Photo Assignment #4: Softness

I know the whole flower thing has been done a couple times, but it's what I had available while on a business trip to Atlanta.

In my attempt to attain softness, I upped the ISO to 6400, put the vase on the bathroom counter, turned on the shower to full hot and took the picture of the mirror fully fogged up.


A700 50 mm f/5 ISO 6400 1/200

Edited by H3 - 08 November 2009 at 03:08

Kevin - fantastic... see you are thinking outside the square... very good (although being a rose lover I would have preferred more of the stem) A business trip you say... with flowers???

Desiree - would love to see you try this again... the photo should be enhanced by the softness...

Tropicalwonderlust and others

Sorry it took so long but you might have seen that Rosie has been promoted to moderator emeritus today and handed over the baton on judging assignments to me. Rosie, thanks for your relentless effort to keep the assignments going and check in once in a while to tell us what you think of the pics posted here.

Now back to your shots, for me a definite improvement in composition and picture quality of your previous submission. In the first the white/green/blue batons still give a strange feeling to the picture since we don't know what we're looking at but the second has a very nice "flow" to it and there's just enough shapes visible in the background to give it some context. So with that one it's a definite pass for me !

@ Tropicalwonderlust, good question because it's hard to answer. I just "like" the second picture a whole lot better. It's more consistent in color, the lines/eddies of the flames/glow zones all work together and in general the softness enhances the picture so much that I'm not missing one sharp point or zone to rest the eye on.

The first has more discontinuities, color contrast and no real relationship between the straight batons and the flames/glow zones and somehow I miss not seeing what we're looking at.

I know it's vague and judgemental and maybe other mods/AE's can chime in and add their opinion on these shots.

Last but not least, if you only posted 1 would it have been a pass. Speculation but it might be a yes, I just find 2 much more pleasing to look at.

This assignment was not as simple as it seemed in the start. I decided to create a picture in the style of old pictorialism. I shot in raw+jpg in sepia, but they were not soft enough. To soften the picture more I had to put an old nylon stocking in front of the lens - then it came out like this:



I also made some shots through a bag of clear plastic with a whole in the middle.
At first I didn't like the outcome, but after giving the picture a tough round with levels I found it more satisfying:

Cam - I think that the first one evokes a feeling of softness to my eye. The soft lighting complements the soft subject matter. The second is a big no (quick hide it j-ew before Pegelli comes along ).

Speaking of Pegelli, I think we need a tie-breaker here. One for and one against passing.

Frank

I thought #1 was a pass when I first saw it, for the reasons Frank mentions, and I think it accomplishes the "soft sadness" and "melancholy" you describe. So by a score of 2-to-1, you officially pass. On to your next assignment.