Some beach pics of the mommy and daddy :) CnC please :)

shortpballer · Sep 3, 2009

Took these on the beach in Hawaii. Let me know what you guys think.

#1

#2

chammer · Sep 3, 2009

i love their expression and connection in #1. #2 i cant decide just yet. am kinda leaning to thinking they'd be better a bit further away, but i really enjoy the hand holding and closeness.

shortpballer · Sep 3, 2009

I had a whole bunch farther away. But I felt like it was about them, and not the scenery. So I chose the closer ones because it accentuates them...

chammer · Sep 3, 2009

maybe the scenery shouldnt be so pretty then as i cant help but wonder whats behind his head

but hey...at least your horizon is straight heh heh

in all seriousness though i like them, but they seem to contrast. i focus 100% on them in the first one, but in the 2nd i see them but my focus is more on the background, and the foot prints in the sand.

max3k · Sep 4, 2009

is it me, or does it look like her foot is chopped off in #1

fiveoboy01 · Sep 4, 2009

Good job on #1.

I'm assuming you used flash for #2? If so do you think you could have underexposed the ambient a bit more to get more color in the sky? The composition of this photo bothers me but I don't know why. Either the angle of the distance, not sure which.

syphlix · Sep 4, 2009

his head looks fuzzy to me in #2

shortpballer · Sep 4, 2009

fiveoboy01 said:
Good job on #1.

I'm assuming you used flash for #2? If so do you think you could have underexposed the ambient a bit more to get more color in the sky? The composition of this photo bothers me but I don't know why. Either the angle of the distance, not sure which.

Yes I used a flash. The angle could be whats bothering you considering I was using shooting at 12mm... so it makes them both look a little distorted and "taller"

hopdaddy · Sep 4, 2009

I like both,good job! did you do a silhouette on #2 pose?may be too cliché but i think it would have made a good shot

shortpballer · Sep 4, 2009

I think I did do a silhoutte of the second one but it looked a little too cliche like you said...

512 · Sep 4, 2009

#1 is beautiful, very good job!

shortpballer · Sep 4, 2009

512 said:
#1 is beautiful, very good job!

Thank you

I really like their expressions in #1. I think it tells the viewer that they really are happy not just posing...

CamCracker · Sep 4, 2009

max3k said:
is it me, or does it look like her foot is chopped off in #1

I think it is just bent to the point where it looks that way. I don't know.

Great pics!

Derrel · Sep 4, 2009

I think that both images could benefit from more local contrast. The pictures themselves convey romantic closeness,and that's what's nice abut them. I do think that whenever one tries to encompass this wide of a dynamic range, there's a tendency for the finished image to look a bit flat, and low-contrast, especially if one has used the highlight/shadow tool or something like that to get detail in both the highlights and the shadows.

I think both shots would benefit from boosting the local contrast,which is the difference between tones that are close to one another. The overall contrast, or the range between the brightest sky and the darkest shadow values, is very high. A quick way to see how this might look better would be to use Unsharp Mask as a contrast boosting method, by applying USM in a rather odd way. Something like 30 percent, with a radius of 250 pixels, and a Threshold value of 0 will magically boost local contrast, while maintaining similar overall contrast. I tried it on your original B&W and that looked almost perfect to me.

Here it is in its 500 pixel length incarnation,with boosted local contrast done by the above Unsharp Masking method
url=http://www.thephotoforum.com/photos/showphoto.php/photo/7619]

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