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Masts

Ron Morse

New member
mg0760zx6.jpg


For the life of me I don' know how they get these schooners in these slips so close together.

A very very small portion of Camden harbor.

mg07573zv0.jpg



Can you tell I like boats?
 

Asher Kelman

OPF Owner/Editor-in-Chief
This last one with the reflections is perfect!

A great thread!

Ron have you thought, just perhpas of removing the boats in the left hand lower corner of picture # 2?

This will allow the vertical reflections to stand out more.

Asher
 

Asher Kelman

OPF Owner/Editor-in-Chief
Great job, Ron1

We are now invited into the picture from the left and we scan across to the right picking up the verticals and now explore the boats lined up, masts cutting into the sky!

The dark waters bring us back and we then see the reflections in the left of the picture that come from the line of open boats on the dock and explore that too.

So this is now a picture that has a lot of interest and asks to be explored in successive visits.

I commend you on this result. How does this fit in with what you felt when you took the pictures?

Asher
 

Ron Morse

New member
Well Asher I thought this was a beautiful sight when I saw them all lined up in the early morning light. It was not long after sunrise and the sun was hitting them hard making a good shot hard, at least for me to get. The sun is making the lines to the mast stand out very white and I don't like that. I wanted to go to the other side of the harbor to get a shot where the light would have been more favorable but there was no place to park.

This shot looks so much better before it is resized.
 

Asher Kelman

OPF Owner/Editor-in-Chief
Ron,

If you look at Nicolas Claris' second picture, albeit at night, see how simple it is. This openness is the result of decisions to exclude.

That is a key part of photography.

Anyway, your two reflection pictures now are kindred spirits!

Asher
 

nicolas claris

OPF Co-founder/Administrator
If you look at Nicolas Claris' second picture, albeit at night, see how simple it is. This openness is the result of decisions to exclude.

That is a key part of photography.

Thank you for the kind comment Asher, but close-ups works too… it's all about what you put or don't when framing, both pics aren't cropped… IMO, as you know, framing is better done when shooting…;-)

_G8A5581.jpg


70-200 IS @ 145 mm
ISO 3200 - ƒ2.8 - 1/20s

then, this version is much less about masts… the story is different, more about the interaction between in house/on board living at night. Melting…?
 
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Asher Kelman

OPF Owner/Editor-in-Chief
Yes,

I have always loved this picture Nicolas. It's so intimate and tells of a special comreadeship and lifestyle of people that value the good things in life and the freedom of the sea!

Asher
 

nicolas claris

OPF Co-founder/Administrator
Nicolas,

What lense did you use for these and what were your settings?

Bonsoir Ron

Sorry I can't answer now, these are one year old shots and I don't remember techs details… and exif is empty.

What I can say is that I was shooting from the other side dock, with a monopod, long exposure, certainly 1600 ISO… I'll check tomorrow when at the office… and post.

Have a sweet night
 

Asher Kelman

OPF Owner/Editor-in-Chief
Nicolas,

Yes, I see you crop closely and do it to great effect! But that is you.

Guys,

I must say that until one has such exceptional experience, framing in the camera should be generous! Yes that sounds like sacrilage, but I am often going against custom! I find in many pictures submitted, that the missing parts of cut-off shadows, leaves, glistening water, limbs, rocks and exceptional clouds that are part of the ambience or balanced composition or even meaning are really needed!

When one is home, one can re-experience all that joy and bring to that picture the time and attention that the great landscape artists did when they waited and returned and moved and considered before taking 3 perfect pictures.

What is not recorded on film cannot be part of this process. If too much is included, there is lack of clear focus and composition. However, often a great subject can miss one branch or half a hill or dark cloud that really is important.

Making a picture is real work, or else anyone could do it and we would just need to buy a camera. Rather, one is extracting a likeness and using ones own esthetics to show or not shoe and the manner in which the potential image is made.

The picture is not made at the time of pressing the shutter only the down payment on a dream!

So for people without a portfolio of pictures that "work" for rhe photographer, I would beg you to put aside notions of "close-cropping" when designing the picture arounf your subject and extracting that portion of the scene from what you see around. This is a creative trap.

Nicolas has sailed the oceans, seen boats from drawings to finish and launch and know what he see and how they can be shown with power and sensuality. However, for many of the rest of us, adding more generous margins allows more thought. The latter cannot make up for experience of days on a mountainside, watching the light. However, it does allow one to consider the context and importance of the scene in more concentrated and considered a fashion and is great for training the brain!

Asher
 

Ron Morse

New member
Ron,

If you look at Nicolas Claris' second picture, albeit at night, see how simple it is. This openness is the result of decisions to exclude.

That is a key part of photography.

Anyway, your two reflection pictures now are kindred spirits!

Asher


I really tried to find a place to get a shot such as Nicolas took. The boats were packed in like sardines. I even went down another street trying for a good position.

Sooner or later I will find the right spot.

This gives a small idea of how packed it was. Just to the right of these it was even more filled.

 

nicolas claris

OPF Co-founder/Administrator
Certainly Asher
but as photographer, one has a vision… One has to get that vision (or sight) on location, because what is n ot in the picture has almost the same importance as what is not…
It's influencing the vision, excluding some part of a composition is as important as including it, at the moment you feel it! cropping is a desesparate try of salvage!
The only cropping I'm allowing myself is making the horizon horizontal and for some lens distortion corrections (the latter less and less as I daily learn the traps of UWA)…

It is amazing what you can show from the same scene with different framing, the above 3 pics shot in St-Tropez last year do show and tell different vision/story. Just the framing and lens choice! they were taken a few minutes and within 30 yards one after the other…

When you say that it's better to frame wide and then crop for adequate, you're right, but just for the learning curve! the goal is to get it right in camera, because then you have the real vision and rendering of the intent…
and BTW it's much easier to print large because all your sensor pixels are kept yours!

As I do work with 1Ds2 and soon with 1Ds3, the resolution does allow to crop if needed… honestly I don't do it, but for brochures production, Marine my wife and D.A. does crop some of my pics.
In fact, as the artist she doesn't want to recognize she is, from my pics she does real new pics, which show and tell another story/intent than mine… 99% of time I do agree with her crop because she too has a vision and, as you know we do work as a team, then, I'm just her camera-armed arm! (pun intended ;-)
 

nicolas claris

OPF Co-founder/Administrator

With this image, IMHO, the vision is altered by the gangway on the left, then the stuff on the wooden floating dock.

I would have walked on the floating dock and bend my knees to have the view under the boom of the foreground yacht, then moved back and forth and left to right to get the right frame… (I guess more on the right if this is possible…

The light is nice and does bring good shadows! but not on the foreground! Your foreground is too dark.

You even have asked the crew of the boat if you could stand a minute on their deck to take the picture…

Photography is also the art of placing. The subject but also the photog!

Seems a great place!

Have a nice week-end
 

Asher Kelman

OPF Owner/Editor-in-Chief
As I do work with 1Ds2 and soon with 1Ds3, the resolution does allow to crop if needed… honestly I don't do it, but for brochures production, Marine my wife and D.A. does crop some of my pics.
In fact, as the artist she doesn't want to recognize she is, from my pics she does real new pics, which show and tell another story/intent than mine… 99% of time I do agree with her crop because she too has a vision and, as you know we do work as a team, then, I'm just her camera-armed arm! (pun intended ;-)

Hi Nicolas,

This way of working is obviously the photographer's choice. For magazine and advertising, after all, a specialist has to create an integrated message for which the crop and the final expression of the image often has to be worked on. The photographer allows that in the licensing.

For free wheeling artistry, however, the photographer risks all with each step.

Asher
 

nicolas claris

OPF Co-founder/Administrator
For free wheeling artistry, however, the photographer risks all with each step.

LoL!
For free wheeling artistry, the photographer risks are to reshoot or put the file to the garbage… no damage! (except for the ego…)
As for Magazines or advertising, the photographer takes all risks at all steps because if he fails, artistically or technically, he won't get the next job.

Artists (or so called) do work on long term. The risk is when hanging the pictures into the gallery… but then the artist is supposed to be "happy" with his job and assume consequences…
Commercial, event, wedding or editorial photogs work for now. Most of the time, for many reasons, shots cannot be redone, one better know what he's doing when pressing the shutter…

A huge difference!
 
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