C6 & Graffiti ... C&C/Reactions?

KelSS90 · Nov 12, 2013

My husband and I were out driving last weekend and came across this great tunnel. He asked if I could get a few pictures of his car, so I did my best! These were taken in about the last 20 minutes of sunlight, surrounded by the tunnel and a lot of trees. Taken with my D3200, edited in Lightroom.

I had a few concerns. I didn't have a tripod with me, and it was pretty dark, so it was tricky for me to adjust the ISO/shutter speed to a happy medium . Perhaps I should have increased the exposure before taking the shots and that would have helped? I'm not a car fanatic like my husband, so it was surprisingly difficult to come up with some interesting shots. All the ones that I thought I would love (detail shots, interesting angles, etc.) didn't look quite like I wanted them to, and shots of the entire car seemed to come out better.

I'm very new to the photography world, so please don't hold back! I promise I won't throw I fit if you hate the images

I would love to learn from everyone here so let me know what you think!

f/3.5, 1/50sec, ISO-400, 18mm
*I think I like the composition of this one the most, but the car seems to get a bit lost and the back lighting seems too harsh. Tried it in black and white but I felt the car became even more lost within the photo.

f/4, 1/50sec, ISO-400, 24mm

f/3.8, 1/30sec, ISO-400, 20mm
*This one ended up being my favorite

Robbo521 · Nov 12, 2013

first one looks like a toy,the second one is awesome to me.3rd is nice but maybe crop the top part.but like i said i love the second one.

binga63 · Nov 12, 2013

Nice but
you need to decide what you are taking photos of, the car or graffiti, as the graffiti is king of the shot, and the car is just in the way

KelSS90 · Nov 12, 2013

Thanks for the feedback. I do feel that the first is over-edited. I just couldn't quite get it to look good, but I loved the giant tunnel so I did what I could. I do have a cropped version of the third, more focused on just the car and there is solid graffiti in the background instead of the plain stone, but I liked the vastness of the tunnel behind the car. My husband liked the second one best too

The railroad above the tunnel is still functioning ... It would be a great place for me to go out alone one day and get some neat shots.

12sndsgood · Nov 13, 2013

Agree that the car should be more of the focus. its just so small in #1 and #3 you just lose it to the size of the tunnel. #2 would be great if it was some better graffiti behind it.

molested_cow · Nov 13, 2013

You have fall colors, graffiti and a nice car, so there are many interesting things you can try.

First of all, the first and third pic are too zoomed out. It's like a landscape shot but it isn't.

If I were you I'd be exploring things like reflections of the graffiti on the car's body panels and different surfaces. The graffiti is saturated while the car is pale white. I'm sure there are many ways you can play with the idea of reflection. You may also consider doing HDRs to help the reflections show more. High gloss white is a hard color to shoot because it is easy to over expose the shot. HDR, or a combination of different exposures will help that.

The_Traveler · Nov 25, 2013

I think perhaps you are cheating the car here.
The graffiti are so bright in tone that they compete.
Keep the saturation and the color but lower their brightness and the car pops.
I also brightened the front wheel and slightly defocused the writing.

KelSS90 · Nov 25, 2013

I like it! Thank you.

I'm still very much trying to figure out Lightroom (and don't yet have PS). Beyond adjusting saturation, exposure, contrast, and highlights/shadows, it ends up making the image much worse because you can tell something has been attempted, although poorly. Lol.

Thanks again

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minicoop1985 · Nov 26, 2013

I like the idea, but I really think what Lew did with it shows the potential these shots have. I personally like the composition, however.

KelSS90 · Nov 26, 2013

minicoop1985 said:
I like the idea, but I really think what Lew did with it shows the potential these shots have. I personally like the composition, however.

Thanks for the reply -- I agree. May be worth going back and working on some re-edits of them. (Plus, I'm not good enough and driving the car to take it out on my own... And the husband is working nights so it would be a few months before I could re-shoot the images

)

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The_Traveler · Nov 26, 2013

There are two issues here.
In order to handle the car well, it needs to be separated from the background on a mask and complicated edits and tonal changes are much more difficult in LR than PS, unless you start using layers.

Second, these images are just not sharp enough to get really good masks. You are shooting at the widest aperture because of the speed.
The best result would be to go back with a tripod, shoot at a smaller aperture and get scalpel sharp edges.
With good masks you can correct the wb and the color better.
Bracket the exposures so you can get good car and tire tones.

amolitor · Nov 26, 2013

I like 'em all as-is, in fact. They're not something one sees, one normally sees the car dominating the shot. These are like environmental portraits, but with a car and not a person.

Frankly, these are far and away the best "car out there in a cool place, we stopped and took some shots" pictures I've ever seen. This is, I think, because they're *not* car front and center. That sort of car product shot is one of the most technically challenging kinds of photographs to make, because cars are shiny, and cars are big. In order to be successful without a huge amount of studio technique, I think you have to step away from that visual idea.

In order to not look stupid, you have to stick the car in some sort of decent environment. Most of these things are "car in front of a chain link fence with trash dump out of focus in the background" or "car inexplicably in a forest" or whatever. The environment is either outright terrible, or at best is nice but doesn't work with the car at all.

This is good, though. I think the car with graffiti is a pretty strong combination of environment and car, and after that it's just a question of getting some decent angles and not botching the focus, which you managed quite nicely.

Yes, there are technical twiddles you can do which may or may not improve the pictures, if you like 'em, go that way.

runnah · Nov 26, 2013

KelSS90 · Nov 26, 2013

The_Traveler said:
There are two issues here.
In order to handle the car well, it needs to be separated from the background on a mask and complicated edits and tonal changes are much more difficult in LR than PS, unless you start using layers.

Second, these images are just not sharp enough to get really good masks. You are shooting at the widest aperture because of the speed.
The best result would be to go back with a tripod, shoot at a smaller aperture and get scalpel sharp edges.
With good masks you can correct the wb and the color better.
Bracket the exposures so you can get good car and tire tones.

About half of that went over my head, so it looks like it's time to start really reading about and watching some editing tutorials. I have a feeling Santa will bring me PS for Christmas, which would be nice, but I'd like to get more well versed with LR first.

Thanks for revisiting this thread and getting it going again. I'm getting much more detailed feedback this time around.

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KelSS90 · Nov 26, 2013

amolitor said:
This is, I think, because they're *not* car front and center.

That is what I personally liked best about these pictures as well. Although, it was somewhat just a happy accident. I really wanted to just get pictures of the graffiti and tunnel, but the whole point of us stopping was that my husband asked if I could get some of the car. Since the light was all but gone, I think I somewhat unconsciously tried to shove more of what I wanted into the pictures, since I didn't have time for both. Ha!

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