Hi Asher,
Firstly, let me tell you how much I appreciate the time and effort you put into analyzing and critiquing our pictures. Your C&C is an incredible source of information for all of us. Thank you so much for doing this; not only for me but for all OPFers.
Perhaps I should provide you with some background info first about the reason of existence of these pictures and some technical highlights since it is relevant to why I did things in a certain way.
I went to shoot last Friday with the following objectives in my mind:
1) I wanted to shoot pictures which could eventually be a part of my
portals portfolio.
2) The pictures had to be as simple as possible but no simpler than that.
3) As usual, the elements of time, choices and mystery all had to be present: The pictures should make the lookers think/feel something.
While considering the possible locations for the impromptu shoot, I've realized that this particular location would be perfect. I have been there many times before and I know the situation rather well. I even did shoots there in the past; film as well as digital. This was an advantage as I did not want to lose a lot of time surveying a new location first. Also, I wanted to utilize the potential of my TSE 24mm II lens, which is the ideal lens to not only keep the verticals straight but also to deal with the focusing challenges. The DoF required and shooting in such close quarters could be a problem for a non T/S lens.
The chambers were all lit by some natural light seeping in through openings or windows; I have used no artificial lighting. Due to the fact that it was bright sunlight outside and very dark in some of the chambers, the pictures had to cover a huge dynamic range. This meant that all the pictures (except for the final context shoot of the bunker) are actually bracketed exposures varying from 5 to 9 brackets each (1EV apart). I have taken extreme precautions in creating a natural looking tone mapping (using SNS-HDR); in order to prevent the much dreaded HDR look. I take pride in the fact that nobody as yet has referred to the pictures as being HDR which means that I have achieved natural looking results as I intended to.
I have taken only 11 pictures during the shoot, 9 of them according to the goals I have stipulated above and 2 context shots just to show the environment) . It is a lot of hard and time consuming work finding the precise composition which speaks to you, then setting up the camera on a tripod and fiddling with the T/S settings and finally evaluating the exposure and taking the required brackets. In some cases, additional shifting/bracketing had to be done so that I could flat stitch later. Knowing the location and knowing my own goals, I could limit the number of pictures to an absolute minimum and focus on getting the ones I took right in one go. Eventually, I was extremely happy to realize that I have ended up with some 6-7 good pictures out of the 9 I took. Whether some of these can be classified as more than good remains to be seen. As I wrote in my initial post, I have processed these right after the shoot and I am certain that I shall change a few things in a few months' time when I revisit the pictures.
....These all need an exploration of the effects of restricting the lighting distribution. Remember, this was a time when, once again, the animal brutality of man overcame decency and the lights went out in Europe and people were brutalized and slaughtered. Where was hope in these dark spaces? One cannot simply show these pictures as well lit spaces.
As for the debris, I'd take them as is and then meticulously remove it all, out of respect to the folk that lost their youth and even lives there.
It was extremely difficult to get the lighting looking natural. I personally think that I did a good job in observing the relative tonalities of various parts of the image with respect to each other. When doing tone mapping, one can inadvertently generate areas with wrong levels of luminosity although the spontaneous contrast can look right. A while back there was a discussion in OPF with some example images. So yes, the light distribution can be improved but I fear not by much. I can of course make the brightness lower in some of the pictures and burn/dodge some parts here and there. However, the lighting of the pictures as presented is pretty much according to my personal vision at this moment. After all, this is not an experimental accident but a deliberate result achieved by conscious effort on my part.
Re. the removal of debris, I think I have answered above to Cedric and later to John why I won't even consider moving things around let alone remove them. I don't feel the obligation of expressing a respect to the folk that lost their youth or lives in there in my pictures. Needless to say, I respect all that as a person, I just want to make clear that these pictures are not created for that particular purpose. I have written to you in my "
A day at the beach" thread that I don't think it is my job as the artist to show both sides of the medallion with my photography. I am by definition subjective and I create a product which should fit into the creative vision/reasons I have at that moment.
"Wrap up"? Nah! I doubt that you can do that so fast! This is such a rich beginning! You have covered a substantial amount of material in a few pictures. You obviously are reproducing for us exactly what you saw. But is that enough, just a clinical or forensic report of what anyone else would have seen that day with you? I think not! But why would what you have carefully produced come up short? It's because you know of the sacrifices the young boys made, of the decisions by the central government to place men in these bunkers as the first line of defense to absorb the shock of the Werhmacht invasion machine, knowing that to a man these folk might be sacrificed by the time that the defensive forces arrived to push back the invaders. You would know of the meaning of the concrete walls to the folk in the inside as it was the last things on earth they saw.
With "wrap up" I meant that there were no more pictures of this shoot to show. Of course I will do some adjustments in the post processing going forward. When you say that I am reproducing for you what exactly I saw, you are making an assumption. It would be a right one had you said that I was reproducing what I saw in my mind. I should admit that If these pictures are seen as merely clinical or forensic reports which apparently come up short, then I have totally screwed things up. The sacrifices made in these locations should make no difference as to what an unknowing looker should feel about these images. The picture should stand on its own without an explanation of the context and history.
BTW, these are bunkers built by the Germans to keep the Allied forces at bay, not the other way around.
So the question is this. Do you want to show what everyone else shows? To a considerable extent, that is defined by the designers of the camera and lens, once you point the camera. Or, do you use you own libraries of experience? After all, you are no naive and innocent tourist! Consider who you are: the master of a collection of images spanning centuries of prayer, meditation, daily life, the arts and now war. I urge you to bring this to these pictures, you have chosen for us, and do it perhaps by relighting. It's to this end that my critique is directed. At least this provides another way of looking at your pictures.
I was hoping that the pictures would have answered this question. If you think that everyone else with a camera could make these pictures by pointing and clicking, I think that I have achieved my objective of making simple pictures after all.
...As Mark aptly points out, this works well immediately and is very satisfying. I wonder whether there's more detail to define in the rock that forms the floor of the opening. Looks like some interesting symbols to bring out. Also I'm wondering that you might lighten the entire inside wall of the opening and then just enough of the flat wall f there's any detail worth revealing.
The "floor" is not a floor but the window sill. Your idea is good but if I would make the sill much darker than I will disturb the balance of the natural light and move in the direction of unnatural HDR. I know because I have tried it myself already. The same goes for the wall framing the window. But I will certainly do some more pp work on it at a later stage.
These steps work with the daylight opening. What we see outside is hardly inspiring or even boring. Maybe replace what's there with a bright glow braking out and nothing at all discernible of the outside. After all, there's not enough there defined as it is, so why not extend that to utter obscurity and mysterious brightness. Then that space works for the picture.
This particular picture is not one of my selects but I have decided to show it for the context. It shows where the artillery have stood. The curving "steps" are actually the remains of the tracks which made swiveling the turret possible. And you are right about the issue of the daylight opening. Even after shooting 7 brackets at 1EV steps, I could not get a decent result out of this.
You have a treasure of files here which have so many possible ways of making into your final presentation. You must have even more, many more. Thanks for selecting these for us. I have the strongest belief that the final finish of these depends on your possible choices in relighting. Not anyone can point the camera to get these images, but one can go further. That's where the fingerprints really get laid down.
Well, unfortunately I don't have much more than this. Selecting was for once not a big problem, lol. Thanks again for your valuable C&C, I am certainly learning from it.
Cheers,
