Usagani · Mar 6, 2011

Potato should be eating potato chips.. .come on now.

Bitter Jeweler said:
The potato should be eating popcorn!

Bitter Jeweler · Mar 6, 2011

Nooooooooo!

OrionsByte · Mar 6, 2011

Actually if I used popcorn I could put it in a bowl that could serve to handle the reflection...

I'm not taking this too seriously at this point because I don't really NEED a photo of a potato on a couch, but it should be a fun exercise and it seems like it would be a waste not to do something with all the input.