What makes these two photographs so stunning?

[Sw1tchFX]

that second one really looks like it hurts!!

 

[mwcfarms]

Wheat stubble is softer than one might think, now if it was canola stalks I would agree.

 

[Jinkxproof]

I like the creaminess of the skin in the second shot. I'm not sure how the photographer has achieved such an even milkiness but its lovely.

 

[Big Mike]

 

[KmH]

What makes these two photographs so stunning?

A young man's hormones (hormoans?).....or an untrained eye.

 

[Photo Marksman]

What makes these two photographs so stunning?

A young man's hormones (hormoans?).....or an untrained eye.

I appreciate pictures of men too you know. It has nothing to do with the fact that all these women are beautiful. If you look at this picture, I also think it is a very interesting image.

http://fc03.deviantart.net/fs42/i/2009/086/f/d/That_Smile____by_DeviousClown.jpg

I don't know what I like about the other images but it may just be the fact that they stand out. What makes a good picture in your opinion?

 

[Sbuxo]

You should check out Nirrimi Hakanson, she's amazing (in my opinion).
On flickr, search for Lucia Pang and Alexandra Sophie, they're also good, their photographs are captivating to me, they're more like fashion portraits though.

 

[GeneralBenson]

The first one looks like she's being choked by a tiny pair of mittens...

Exactly what I thought!!

I find nothing captivating about these from an artistic standpoint, nor do they have much merit from a technical standpoint either.

I suspect that they are captivating to you because they look different than most of what you've seen, which gives them a uniqueness in your eye. But mostly, I think they are captivating because you don't know how they were pulled off. As you learn more and more about techniques and how things are done, you'll be surprised how many images you used to think captivating were just so on the basis of their mystery of creation. Once you know the how, you'll find that a lot of the stuff used to captivate you so much was just bad photos with pretty good processing.

The same thing goes for lighting. So many people see images with in-your-face, complex, multiple light setups, and are all like, "OMG, that's so amazing! I'm so captivated by the lighting!" When in reality, they're just captivated by the mystery of how it was done. I went through the same phase. And the more I learned about lighting and began to understand how things were done, the more I realized that most of them were just pretty good lighting setups, for otherwise pretty crappy photos.

Post-processing and lighting are both nothing more then skills. Nothing more than means to an end. It doesn't matter if it was natural light on a cloudy day, or a 5 light setup. It doesn't matter if you spend 3 days in photoshop, or just bumped contrast and sharpened. The final result is what matter, and if under it all there isn't a good photo, than it doesn't matter what you pile on top of it. If all your photos have going for them is great lighting, then you're just a lighting technician. If all your photos have going for them is great post, then you're just a photoshop artist. Nothing wrong with either of those, I'm just saying. But if you make great images, regardless of how, then you are a photographer.

That's my two cents, atleast...

 

[Photo Marksman]

The first one looks like she's being choked by a tiny pair of mittens...

Exactly what I thought!!

I find nothing captivating about these from an artistic standpoint, nor do they have much merit from a technical standpoint either.

I suspect that they are captivating to you because they look different than most of what you've seen, which gives them a uniqueness in your eye. But mostly, I think they are captivating because you don't know how they were pulled off. As you learn more and more about techniques and how things are done, you'll be surprised how many images you used to think captivating were just so on the basis of their mystery of creation. Once you know the how, you'll find that a lot of the stuff used to captivate you so much was just bad photos with pretty good processing.

The same thing goes for lighting. So many people see images with in-your-face, complex, multiple light setups, and are all like, "OMG, that's so amazing! I'm so captivated by the lighting!" When in reality, they're just captivated by the mystery of how it was done. I went through the same phase. And the more I learned about lighting and began to understand how things were done, the more I realized that most of them were just pretty good lighting setups, for otherwise pretty crappy photos.

Post-processing and lighting are both nothing more then skills. Nothing more than means to an end. It doesn't matter if it was natural light on a cloudy day, or a 5 light setup. It doesn't matter if you spend 3 days in photoshop, or just bumped contrast and sharpened. The final result is what matter, and if under it all there isn't a good photo, than it doesn't matter what you pile on top of it. If all your photos have going for them is great lighting, then you're just a lighting technician. If all your photos have going for them is great post, then you're just a photoshop artist. Nothing wrong with either of those, I'm just saying. But if you make great images, regardless of how, then you are a photographer.

That's my two cents, atleast...

You speak true! I am indeed very curious about the technique used. With three of these pictures I contacted the creator asking me how they had been made, they had gotten it right in the camera. The others all did some sort of post processing.

 

[GeneralBenson]

Well, neither of the photos that are linked in the original post are straight out of the camera. They might have gotten it right, out of the box, and far as exposure and such goes. But there is still additional post work on both of those.

 

[o hey tyler]

Done, I removed the images and put some links. The second one just has a high ISO then? You don't think there was post processing?

They shot it at 200 ISO for whatever reason at f/2.8 (this is the second photo you posted, the one in the field). If it were me, I would have just over exposed at ISO 100; as their shutter speed was 1/5000s @ ISO 200, so they definitely had some shutter speed leeway. However they were shooting with a 5D2 so there's not going to be much, if any noise at ISO 200 as it is.

That's really the only photo I cared for, and it was mostly for the location.

 

[djacobox372]

Looks to me like you prefer washed out skin tones, and limited/controlled color palettes.

All easy to achieve in photoshop.

 

[robEMPire]

What I'm seeing is a bunch of wide-eyed women with pale skin and dark hair in a setting that contains other contrasting textures.

 

[Christie Photo]

What makes these two photographs so stunning?

A young man's hormones (hormoans?).....or an untrained eye.

Well...probably. Really!

These images are meant to portray beauty. The first best step in achieving this is securing beautiful models. These same images made with less beautiful models would be less stunning.

-Pete

 

[thomphoto]

Both are boring to me.

This should be a valuable lesson in art. People have widely different tastes.

Ditto!