Richmond Clocktower

[DGMPhotography]

Thoughts? I've posted this in the HDR forum, but it got hardly an response, does that mean it was good and you guys have nothing to complain about?

View attachment 20610

 

[tirediron]

I'm afraid it does nothing for me at all. It looks to me like a plastic model shot against contruction paper.

 

[Dagwood56]

Somehow the building appears to be totally flat against the background. There's no depth to it at all.

 

[DGMPhotography]

You may have to tilt your screen to see the clouds. Also, as for construction paper, I was told before it's good to have a black background - it makes the foreground pop? Is this wrong?

 

[Majeed Badizadegan]

You may have to tilt your screen to see the clouds. Also, as for construction paper, I was told before it's good to have a black background - it makes the foreground pop? Is this wrong?

Depends on the subject. This shot would be a lot better shot at dawn or dusk.. there's also distortion that needs to be addressed .

 

[Designer]

This style is new to me. I'm not sure what message you are trying to convey. If this was intended as an architectural record shot, it missed. Given the distortion and stark contrast, I will assume it to be something else. If there was an entire series of these, it could be rather interesting at teh very least. So keep it up.

 

[Designer]

You may have to tilt your screen to see the clouds. Also, as for construction paper, I was told before it's good to have a black background - it makes the foreground pop? Is this wrong?

The building does stand out, but I wouldn't call it the "foreground".

The better architectural shots that have black sky backgrounds also have lots of interior lighting, as in all of them.

 

[DGMPhotography]

You may have to tilt your screen to see the clouds. Also, as for construction paper, I was told before it's good to have a black background - it makes the foreground pop? Is this wrong?

The building does stand out, but I wouldn't call it the "foreground".

The better architectural shots that have black sky backgrounds also have lots of interior lighting, as in all of them.

So the lighting it does have isn't enough?

 

[DGMPhotography]

You may have to tilt your screen to see the clouds. Also, as for construction paper, I was told before it's good to have a black background - it makes the foreground pop? Is this wrong?

Depends on the subject. This shot would be a lot better shot at dawn or dusk.. there's also distortion that needs to be addressed .

Thanks, what is the distortion?

 

[Rick58]

You may have to tilt your screen to see the clouds. Also, as for construction paper, I was told before it's good to have a black background - it makes the foreground pop? Is this wrong?

Depends on the subject. This shot would be a lot better shot at dawn or dusk.. there's also distortion that needs to be addressed .

Thanks, what is the distortion?

If you look at the sides of the structure, they are converging, or coming together, at the top

 

[Majeed Badizadegan]

You may have to tilt your screen to see the clouds. Also, as for construction paper, I was told before it's good to have a black background - it makes the foreground pop? Is this wrong?

Depends on the subject. This shot would be a lot better shot at dawn or dusk.. there's also distortion that needs to be addressed .

Thanks, what is the distortion?

See how the building looks like it's laying backwards almost? A good point of reference for you would be to look at the sides of the building. ARe they straight, or slanted? If slanted, usually indicates lens distortion.

 

[amolitor]

You've lifted the shadows almost completely out, so they don't even look like shadows any more. At least, I think those strange regions of tile on the roof are actually the shadows of the dormers, not some bizarre paint spills or something. By obliterating the shadows, you've made the thing look completely flat -- we "see" the three dimensional shape of things largely through shadows. This is a very very common problem in HDR processing, by the way.

The building appears to continue past the bottom of the frame, I guess, you've sort of cut it off at whatever place the frame happened to end, though.

It's wildly keystoned because you're up close and looking up, see Perspective control - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia for details.

Otherwise there's just not much interest here. It's just a building, processed to look weird and with nothing particular that makes it interesting to me, and with a sort of amateurish ugly distortion.

 

[Rick58]

Here's your building with the distortion removed. Unfortunately, it's really no more interesting distortion free. Looking at that tower gives me a headache.
View attachment 20660

 

[DGMPhotography]

Thanks! I still wonder how you fix the distortion so well. As for interest, that is an opinion. I just like the architecture of this building, what else do you want it to do, fight Barney? But I see your point about shading, HDR seems to take that away and thus make it have less depth. I'm curious though, why is it with technology so high tech we can't get a lens that doesn't have distortion... or is there..And I framed it that way, trying to cut it off at a line instead of in the middle of something because I couldn't get the whole building into my shot

 

[DGMPhotography]

Just read the Wikipedia article... so there are cameras/lenses that can take a picture without distortion! They're just expensive T_T