The Air blew off the candles

It was raining outside and the power went off. My mom lighted the candles and was reading a book! I waited for a good composition. Finally a wind came through the window and blew off the candles! I shot this picture at that time. Sorry for the shake in the picture! It was so dark when i shot this. Obviously my hand shifted to low shutter speed. I was trying to control my hands but i couldn't.

Oli,

An interesting idea which I'm still digesting. Did you do any special steps in PS as I don't understand the yellow lines. Maybe this needs to be seen on the wall.

Could you consider lightening the two candles? I had to search for them. I'd do this with the sponge and burn tools on a new layer. Also on a separate layer, I'd extract and enhance the delicate smoke. These are needed for interpretation. So I'd see this as a great project for improving image development technique. Photographs do not get made in the camera. It has a dumb lens and does not relegate degrees importance as does our brains..

Asher

It appears to me that the candles are in pretty sharp focus for a low light hand held photo. Obviously, it was shot wide open with very shallow depth of field. for me, it works as is, but I might crop some of the window on the left side just a bit (I think you need some window to set the context, otherwise your mom would look like an abstract blob.

Why not post it on the Risk It forum and ask for other suggestions?

Thanks a lot for your comments! I will work on it for sure

Doug Earle said:

It appears to me that the candles are in pretty sharp focus for a low light hand held photo. Obviously, it was shot wide open with very shallow depth of field. for me, it works as is, but I might crop some of the window on the left side just a bit (I think you need some window to set the context, otherwise your mom would look like an abstract blob.

Why not post it on the Risk It forum and ask for other suggestions?

Click to expand...

Doug,

Good observations (and suggestions for the most appropriateforum for this picture). I'm not complaining that the candles are not is a good focus for the conditions, just that they are not very noticeable. I think this may be improved by nuanced local adjustment. There's no way a camera, at least today's non-military or industrial smart cameras, can recognize objects and make them more relevant in the sophisticated manner that our human brains processes the two equally dumb images coming to the left and retinae respectively.

We should give up the idea that the camera produces what we see in our mind! It's lacking in understanding of how humans perceive things important ot us. My suggestions address ranking of importance of things in an image. That's how we best transfer information when we have no 3D vision with depth perception coming from an image made from one lens bring an image to one image plane in a camera.

So, if one is not going to work on a dim image like this, it might not convey the power and impact it potentially has on our senses.

I try to see the positive value in submitted photographs and then ask whether or not the idea is executed in the best way possible from the file.

I do not question the difficulty in taking low light pictures handheld. Rather, I'd like us to ask if we can present the final image in any better way. Now mine is merely one opinion and perhaps everyone get's it perfectly as is.

Asher

Asher:
I've been mulling your comments for a few days and revisiting the photo. Personally, I prefer the photo on the dark side with the candles less than prominent. To me it conveys the sudden shift from light to dark. I expect that we have one of those differences in artisitic interpretation that would ultimately come down to highly personal ways of seeing.

This is a great forum and the comments have been good. I wish that there would be more postings.

Doug Earle said:

Asher:
I've been mulling your comments for a few days and revisiting the photo. Personally, I prefer the photo on the dark side with the candles less than prominent. To me it conveys the sudden shift from light to dark. I expect that we have one of those differences in artisitic interpretation that would ultimately come down to highly personal ways of seeing.

This is a great forum and the comments have been good. I wish that there would be more postings.

Click to expand...

Hi Doug,

In actuality, nothing much can be said to settle the point until its printed and shown to naive, ie new people who have to figure out what's there. I, myself, had some delay in identifying the candles. Also the glowing wick is not powerful enough. In the dark it will be perceived as stronger.

The main thing I feel strongly about is art generally involves work on behalf of the artist to embed in the picture the unique creative vision the photographer has and that a photograph can show. It just cannot be expected that this will occur without some craft on part of the photographer. We don't want to show the bland vision of the camera, at least not generally. We want to see through the photographer's eyes.

Also the image must be captivating or else people will not be there long enough to "get it". Thus the photographer, if s/he want to have us appreciate the work fully, must make sure that its presentation likely works outside his/her privileged domain. After all, we don't have his/her memory of the idea, then the event the camera recorded.

Now the amount of change I'm suggesting is really very small. Make the change that's needed, but in a separate layer. Then go away and come back and see if one can reduce that layer to between 7-85%. The final test is as I indicated above, a print, unless it will be only for the web or stock.

Just my $0.02!

Asher