one from yesterday

[rocdoc]

I wanted to catch the impression of him playing against the afternoon sky. This was the leader of a band playing on the sidewalk in DC the other day. Had to crop relatively tight so none of the buildings showed. Thanks for looking.

 

[rocdoc]

Oh, and incidentally, he is NOT giving me the finger, this is part of the technique of playing his trombone, he is bracing the finger on the bell to control the slide accurately. I just realized that can give the wrong impression...

 

[Libblo]

I feel like the sky takes away from this picture... Its just that nothing is going on in it. Also if I were taking this picture I would have shot it without the flash, it looks like their was plenty of light. I can see a lot of blue highlights on his face with a few white highlights from the natural sun on his cheek and noise. the different highlights do not fit together. Love the detail in his suite. Oh and the last thing. His right arm buttons have blue highlights and his left arm has yellow highlights. You didn't need any depth so I would have opened the lens up and gone without flash.

 

[rocdoc]

Thank you Libblo, for your nice insight. I have to applaud your keen eye for detail - don't know how many people routinely pick up on the different-collored highlights. I did feel the fill flash was needed actually - the sun was directly behind him, and I did not want to blow the sky out with extra exposure. I hate relying on the post-processing D-lighting feature, it loses some details (and feels like cheating...). The highlights on the left buttons are not direct sun, but reflections from other brass instruments in the band to his left, the sun was actually behind him as I said. You have a point about the sky, I may be able to crop a bit more out, the impression he is playing against the sky should remain even with less of it in the picture.
Any other input is welcomed heartily.
Cheers.

 

[bigtwinky]

Nice shot overall, nice emotion on his face. I'm not keen on the blue sky, but thats just a personal choice

Did you happen to take any with the buildings in it? I would think that they would add an extra element that would help the image as I normally associate jazz with a downtown type of thing, which buildings could nicely represent. Of course, it depends on the buildings behind him.