Low tide

Probably due to the big moon, yesterday around 6.30PM...
Lot of fog, no sun nor moon visible... Just got caught by the colour of the sand...

Sandrine Bascouert said:

Probably due to the big moon, yesterday around 6.30PM...
Lot of fog, no sun nor moon visible... Just got caught by the colour of the sand...

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Sandrine,

Man in front of something endless in power is a compelling motif. One individual, like the lone man confronting such a power in Tiananmen Square is that impressive too and of course more so, as there's personal risk and bravery.

Do you need the top 2/3 of sky? Do you really need a grey border or rather a wide white matte to open up this wide endless expanse before the lone human figure?

Asher

Hi Asher,
No I don't need the sky, or just a bit...
The feeling was that the beach meets the sky seamlessly, but I had to increase the contrast a bit in order to accentuate the motifs of the sand so it ended up like that (yes, I could have masked....)
As for the border, it's just an habit (that I forget from time to time) to put neutral around, especially when there is no bright (over saturated) colours in the image, to make it stand out...



By the way it's not exactly two thirds...I missed the basic composition rule but I don't mind....


PS: There was quite a lot of people, and I have to wait 'til there was only one or two figures, and I was pleased there was a dog as well... I didn't want an empty beach but not a crowded one neither.

This is very nice.

(And to answer the question: I find the amount of sky just right.)

Bloody hell !!!!, wait until I have a decent camera and you'll see


Thank you both of you...
By the way, It was a quick fix of the shot, nothing fancy (straighten the horizon, neutralise the orange cast all over, increase the contrast a bit, a slight bump of the reds in the quarter mid-tones) It probably deserves more time spent... But due to the low sensiblity of the LZ4, I still have a lot of noise in the shadows, so maybe I'll wait until the next tide. I did not de-noise at all.

I like the lone man and his dog. Leads my eye across the sands.

Noise is not necessarily something to be avoided. Glad you left it in.

Long long time ago I knew Brighton and Torquay very well. Very well indeed.

Mike might know all about the au pairs and the students!!

Sandrine Bascouert said:

Bloody hell !!!!, wait until I have a decent camera and you'll see

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What do you mean by a "decent camera"? I do not mean the brand, but rather the functions it should have.

Jerome Marot said:

What do you mean by a "decent camera"? I do not mean the brand, but rather the functions it should have.

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1-a viewfinder (I can't stand holding a camera like a shield)
2-interchangeable lenses
3-the possibility of a manual mode or a least an aperture priority.
4-a flash hot shoe
5-a Raw mode


-I don't care zillions of pixels (I was pretty happy with 5mp, I think nowadays 10mp is the least you can find)


A Nikon S5000 sounds nice...
D5000

I don't think I'm extremely demanding...

Lovely photo.

Sandrine Bascouert said:

I don't think I'm extremely demanding...

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No, you're not. You said "interchangeable lenses". What kind of lenses do you have in mind?

What kind of lenses do you have in mind?

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I'll speak in 35mm equivalent (old habit )

85mm 1.8 or 1.4 (now I'm demanding!)
a sort of 12-24, that's for the "if I win the lotto" even if not extremely bright...

or to be more reasonnable
a transtandard 18-55 VR, the one that is sold with the box should do the trick...

By the time I'll save enough for this, they'll change the model anyway!


Just to say the truth, I wouldn't have thought about a camera, if I wasn't there discussing about taking images. The idea sneaked into my mind more and more as I post in OPF. It was a time when I could stay for ages in a shop listening to the sound of a shutter. I had a subscription to a magazine (Le Photographe) where I used to cut out the articles about lenses, bodies, flashes and gather them in a notebook. Then I lost faith, and concentrated on post processing. You all, are making things happen again (virtually so far, the rest is up to me )

There is no real equivalent of the 85 f/1.4 in APS-C sensor, but you can use a 50mm f/1.8 to make do, and second hand ones can be had for little money. The 12-24 is another matter, 12 being insanely wide (the only equivalent is the Sigma 8-16), so I suppose that you mean the equivalent of a 16-xx, something like the canon 10-22.

A quite decent camera with its kit lens can be had for less than 300€ if you chose an older or second-hand model. Is that still too much?

I have issues at the moment where anything apart from food and shelter is too much
It won't last...

I could have chose the S3100 but even If I'm not hugely found of an LCD screen, if I have to have one at least I might use it to frame holding the camera far over my head (I used to do that with my film SLR where I attached a level on the hot shoe to ensure the straightness of the lines). But If on restricted budget, if I had to choose an accessory to match the kit, I think I'd choose a flash instead. Because there's always someone to ask you for a portrait...


PS: As for the lenses, I'm always confused, to multiply by 1.6
in the case of the 12-24 I was referring to the "new ones" formulated with the APS-C in mind.
The day all the bodies will have full size sensor will be an easier day for me, as I never had a DSLR, so I'm staying on my old standards because it's still what "talks" to me.


I meant a small tele and a wide-to slight-wide zoom lens...

fahim mohammed said:

I like the lone man and his dog. Leads my eye across the sands.

Noise is not necessarily something to be avoided. Glad you left it in.

Long long time ago I knew Brighton and Torquay very well. Very well indeed.

Mike might know all about the au pairs and the students!!

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I posted the image with no "technical achievements" in mind... Just for the colour, and to show some kind of exceptional moment where I can stand on a beach where usually I have the water that cover my knees (it was a VERY low tide). Of course I made my best to make it bearable

Students are still there in large numbers...You recognise them because girls don't wear skirts in winter. Only the locals are brave enough...There is a lot of Spanish, I feel sorry for them but they make the buses alive after 7 o'clock.... The "au-pairs" I'm not sure, I think it's no use that much now. But partying is still fashionable.

The foreground is lovely but for me the sky colour artifacts spoil the photo. I'm not necessarily agreeing with Asher to crop the sky, but post-processing to smooth out the pink, yellow & white bands would make the scene more realistic and compelling.
All the best
Mike

Sandrine Bascouert said:

I have issues at the moment where anything apart from food and shelter is too much
It won't last...

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If I recall correctly, the reason is that you're studying, aren't you? How long do you still have to go?

I could have chose the S3100 but even If I'm not hugely found of an LCD screen, if I have to have one at least I might use it to frame holding the camera far over my head (I used to do that with my film SLR where I attached a level on the hot shoe to ensure the straightness of the lines).

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An articulated screen about doubles the price of a camera... When I said that cameras are cheap, I was rather thinking about second hand and lesser known brands, entry level. A quick check on amazon uk shows a Sony A230 with lens for £234 and an Olympus 450 for £259. This is more like what I had in mind... Either one is a perfectly capable DSLR, the Sony being the best of the two (mainly because it is stabilized).

But If on restricted budget, if I had to choose an accessory to match the kit, I think I'd choose a flash instead. Because there's always someone to ask you for a portrait...

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I don't see why one would need a flash for a portrait, but all these little cameras have a built-in flash.

The day all the bodies will have full size sensor will be an easier day for me, as I never had a DSLR, so I'm staying on my old standards because it's still what "talks" to me.

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I don't think that all bodies will have a full size sensor any time. Sony tried to move the upper part of the APS-C market to full size with the A850 2 years ago and found unexpected resistance. Canon issued the 7D last year as a response to a demand for upper market APS-C DSLRs. This appears to be where the bulk of the upper market lies, to my dismay (I have a full-frame DSLR, and I would not want to go back to APS-C...).

Also: if you want a film SLR, they can be had for (almost) free today...

I meant a small tele and a wide-to slight-wide zoom lens...

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The small tele comes with the kit zoom, so you probably mean a fast small tele. A 50mm f/1.8 is a perfect choice (equivalent to a 85mm) and is pretty cheap. For a wide zoom, you mean something starting at 10 or 11mm, so a 10-20mm, 11-18mm, etc... They are fun to use, but rarely essential.

My point was rather that with an entry level DSLR and its kit lens, one can already do a lot: the lens is a 24mm to 90mm equivalent, the camera (even basic ones) has all the controls one could need. One even gets a small flash in the package.

If I recall correctly, the reason is that you're studying, aren't you? How long do you still have to go?

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I'm a bit starting to losing faith again now... Maybe I'm just not "made" for that...Or maybe I'm not the kind of marketing guru (I guess I'll never be) that is required for retouching. I recently made some illustrations for a book, with Illustrator -a software that I hate because of its logic, I sweated to do something that I never done before from nearly scratch. And I had better encouragements and cheering showing the results than in all my entire "career" at retouching photos (except for the photo restoring part where I always been quite "successful", but not in the UK). So far, my income in merely retouching photos is a 3 figures number. I'm studying very complicated methods of correcting the skin, no smoothing, things that are extremely time consuming to do, things at "pixel level" as they say. I bought e-books, DVDs. Now I'm just a bit fed up.... I read this ****** PSCS4 manual from A to Z, the CS5 is there on the shelves, they are to release the CS5.5 middle version, some rumors are to announce CS6 next year. What am I going to? Am I wasting my time? probably...

When I was young I suffered from the "lack of commitment", I don't know the English words but you will translate them from me: Glandeuse Bordelique,
I think, but I may be wrong, that I improved myself a lot...



the set of lenses was the "fun"stuff, I said I'd be very happy with the box kit.... I used to work this a quite good 28-105 (although not as good than the fixed 105 from Nikon) on my f801s.

I wouldn't go back to film, mainly for the reason that :

1-I'll have to buy a better scanner
2-scanning hundred of pictures is really a bore and time consuming in front of the screen (I already spend too much time there )
3-and that to me, and probably unless you have a top notch scanner, you'll always lose something (focus?)..
4-It'll probably prove a bit pricey at the end buying films and paying for the processing.

Maybe I'm still living in the 20th century?


One thing that'll never improve is my ability of making a long story short

Sandrine Bascouert said:

I'm a bit starting to losing faith again now... Maybe I'm just not "made" for that...Or maybe I'm not the kind of marketing guru (I guess I'll never be) that is required for retouching. I recently made some illustrations for a book, with Illustrator -a software that I hate because of its logic, I sweated to do something that I never done before from nearly scratch. And I had better encouragements and cheering showing the results than in all my entire "career" at retouching photos (except for the photo restoring part where I always been quite "successful", but not in the UK). So far, my income in merely retouching photos is a 3 figures number. I'm studying very complicated methods of correcting the skin, no smoothing, things that are extremely time consuming to do, things at "pixel level" as they say. I bought e-books, DVDs. Now I'm just a bit fed up.... I read this ****** PSCS4 manual from A to Z, the CS5 is there on the shelves, they are to release the CS5.5 middle version, some rumors are to announce CS6 next year. What am I going to? Am I wasting my time? probably...

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I am sorry if this discussion is becoming too personal, but if you allow me a frank opinion: I do not see how the text above could be consistent with yesterday's affirmation that "it won't last". What is the plan?

Can I have a peek at the illustrations for the book?

I am truly aware that anybody searching for my name using google will find this...Even potential photographers

It won't last, because nothing last forever...I still can change my path...I still can improve, I still can have a bit of luck...
If everything was over, why not hire a Lambretta, buy some union Jack stickers and jump from Beachy Head...NO!

Can I have a peek at the illustrations for the book?

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The book is not finished, so it's impossible for the moment...


I don't think for myself that the illustrations are nowhere near exceptional, there are "technical" ones, so they serve their purpose, accurately. But I also think there are less people in the market for this. It seems that the retouching career is widely embrassed, and unfortunately or not, there's a lot of competition coming from the eastern countries (from eastern Europe to east Asia) where people are doing great job for less (not everybody, of course, like anywhere else). The problem is that people are talking "Deadlines" while I'm talking "Reliability, friendly manners, Time spent doing things well". I talk too much that's for sure.

And I'm probably not very good, to say the least, at selling myself... And I am not good to mimic the Anglo-saxon way of trading and make deals. People spot me from miles just reading my emails even if the English is checked by a dictionary.

I am sorry if this discussion is becoming too personal

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It's not too personal, The people here that took the time to say kind words are people that I respect. So I am confident that the words that I speak will not be mistaken...

That's good enough for me...

Michael_Stones said:

The foreground is lovely but for me the sky colour artifacts spoil the photo. I'm not necessarily agreeing with Asher to crop the sky, but post-processing to smooth out the pink, yellow & white bands would make the scene more realistic and compelling.
All the best
Mike

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I think I'll make another version with less contrast and a better sky... and maybe one with less sky, and one with less sand to see how it goes... Most of the time I compose with Photoshop in mind: I crop, I curve, I mask before pushing the button (quickly though). Not this time. I was just there with the camera realising that there was a low tide in front of me. The low tide made the landscape quite infinite... that's what I saw, and what I wanted to show. As I said, it probably worth more time spent on it. Thank you for pointing this out.

Sandrine Bascouert said:

I think I'll make another version with less contrast and a better sky... and maybe one with less sky, and one with less sand to see how it goes... Most of the time I compose with Photoshop in mind: I crop, I curve, I mask before pushing the button (quickly though). Not this time. I was just there with the camera realising that there was a low tide in front of me. The low tide made the landscape quite infinite... that's what I saw, and what I wanted to show. As I said, it probably worth more time spent on it. Thank you for pointing this out.

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Sandrine,

Left side of the image to about half way in - Horizontal - is cracking. But we all c diffrently.

I am enjoing the colours.

cheers

Sandrine Bascouert said:

I am truly aware that anybody searching for my name using google will find this...Even potential photographers

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I understand if you do not want to talk about this subject.

And I'm probably not very good, to say the least, at selling myself...

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Neither am I, but I did not choose an artistic career.

Neither am I, but I did not choose an artistic career.

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That where I probably get it wrong at the 1st place.... It's never too late to change.