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Just for Fun No C&C will be given: Alucine

Leonardo Boher

pro member
Well, I don't plan my photographs. I'm in a fight between planning or not planning my pictures. I just saw an amazing light quality coming from the window and I put my girlfriend in the place, then I shot.
I give it to the picture the color I like most, and it's yelowish an its variants. I have been editing this portrait in Lightroom for 8 hours in order to get the propper tone. A very subtle editing.

Here is the result. Enjoy :)

AlucineBaroquePortrait-3257.png
 

Asher Kelman

OPF Owner/Editor-in-Chief
Alucine is made breathless, beautiful and at the same time not second to anyone. You show women with dignity and respect. The tonality is gentle. The quality is that of lost times with great cameras and long exposures on glass plates.

Leonardo,

This is important and special. This demands my respect for both of you. Any minor comments are put aside. Now is just for enjoyment and appreciation. Every minute is worthwhile in the 8 hours you spent. Kudos! I'm happy for you and what you have created. This is one image I will return to many times.

Asher
 
Well, I don't plan my photographs. I'm in a fight between planning or not planning my pictures. I just saw an amazing light quality coming from the window and I put my girlfriend in the place, then I shot.
I give it to the picture the color I like most, and it's yelowish an its variants. I have been editing this portrait in Lightroom for 8 hours in order to get the propper tone. A very subtle editing.

Here is the result. Enjoy :)

Hi Leonardo,

Very nice atmosphere, it underlines the delicacy of your girlfriend.
The tonality is of old photographs or aging varnish and the lighting reminds me of the old master painters, like Rembrandt van Rijn (they mostly had to use natural light).

Small niggle, try to avoid her looking too much from the corners of her eyes. The whites of the eye become too dominant and make the eyes bulge a bit.

Well done, I enjoyed seeing it.
Bart
 

janet Smith

pro member
Hello Leonardo

This is a really beautiful shot, as is Alucine, so nice to see a naturally beautiful face without make-up, she has no need for it though with such beautiful eyes and delicate bone structure. I wonder what she was thinking? The lighting is perfect, soft, gentle, feminine, subtle, I absolutely love it, very well done!

Jan
 

Leonardo Boher

pro member
Hi Janet,


"How long is this going to take, Leonardo?"

Best regards,

Doug

Yeap, exactly. She's quite bored about photos. I pursuit her for a pic and say that will be quick, no more than3 pics, or I just say "Keep doing what you're doing", I will take you some photographs. But yes, she thinks that: how long it will take... Hmpf!!! Hmpf!!!
 

Ken Tanaka

pro member
This is a nice image that's very close to being genuinely excellent and exquisite. But since you "don't plan" your images there's no point offering a critique (that you didn't solicit anyway).

Very pretty lady, very soft light.
 

Asher Kelman

OPF Owner/Editor-in-Chief
This is a nice image that's very close to being genuinely excellent and exquisite. But since you "don't plan" your images there's no point offering a critique (that you didn't solicit anyway).

Very pretty lady, very soft light.
Ken,

I know Leonardo introduced us to this picture with the idea that he doesn't plan. However, here, he saw the light, and put Alucine there. He chose the way he'd photograph her, so that was already a plan made fast to exploit opportunity of the perfect light and the proximity and willingness of his lovely girlfriend. So I'd say this is planned.

Of course it didn't require her hair to be cut or face made up by an artist or a special backdrop or lights. Still it should be, to us for discussion, at least, a plan made on impulse and inspired by his esthetic taste.

Asher
 

Andy brown

Well-known member
Leonardo.
Hmmm! Leonardo?
Who did he paint again?
Title it 'Mon Alucine'..and gift it to her signed "your leonardo"....she'll marry you for sure!
 

Asher Kelman

OPF Owner/Editor-in-Chief
Leonardo.
Hmmm! Leonardo?
Who did he paint again?
Title it 'Mon Alucine'..and gift it to her signed "your leonardo"....she'll marry you for sure!

All that glitters is not gold
All that's gold can't be sold!
Time, time, time is on her side


Asher
 

Leonardo Boher

pro member
Alucine is made breathless, beautiful and at the same time not second to anyone. You show women with dignity and respect. The tonality is gentle. The quality is that of lost times with great cameras and long exposures on glass plates.

Leonardo,

This is important and special. This demands my respect for both of you. Any minor comments are put aside. Now is just for enjoyment and appreciation. Every minute is worthwhile in the 8 hours you spent. Kudos! I'm happy for you and what you have created. This is one image I will return to many times.

Asher

Hi Asher :)

Well... Yeah, I show women with dignnity and respect. I feel them that way but women is not such thing around the neighborhood, you know, I idealize too much and then I see the real thing and that makes me cry. Why the system has to corrupt young ladies!? With all those advertisements! Fakes! Make up! Artificial beauty that I hate. I already told you how men has to be in order to achieve a female, but I erased it... A trilion of megatones of feelings pass through my heart. I'm just blind by option, too much beauty hurts deeply. I have had dreams, mate. Dreams about young ladies, backlight from the sun, wind making the hair dance andALWAYS like a sine wave... You don't knowwhy sine waves, but I will tell you. Sine Waves are young ladies. A single harmonic that oscillates pretty slow among hundredths... My head again. It's like death by beauty, a heart attack of passion without control. I have never got that shot, it's too much for my heart.
 

Leonardo Boher

pro member
Ken,

I know Leonardo introduced us to this picture with the idea that he doesn't plan. However, here, he saw the light, and put Alucine there. He chose the way he'd photograph her, so that was already a plan made fast to exploit opportunity of the perfect light and the proximity and willingness of his lovely girlfriend. So I'd say this is planned.

Of course it didn't require her hair to be cut or face made up by an artist or a special backdrop or lights. Still it should be, to us for discussion, at least, a plan made on impulse and inspired by his esthetic taste.

Asher

Never so perfectly explained, Asher... I'm thinking on young ladies right now. I'm sorry... Man... Have you ever seen those little hairs in the young ladies nose? They're appealing. Same those in the neck, Have you ever seen young ladies from Estonia? I would die to photograph one of them. With those dresses, all flourished and smooth... Always the same face, smiling and tenderness, bright eyes, no lustfull shapes, gentle eyes with glow, her necks, long nekcs and fine necks with shy ears, the eyes shoud be like a rainbow shaped. It's an illusion.
 

Leonardo Boher

pro member
Leonardo.
Hmmm! Leonardo?
Who did he paint again?
Title it 'Mon Alucine'..and gift it to her signed "your leonardo"....she'll marry you for sure!

Well... I used to write poetry and seal them into those packets that contains violin strings, with lacre and all that romantic stuff. Did some drawings as well, but after 10 years of doing the same and be taken like a crazy and rejected by women, I decided the direct way: grab. And it worked in a snap. 10 years of rejection and pain. I'm still suffering, anyway... I have my girlfriend, who I love but it wasn't with some preludes and fuge for harpsichord. No. It wans't. I don't know where I have a track, an stabat matter, ity has a soprano tehre, singing like an angel, I cnanot find that track. I have 5 years without listening baroque... Too much perfection and planet eart has lot of bipeds, at least, around the nighborhood. I have that track in some place... So you will be able to listen it. >I want to touch the soul, but that is impossible. The body intercepts between soul and soul. This song is young ladies souls made, angels from the space that are here to shwos us that we're miserable humans jailed by meat. How consiousness depends on something so materialistic like cells. The conciousness is beyond blood and primitive organs, how can it be attahced to that primitive form of organic life. Here is the track, so you can feel young ladies in its most glorious esscence here
 

Ivan Garcia

New member
You must have ended up exhausted after such a lengthy editing session. But, it was very worthy, the end result is nothing short of spectacular.
Would you care to share the steps you took in the creation of this wonderful image with us?
 

Leonardo Boher

pro member
You must have ended up exhausted after such a lengthy editing session. But, it was very worthy, the end result is nothing short of spectacular.
Would you care to share the steps you took in the creation of this wonderful image with us?

Hi,

First of all, thanks for your kind comment :)

Well... The editing is not based on steps, like I do at work. It's more a feeling than a process, I know almost 100% how Lightroom works, so I just adjust the image as I have it in mind and hearth. I already knew what I wanted to achieve with this portrait after the shoot.
I personally like a lot the warm tones and that kind of softh light. I have bought an umbrella that I use with a TTL Flash, but I cannot achieve the same lighting effect :(

Coming back to the editing. I enhanced a bit the shadows by using curves, also reduced a bit the clarity slider in order to smooth a bit the image, recovered some highlights and muted a bit the highlights, making the histogram a bit shorter. The color editing was firstly in her skin tone, making it even by using the HSL panel. I use a lot the HSL panel in order to correct the image and enhance some colors by using luminosity. Something that Lightroom lacks is in a L*a*b* mode. There is no way to work with luminance or chrominance like in Capture NX. In Lightroom, some tasks can be balanced by using other parameters as counterweights, but others just not.
After the HSL, I play with White Balance and tint, using extreme values because they can be compensated by using recovery, brightness, vibrance and saturation. So, if you are editing a picture and you go too far and the image looks posterized, just find another way to compensate that deffect (without reversing to where you've started) and you will achieve wonderful effects. Also using the Camera Calibration Panel, you can bring more color, change colors and also change the luminosity of the picture, it's like another way to gives brightness and contrast to the image, same with Temperature and Tint.

Fisrtly, I don't use Lightroom in the way it was meant (expusure to correcty exposure, recovery to recover highlights), I know what does each slider and how they affect the picture, cause I use it to correct picture at work, but using Lightroom the other way around it was meant is the key.

Sometimes I subexpose a lot, then I recover brightness by using temperature and tint. Sometimes I over saturate the picture by using the Temperature slider, then I desaturate with Vibrance... Sometimes I do contrast with HSL... It's a shame that Lightroom hasn't more parameters like NX, but's it's faster and the UI is all there and you don't need to add panels, like in NX...

That's all what I can say.

Thanks,

Leo :)
 

Asher Kelman

OPF Owner/Editor-in-Chief
Alucine Revisited: A Portrait of A Young Woman That Takes Possession of the Viewer!

;71996 said:
Well, I don't plan my photographs. I'm in a fight between planning or not planning my pictures. I just saw an amazing light quality coming from the window and I put my girlfriend in the place, then I shot.
I give it to the picture the color I like most, and it's yelowish an its variants. I have been editing this portrait in Lightroom for 8 hours in order to get the propper tone. A very subtle editing.

Here is the result. Enjoy :)


AlucineBaroquePortrait-3257.png


Leonardo Boher Alucine

I remembered this portrait today and decided to bring Alucine back to the public view. For me this is one of the most significant portraits I have seen in recent years. Tell me if I'm just bewitched or this is as important as I seem to believe!

Asher
 
Last edited:

Doug Earle

New member
Exquisite

This is simply exquisite. Light, shadows, tonality that gives it an ageless feel. A model that is a real human in real human relationships.
 

fahim mohammed

Well-known member
Leonardo, a timeless quality to the image. days gone by. I am standing in a museum looking at a painting.

I shall mark it as one of favorite portraits i have seen.

Best.
 
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