Fireman

[elsaspet]

Hi all. I pulled this one from the little series because I would like your imput on crop, exposure, and overall astetic value. I believe my settings were:
200 mm
1/1250 sec
F4
400 ISO
Thanks for any suggestions, and as always, feel free to play with the image:

 

[ShutteredEye]

Cindy:

I really like the emotion. The whole thing seems a little washed out and unsaturated to me--but it could be because I am on my laptop.

Makes it a little tough to see the composition because of the image size, but it feels pretty good.

 

[elsaspet]

Sorry about the image size. When I get home I'll try to fix that. Yeah, the sky does look washed out to me too. Do you think a crop would help? What kind of saturation do you suggest?

 

[ShutteredEye]

Oh heavens, if you're asking for PS instructions I'm about the LAST person you should ask! LOL

On second inspection, I wonder if the shot just doesn't have a lot of...well "blah" colors to it. The yellow of his uniform and the turquoise carabeener doe seem to pop pretty well. So now I don't know what to tell you about the color.

I put the link to the picture in a new browser window and let IE resize it for me, and I think a crop of the top may help eliminate some of the horribly washed out dog days summer sky we have right now.

Cool shot though, I really DO like it.

 

[Hertz van Rental]

Looks fine on my laptop - and I just calibrated it.
I think the bleached sky is fine because it works with the black smoke. It also gives a bland, neutral background that doesn't take your attention away from the fireman.
I can't tell about the crop until you resize it. I don't want to make a decision about the hand until then, either. But it is churlish to be picky about what is essentialy a grab shot.
Nice one.

 

[ShutteredEye]

Looks fine on my laptop - and I just calibrated it.
I think the bleached sky is fine because it works with the black smoke. It also gives a bland, neutral background that doesn't take your attention away from the fireman.
I can't tell about the crop until you resize it. I don't want to make a decision about the hand until then, either. But it is churlish to be picky about what is essentialy a grab shot.
Nice one.

I was going to say something about the hand too, but I figured that he was probably carrying something, which might have just exacerbated the issue.

 

[elsaspet]

Ok guys, it's resized now. I don't know what happened! It was still at 3600!

 

[thebeginning]

the exposure is fine, the colors are fine (a little more saturation might help a bit, but it isnt necessary), and the composition is nice, but i wished i could either see none of his hand or a little more. cutting it off doesnt seem to work right for me. i also kind of wished his face had been focused instead of his arm, but that might be nit picking. this is a very nice candid portrait, a perfect background and setting for the subject. great job!!