Captain

smoke665 · Jan 13, 2020

Another pick from the Firefighter batch. Seems I may have a few more to shoot now as others have decided they want in.

snowbear · Jan 13, 2020

Nice shot.

I'm surprised he gets a proper mask seal.

smoke665 · Jan 13, 2020

snowbear said:
Nice shot.

I'm surprised he gets a proper mask seal.

Masks? We don't need no stinkin Masks! LOL

enezdez · Jan 13, 2020

@smoke665 You should be the official Fire Station Photographer Dude!!!! lol.

Awesome Work My Friend!!!

stapo49 · Jan 14, 2020

smoke665 said:
@PJM Thank you. I've been thinking it might be fun to put together a calendar for fund raising project. Finding 11 more firemen who aren't bashful about having their picture taken might be difficult though.

Great idea. The actual paid as opposed to the volunteer firefighters here in Perth do one every year for various charities. They don't seem shy about getting their tops off lol. Probably because they are all ripped and have six packs.The females also get involved. In their case their tops stay on.

Sent from my SM-G965F using Tapatalk

smoke665 · Jan 14, 2020

stapo49 said:
They don't seem shy about getting their tops off lol

The ones in our department that wouldn't be shy about it aren't the ones you would want on a calender. :aiwebs_016:

CherylL · Jan 14, 2020

Love the last shot. Great work on adding the smoke. I calibrated my new monitor and the photos do not look too light now.

malling · Jan 14, 2020

Well done, the first and last one are simply amazing.

smoke665 · Jan 14, 2020

CherylL said:
Love the last shot. Great work on adding the smoke. I calibrated my new monitor and the photos do not look too light now.

Thanks Cheryl. I had my smoke machine running but it wasn't giving me the large tendrils that I was looking for. I was having problems with various smoke backgrounds that I had as well, they just didn't look right. I'd decided to do flames instead, but when I added the flame layer, I changed the blend mode to luminosity out of curiosity and voila it deleted the color leaving me the large tendrils I was after.

@malling Thank you!!

Donde · Jan 14, 2020

Great portraits nicely composed. Wouldn't be surprised if these show up in Esquire Magazine or the like.

smoke665 · Jan 14, 2020

Donde said:
Great portraits nicely composed. Wouldn't be surprised if these show up in Esquire Magazine or the like.

Wow, thank you that's quite a compliment.

vintagesnaps · Jan 14, 2020

I think the portraits as far as posing, expressions, sharpness, etc. are excellent. Where you kind of lost me on the first one is the grayness; I'd go with a ligher touch in adjusting the tint/tone.

On the helmet in the first that lettering was most likely off white, but seems like if anything it maybe should be a bit warmer in tone while still being a bit grungy from wear. I don't get gritty, I just get too gray heading into drab. (I can't unsee that white part of the helmet and how gray that is.) The skin tone got too gray, and I'd expect the red and the yellow reflective(?) stripes on the jacket to stand out a bit more even if it's worn and the color is no longer vibrant.

I guess I'm thinking about grungy hockey, where pads have black knicks and scrapes etc. but the color isn't grayish, it's off white (with grime). Maybe borrow/use an older jacket just for some test shots and think about what does it look like? Are there marks from use? Figure out how you can show those to get a gritty feel and not go too artificial with it.

smoke665 · Jan 14, 2020

vintagesnaps said:
I guess I'm thinking about grungy hockey, where pads have black knicks and scrapes etc. but the color isn't grayish, it's off white (with grime). Maybe borrow/use an older jacket just for some test shots and think about what do

Pretty much what the turnout looked like, smoke has a way of turning everything gray. Normally they go through an extractor (fancy washer that removes the contaminants) after a fire, but that particular coat despite being relatively new is trashed. Not shown in the image is a large melted area toward the bottom. He was assisting another department in fighting a large industrial warehouse fire when a wall collapsed, against him. He got out okay with no injuries, but the burn means it can't be used again and the cost of repair was to much . The replacement set he has on in some other shots set us back a little over $3k.

DanOstergren · Jan 14, 2020

They're good shots; well lit, composed and conceptualized. As for CC, I don't care for the purple skin tone as it has a corpse look to it, and I would have liked a little more intensity in his expressions, rather than the general lack of emoting in these shots.

vintagesnaps · Jan 15, 2020

Besides the skin tone being off, I think tinting it gray overall actually takes away from details and variation in tan and sooty fabric, etc. You've got a real firefighter in a uniform with real smudges and marks that got somewhat obscured by the gray. I did a quick search of photos of firefighters and looked at professional ones from newspapers/TV stations and a lot of uniforms are tan and you can see the variation of grimy jackets/uniforms. I think these got too overall gray

I noticed for example the first helmet where there are a couple of black marks on the white part around 'Captain'. I feel like it could better being able to see black marks on offwhite, rather than those being somewhat lost in the gray.