Resting Place

[weepete]

I've went out on an attempt to do some proper street shooting for the first time a couple of weeks ago and just got round to transferring a few shots onto the PC. Here is the one I was happiest with:


Resting Place by wee_pete, on Flickr

It was fun, definatley a steep learning curve though.

 

[Shipman]

Cool idea but I think a different angle could have worked better. Now that I think of it, its not as much the angle as it is the construction equipment ruining it.

 

[kanuski]

This might have been a good time to use HDR. It seems that the part of the image that grabs my attention is the building in the back but it lacks any detail.

 

[weepete]

Thanks for the feedback mate. I agree the angle isn't quite there either for the subject however the crane in the shot is entirely deliberate. I was outside the Museum of Modern Art while the wean was distracted with trying to photograph a pidgeon and saw this throgh the pillars, it struck me because accross the road the workies were demolishing a 5 story building and making a right racket when this guy looked like he was relaxing in a peaceful place, so the juxtaposition is kinda the whole point though maybe I've not quite pulled it off in this one.

 

[weepete]

Thanks for the feedback Kanuski. Yep the building is blown out, not much I could do about that though. I agree that HDR may have solved that issue but then the crane would be blurred as is was moving. I didn't know when this guy would move either so no time to set up bracketing but next time I'll take your advice and try and quickly snap one to get the shot and try and bracket another three shots rapid.

 

[SCraig]

Thanks for the feedback Kanuski. Yep the building is blown out, not much I could do about that though. I agree that HDR may have solved that issue but then the crane would be blurred as is was moving. I didn't know when this guy would move either so no time to set up bracketing but next time I'll take your advice and try and quickly snap one to get the shot and try and bracket another three shots rapid.

If you shot it in RAW you can tone map from a single shot. Change the exposure compensation to -2 and save a TIF copy. Then change it progressively to -1, 0, +1, and +2 saving copies each time (Although you probably don't need the +2 step). Load those TIF images into your HDR editor and it should help the building a great deal.

 

[weepete]

Thanks SCraig, I did shoot this in raw so will give that a try tomorrow. The highlights are blown out in the histogram though so I fear I will have lost most of the detail anyway. The subject was in shade unfortunatley and across the road was in the sun but just one of those situations you either take the shot or don't and I'm trying to expose for my subject a lot more right now. I'll certainly try it tomorrrow though and let you know the results.

 

[SCraig]

Thanks SCraig, I did shoot this in raw so will give that a try tomorrow. The highlights are blown out in the histogram though so I fear I will have lost most of the detail anyway. The subject was in shade unfortunatley and across the road was in the sun but just one of those situations you either take the shot or don't and I'm trying to expose for my subject a lot more right now. I'll certainly try it tomorrrow though and let you know the results.

You'd be surprised what is recoverable in RAW. I ran into the same situation today by blowing out some highlights. That's the procedure I used and was able to recover enough detail to improve the shot. Good luck with it.

 

[weepete]

After spending the morning trying to do this in photoshop using the merge to HDR pro feature without success I ended up finding out how to do it manually with layer masks. Here is the result that I'm quite pleased with as it allowed me to lighten up some foreground elements as well.


Resting Place HDR by wee_pete, on Flickr

Thanks for the advice!