Puddle on the beach

[Cem_Usakligil]

Here's a puddle on the beach in B&W. I have done quite a lot in the pp (HDR tone mapping, LCE, lighting, selective filtering, etc) before converting into B&W. As always, I am afraid I might have overdone it. For now, I will leave it at this.

Cheers,

 

[Asher Kelman]

Showing the "is" "as": Fictive re-sculpting of rocks from an overcast sky!

Cem_Usakligil Beach Puddle original B&W presentation​

Cem,

This impressively detailed scene should be a winner. I can feel that. However, the nature of the pool seems understated and the dimensionality of the rocks muted to unimportance. Sometimes nature is not on our side at all! The quality of light is decided by the time of day, season, latitude, clouds and mist in the air. This shot might seem flat in part due to the overhead diffused lighting. It could be also as a classic case of continuing with things just a tad too long! I'm so guilty of this!

So what can be done when everything is of equal significance in a scene? I have taken the big liberty of trying to build different items of importance and the suggestion of the pool. The new dimensionality is now intended to result from direct sunlight light breaking through the clouds in the upper center left of your picture.

Cem_Usakligil Beach Puddle redited B&W presentation AK​

I'd love to have the RAW image to work on if that fits your fancy!

Asher

 

[Cem_Usakligil]

Hi Asher,

I have been editing this for more than two hours and I've lost my perspective on it. I have to step back and make a fresh start tomorrow. I like your edit as it adds depth. The pool is quite OK at bigger size, but loses focus when downsized for web. I think I will have to do multiple conversions to B&W and selectively mask/unmask parts in order to achieve a more 3-D like result. Or play with dodge/burn brush or the like. Thanks for taking your time to edit, much appreciated.

Cheers,

 

[Asher Kelman]

Expressing the gestalt of multi-modality experience in a scene to a flat photograph.

Hi Asher,

I have been editing this for more than two hours and I've lost my perspective on it. I have to step back and make a fresh start tomorrow. I like your edit as it adds depth. The pool is quite OK at bigger size, but loses focus when downsized for web. I think I will have to do multiple conversions to B&W and selectively mask/unmask parts in order to achieve a more 3-D like result. Or play with dodge/burn brush or the like. Thanks for taking your time to edit, much appreciated.

Cem,

I so appreciate you allowing my impulsiveness. I'm very interested in the challenge of making physical what we experience in spite of doing it in a flat medium. The total experience of what's near and far, the moving water, distant sounds, and occasional gulls circling and shrieking above, the smell of seaweed and the sea I call its "gestalt". Just because the light is rather flat hardly impacts on this totality of feelings. However, for the one-eyed, stationary, deaf and anosmic, (explanation here) camera, this one loss of quality of light can be the greatest challenge to taking remarkable landscape pictures where shapes and textures are the key design elements. (Of course, this light can be wonderful for portraits and many landscape shots, but here, it's not helpful for B&W work, at least where form and texture or so important).

I've been thinking a lot about the quality of light in doing my photography and realize we have to cheat and rewrite how the light is drawn when necessary to reproduce the feelings one has being actually in that scene. Looking at the rock pool with two eyes, our stereoscopic vision gives us far more 3 D sense than we can engrave in a picture just recording the light through one observation lens. In real life, as our head moves, the texture and depth of things jump out as objects nearer to us move a lot and distant trees stay still. So we have dynamic reinforcement of depth without any effort on our parts! Also there's the wind and the sound of the water from the distance and different sounds near as we move around. It's a real multi-modality gestalt of experiences just being at the rock pool and looking up towards the horizon.

So it's hardly surprising that even multiple shots through just one aperture cannot transmit to the viewer the presence of a scene. That's why I try to spend effort making layers for every object and with that layer, a set of curves and own sharpening. I use masks for every layer and that's how one best can designate importance. One masks all of each layer by selecting all and filling with 100% black and then one can pain in the area that one wants to show with black. That way, the object on each layer can be processed differently without any dodging or burning and everything is logical and allows one easily to change the percentage contribution and blending of each separate component.


One can achieve exactly the same end result with dodging and burning and there's one retoucher who just does his work that way! but then he can use the history brush and that works too to go back to any previous stage. I just feel that layers are more flexible but there are many ways of "slicing a cat"!

Asher

 

[Cem_Usakligil]

...I'd love to have the RAW image to work on if that fits your fancy!

I have sent you the link for a full sized color jpg as I converted it from raw using DxO. Otherwise you'd have a different starting point due to raw conversion differences.

Here is the color version I have ended up with after applying curves and filters in PS. This version was the basis for conversion to B&W. Just to satisfy the curious amongst you ;-)

​

PS: It was drizzling, hence the flat light.

Cheers,

 

[Ken Tanaka]

My off-the-cuff 10 second impression, for whatever it may be worth: lots of detail but no place for the eye to land. The "pool" disappears amidst the low-tide rubble; it's the least attractive area of the image. So the eye keeps traveling up to that bright horizon.

Even when the overall scene is the subject you need to create a gentle framework for the eye. Before you re-shoot this, experiment by trying various crops from this image. Abandon your emotional ties to the shot and try some extreme crops to get a sense of how to best tackle this scene next.

 

[Cem_Usakligil]

My off-the-cuff 10 second impression, for whatever it may be worth: lots of detail but no place for the eye to land. The "pool" disappears amidst the low-tide rubble; it's the least attractive area of the image. So the eye keeps traveling up to that bright horizon.

Even when the overall scene is the subject you need to create a gentle framework for the eye. Before you re-shoot this, experiment by trying various crops from this image. Abandon your emotional ties to the shot and try some extreme crops to get a sense of how to best tackle this scene next.

Good advice Ken, I will do that. But I don't have any emotional ties with this picture. I got hooked because of the richness of details even though I realize that there is no real landing place for the eye.

Cheers,

 

[Bart_van_der_Wolf]

Here is the color version I have ended up with after applying curves and filters in PS. This version was the basis for conversion to B&W. Just to satisfy the curious amongst you ;-)

Hi Cem,

I understand why you stopped to take the image (and I prefer the color version). Unfortunately the composition, as nature presents it, is not always perfect. The top right lacks a bit of enclosure, so the eye wanders out of the image too easily, and the needs to be an eye catcher to return atention on.

My off-the-cuff 10 second impression, for whatever it may be worth: lots of detail but no place for the eye to land. The "pool" disappears amidst the low-tide rubble; it's the least attractive area of the image. So the eye keeps traveling up to that bright horizon.

I agree with the analysis.

If Cem doesn't mind, I've edited the original a bit, but he may be able to do it better based on some other images he might have taken at the same location.

I've moved the orange/red rock closer to the puddle and nearer a golden section position (it will be possible to do a more convincing job on a larger image to work with). I added some landmass at the top right (just a horizontal flip of the top left). I also added a bit of vignetting for more focus on the puddle.

Perhaps I also should have added some red saturation to the lighter rusty rock a bit lower to the right of the orange one, to repeat the orange tones a bit more.

Cheers,
Bart

 

[Asher Kelman]

Hi Cem,

I understand why you stopped to take the image (and I prefer the color version). Unfortunately the composition, as nature presents it, is not always perfect. The top right lacks a bit of enclosure, so the eye wanders out of the image too easily, and the needs to be an eye catcher to return atention on.



I agree with the analysis.

If Cem doesn't mind, I've edited the original a bit, but he may be able to do it better based on some other images he might have taken at the same location.

I've moved the orange/red rock closer to the puddle and nearer a golden section position (it will be possible to do a more convincing job on a larger image to work with). I added some landmass at the top right (just a horizontal flip of the top left). I also added a bit of vignetting for more focus on the puddle.

Perhaps I also should have added some red saturation to the lighter rusty rock a bit lower to the right of the orange one, to repeat the orange tones a bit more.

Despite Ken's good advice, Bart you have put a lot more effort into this stubborn picture. Your work did help close off one escape of the eye. Below, there is a feeling that there is a pattern of a circle of rocks from the upper left clockwise down to the lower right. Your addition does bring that possibility out.

I too have spent a lot more time with this, again against sterling council! I have tried very hard deal with the untidiness and derive some pleasure from the elements in the image. I finally got reduced to a long series of abstract mathematical derivatives which, if shown, might very well be all the evidence needed to send the men in white coats!

Cem, please go back to shooting something defined and simple! There must be a sparrow looking at it's reflection in a puddle at the corner of an empty parking garage. Oops, that's Cedric Massoulier's picture!

Asher

 

[Cem_Usakligil]

Despite Ken's good advice, Bart you have put a lot more effort into this stubborn picture. Your work did help close off one escape of the eye. Below, there is a feeling that there is a pattern of a circle of rocks from the upper left clockwise down to the lower right. Your addition does bring that possibility out.

I too have spent a lot more time with this, again against sterling council! I have tried very hard deal with the untidiness and derive some pleasure from the elements in the image. I finally got reduced to a long series of abstract mathematical derivatives which, if shown, might very well be all the evidence needed to send the men in white coats!

Cem, please go back to shooting something defined and simple! There must be a sparrow looking at it's reflection in a puddle at the corner of an empty parking garage. Oops, that's Cedric Massoulier's picture!

Asher

Hi Asher, Bart,

Mea culpa, mea culpa....I am so sorry to hear about the effort you have put into this. As I told Asher in a PM, it is not really worth it and your time is very precious. But I appreciate the results and I have really enjoyed seeing the improvements achieved by Bart subtle changes. So here is a lesson I have (re)learned today: I should not post a picture again unless I am convinced about it myself. And I need to step back from any picture for a while in order to decide whether I am convinced or not. As it turns out, I got carried away yesterday spending way too much time on the PP. That in itself should have been the warning signal to me that the image just doesn't have the right "chemistry".

So all in all, this reminds me of an age-old saying in Turkish. Loosely tranlated it reads;

If a madman throws a pebble into the well, it takes 40 wise men to get the pebble out of the well again.

LOL

Cheers,

 

[Bart_van_der_Wolf]

Hi Asher, Bart,

Mea culpa, mea culpa....I am so sorry to hear about the effort you have put into this.

Not to worry, I only do that when it is worth while, when there is some potential. I just wanted to demonstrate that not all is lost when nature didn't nail it for us. And it was a nice bit of exercise in Photoshop.

So here is a lesson I have (re)learned today: I should not post a picture again unless I am convinced about it myself. And I need to step back from any picture for a while in order to decide whether I am convinced or not.

Well, for you that might work, afterall you do have a good eye for composition. When you have doubts, they are usually justified. Others may need a bit of coaching, and can learn from the dilemma as it is being addressed.

As it turns out, I got carried away yesterday spending way too much time on the PP. That in itself should have been the warning signal to me that the image just doesn't have the right "chemistry".

Yes, a 'good' image usually doesn't need to be rescued by postprocessing, but it can almost always be improved by it.

Cheers,
Bart

 

[Asher Kelman]

Hi Asher, Bart,

Mea culpa, mea culpa....I am so sorry to hear about the effort you have put into this. As I told Asher in a PM, it is not really worth it and your time is very precious. But I appreciate the results and I have really enjoyed seeing the improvements achieved by Bart subtle changes.

Hi Cem,

No need to give a mea calpa!

Cem and Ken,

Why spend the time and effort? Just a glance at the picture made me feel that there was a lot of nature and intriguing possibilities but it lacked any unity of concept.

Like Bart, I looked at is a challenge to try to connect with what was positive in the image. I tried for example using the top for a panorama of the beach with the two islands of green. That was interesting but didn't seem defined enough and something was missing. I tried working with the reflections of the rocks in the pool and that was to cluttered and not interesting. The seaweed on the left looked promising for several reasons. First it had strands going in directions that I could imagine where Van Gogh brush-strokes filled in with plant life. However I couldn't get a defined form from this.

Finally I worked to unite the entire foreground by shifting the colors so a new total entity was formed to complement my imagined strip of panorama on the top 15-20% of the picture. I liked it but have regrets to have changed someone else's concept as it was not at all about the pool now, not even a pretense. At that point, I realized that I had abstracted the photograph and perhaps stretched its origin too far. However, the struggle did help me focus on the simple truth of the matter, the picture needs some clarity of an idea or motif and appealing composition features. Here all that was missing.

Asher