Magic Steam

[Nikolai Sklobovsky]

What does it take to add a little magic into your life?
A camera, a flash, a nice tripod and a plain old kettle...

http://nik.smugmug.com/photos/134662138-L.jpg

C&C is welcome!

[Asher Kelman]

Superb, Nikolai!

And waht did you ask the genie for where she appeared?

Asher

[Asher Kelman]

Now the picture?

I really like the subject and technicaly I have no criticisms of what you have done. The image is intriguing, get's ones attention and then one is lured into a conditon of possiblities. When I'm that attracted to a photographm it's starting to work.

I'd have like to see some more framing of the steam and to not be robbed of where the wonderful curls of "smoke" (O.K. it's really steam, but that's not how I see it, genie's come from smoke, not steam!) that are ascending then cut off!

We need the last swirling formation to be surounded by space.

It would be nice to have something in the bacground, even faintly to give more depth to the image.

Still, as is, I'm impressed and would be even more so had I taken the picture myself. As I said before, Nikolai seems to gravitate towards fires, firing canons and smoke. For that reason he is good at these subjects and it's a pleasure that you share with us here!

Thanks,

Asher

[Nikolai Sklobovsky]

Asher,

thank you very much for your comments and thoughts!

Before I start, let me say this: this picture is one of my possible entries for the contest with the "Steamed" theme. Because of that I made it my immediate goal to make sure of the following:
1) it's a steam, not smoke (otherwise I'd ditch the kettle)
2) there is nothing else to distract from the steam (hence nothing else)

For the same reasons I kinda cut the steam short in the upper right corner, since I want to deliver the idea that it continues beyond the frame.

Now, if we forget about the contest and consider this image just purely by itself, then yes, I can see that it could be advantageous to replace the modern kettle with the old lamp and add some Arabian night blurred dim background. Then the last puff indeed should be given some space around it.

I may play in that direction:-)

Once again, thank you!

[Cem_Usakligil]

Great image Nik, I hope you'll get a good recognition for that in the competition.
The colors of the steam are rather nice, did you fiddle with some creative filters or is it just levels/curves? Also, I was wondering whether it will be worth putting a tiny bit of more highlight to the kettle (not the handle) so that it "pops" a bit more from the page?

Cheers,

[Nikolai Sklobovsky]

Cem,

thank you very much for your comments and kind wishes:-)!

Colors are the results of "creative curving" :-)

Adding pop to the kettle is an interesting idea. However, my current line of thoughts - remember, this is a "Steamed" contest:-) = that it would distract from the steam itself, which is my primary subject. In fact, I think I even dimmed the kettle to make its presense only substantial enough to show the steam origin.

Thanks for looking! :-)