Walking the Dog

[peter27]

View attachment 53174

Spotmatic SP
Kodak 200
Pentacon 29mm

 

[The_Traveler]

Like most other pictures, the problem here can be traced to the light.
The unimportant areas are bright and colorful, the important areas are dark.
There's no way to get this 'right' in the camera and not much 'fixing' can be done on this small picture.
An additional comment is that the center of interest, the woman and her dog, are very small in the frame.

Lew

 

[tirediron]

...There's no way to get this 'right' in the camera...

I agree with everything that Lew said, EXCEPT this. I think if you'd waited 'til the lady and Rover had walked a few more steps into the sunlight, this would have worked much better, and also rendered them larger in the frame.

 

[peter27]

Like most other pictures, the problem here can be traced to the light.
The unimportant areas are bright and colorful, the important areas are dark.
There's no way to get this 'right' in the camera and not much 'fixing' can be done on this small picture.
An additional comment is that the center of interest, the woman and her dog, are very small in the frame.

Lew

...There's no way to get this 'right' in the camera...

I agree with everything that Lew said, EXCEPT this. I think if you'd waited 'til the lady and Rover had walked a few more steps into the sunlight, this would have worked much better, and also rendered them larger in the frame.

Thanks both.

Lew, the light was way too strong with far too much contrast in the scene to pull this off, but I liked the look of it and gave it a go anyway. It was worth one frame even if I'm old enough to know better!

John, I know, I know but I didn't really want to spoil her enjoyment of the flowers by waiting till she was close enough to notice me and my camera.

 

[peter27]

View attachment 53374

Taking the feedback into consideration I've cropped this to a 16:10 aspect ratio so that the lady and her dog are bigger in frame, and I've run it through Elements 8 to bring the darker areas up by about 20%. Any thoughts?

 

[Derrel]

Last week, amolitor linked TPF readers to a wonderful video entitled "Bridging the Gap/ Classical Art Designed for Photographers", sponsored by B&H Photo. As pointed out in that video, the real problem here is the subject, the woman, does not separate well from the background. She is dark, and seen against a darkish background, and so although you've named this picture after a person, who is walking a dog, the actual image content rerally does not SHOW HER and the dog as the most-importnat part of the shot.

The video can be seen here. Bridging the Gap: Classical Art Designed for Photographers | BH inDepth

 

[peter27]

Last week, amolitor linked TPF readers to a wonderful video entitled "Bridging the Gap/ Classical Art Designed for Photographers", sponsored by B&H Photo. As pointed out in that video, the real problem here is the subject, the woman, does not separate well from the background. She is dark, and seen against a darkish background, and so although you've named this picture after a person, who is walking a dog, the actual image content rerally does not SHOW HER and the dog as the most-importnat part of the shot.

The video can be seen here. Bridging the Gap: Classical Art Designed for Photographers | BH inDepth

This is true, Derrel. I didn't take the shot in the first place to capture her and her dog, I was drawn rather to the flowers along the wall and the building in the background. She just happened to walk into my frame as I was metering the shot and I thought she might add a little interest and break up the otherwise negative space in the left of shot. The title just sort of came to me but afterwards I couldn't help thinking this was an unfortunate choice.

Maybe I should have waited till she had walked past and taken the shot as I intended it to be. Live and learn. Thanks for the link.

 

[Derrel]

You know what? When I look at the photo, the flowers immediately pop to the forefront inside my brain...and those white window frames on that dark building front almost jump out at me. SO, in a way, the doggone background, the building and its white windows, is a very important area to my eye. But I still look at the flowers a lot.

 

[amolitor]

I think you might be able to make something of this not by bringing her up, but by pushing contrast down everywhere else.

De-emphasize those window frames in the background, and tone down the whites along the sunlit wall. Make that white spot of light on her hair The Most Important Thing. Then perhaps dodge a similar spot on the dog -- there is a mild highlight on top of the dog's head, bring that up to make it the second most important thing.

I'm not saying it'll work, and it won't really be a picture of a woman, it'll be a picture of her hair But it might work better!