A few pics

[Haselsh1]

I've been doing some commercial flower photography, let me know what you think...???

http://i867.photobucket.com/albums/ab240/Haselsh1/Flowers/FlowerNo4.jpg

http://i867.photobucket.com/albums/ab240/Haselsh1/Flowers/FlowerNo1.jpg

http://i867.photobucket.com/albums/ab240/Haselsh1/Flowers/FlowerNo5.jpg

This is the kind of stuff I sell in my gallery in Pickering when I can get people through the door...!!!

[Dave Cawley]

Great! how did you cut them out (mask) so well?

Dave

[Haselsh1]

Great! how did you cut them out (mask) so well?

Dave


Hello Dave, you know I've always wanted to say that in a HAL9000 voice, there is no cutting out and no masking. Everything is done using studio flashes and Photoshop.

Kat, from the other post, is my step daughter and is just about to join the big wide World for the first time and leave home. I wish her every success and happiness and of course safety. She is in Malton... Claudia Lawrence territory.

[Spectral Morn]

Hi Shaun

Hope you don't mind, but being constructive. I think the composition is a little weak, and there is to much white, and not enough of the flowers/plants. The white background is a nice neutral way of drawing the eye to, and highlighting the beauty of the subject matter, but the subject matter seems to me, IMHO to be lacking impact and detail. You may have intended this of course, but again IMHO there is not enough impact in the images:sofa:for me.

I like the other Graphic items you posted elsewhere...the white background works there and highlights the image and allows a nice neutral place for the graphics.


Regards D S D L

[Haselsh1]

Davros, white space is critical and crucial to any graphic arrangement and any page layout manual will tell you this. The above photographs were very definitely intended to look the way they do. The above photographs not only use critical white space, they also follow the basic rules of composition and thirds. Each photograph is printed onto fine art cotton fibre paper and bounded with a thin black line, again to add a graphic aspect to the image. The mount is matt white with the frame being a chunky black gloss type. Each image is twenty by sixteen with a four inch mount.

[Spectral Morn]

Davros, white space is critical and crucial to any graphic arrangement and any page layout manual will tell you this. The above photographs were very definitely intended to look the way they do. The above photographs not only use critical white space, they also follow the basic rules of composition and thirds. Each photograph is printed onto fine art cotton fibre paper and bounded with a thin black line, again to add a graphic aspect to the image. The mount is matt white with the frame being a chunky black gloss type. Each image is twenty by sixteen with a four inch mount.

Sorry Shaun

I am aware of the rules and technical things you state, having spent 4 years at art college. However, and it is only in my opinion I feel your other photos on your site and that you have posted on AOS are more successful than these images. You asked what we thought and this is what I think. Art is in the eye of the beholder, like music it is subjective.

Regards D S D L

[Dave Cawley]

Open the Pod Bay doors Hall............... If Kat wants to help on our stand, she would be most welcome, just teach her about Class A and phonostages first please..............

The background is so white, 0000 on CMYK a 253.253,253 on RGB. I guess the flash made the white backdrop very white indeed. They are simply outstanding!

Regards

Dave

[DaveK]

Hi Guys,
Just my two penn'orth:
My views align more with Dave than Neil - beautiful pics Shaun. Full of impact, nothing to detract the eye from the subject, more the reverse, the eye is drawn to the subject 'cos there's nowt else to look at. I'll take any that don't make it onto your gallery wall, instead of putting them in the bin :lolsign: .
Cheers,

[Haselsh1]

Open the Pod Bay doors Hall............... If Kat wants to help on our stand, she would be most welcome, just teach her about Class A and phonostages first please..............

The background is so white, 0000 on CMYK a 253.253,253 on RGB. I guess the flash made the white backdrop very white indeed. They are simply outstanding!

Regards

Dave


Dave, the background is a white projector screen which is flashed by two flash heads. The subject is lit by two more flash heads using white translucent brollies. I'm absolutely sure I don't need to tell anyone how reflective a projector screen is.

Many thanks for all of your comments.

[Dave Cawley]

Clever, never thought of that!

This mission is too important for me to allow you to jeopardize it. My PO Box number has always been 2001 in honour of the film 2001. In 1991 I went to Sri Lanka specifically to visit Arthur C Clarke, wonderful man he was................

Regards

Dave

[Spectral Morn]

Clever, never thought of that!

This mission is too important for me to allow you to jeopardize it. My PO Box number has always been 2001 in honour of the film 2001. In 1991 I went to Sri Lanka specifically to visit Arthur C Clarke, wonderful man he was................

Regards

Dave

Very sadly missed, one of my fave writers, though sadly IMHO his last but one book was a disappointment compared to the first two (Times eye trilogy). I have yet to read The Last Theorem.

Child Hoods End is my fave by him.


Regards D S D L

[Cotlake]

My only comment is why did you choose dead Sun Flower heads? Surely living and vibrant specimens would have been better?

[Haselsh1]

My only comment is why did you choose dead Sun Flower heads? Surely living and vibrant specimens would have been better?


LOL... I like this one...!

Although I am not the florist in the business it is apparently very trendy to pull out the yellow petals and have 'bald' sunflowers.

[Marco]

And the plants look sad to me rather than happy... You must not be talking to them enough! ;)

Marco.

[Haselsh1]

And the plants look sad to me rather than happy... You must not be talking to them enough! ;)

Marco.


Jesus, talking to flowers, how very novel...!!!

[Marco]

Shaun, I trust you know that the above remark was tongue-in-cheek! ;)

I actually really like the photographs. There's a 'texture' and 3D-like effect with them which makes them look almost real :)

Marco.

[The Vinyl Adventure]

there is def have a artististic merit, they remind me of the "zen" stone pictures... but much better!! i have always struggled with the emotional conection with this sort of photography... i, personaly, dont get much out of this sort of thng... but then im not a fine art photographer, and i think thats a big differance between you and i.
this is the last photo i took of a flower.. im pleased with it.. but it does the same for me as your pictures.... i could imagine seeing it on the wall of a desinger furniture shop

as a side note.. this particular version is a bit dull on screen.. i cant find my 'web' version!

http://i728.photobucket.com/albums/ww282/hamish_gill/52193_1204891248.jpg

[Barry]

I've been doing some commercial flower photography, let me know what you think...???

http://i867.photobucket.com/albums/ab240/Haselsh1/Flowers/FlowerNo4.jpg

http://i867.photobucket.com/albums/ab240/Haselsh1/Flowers/FlowerNo1.jpg

http://i867.photobucket.com/albums/ab240/Haselsh1/Flowers/FlowerNo5.jpg

This is the kind of stuff I sell in my gallery in Pickering when I can get people through the door...!!!

These are really great. I love the white backgrounds and the first two remind me of Robert Mapplethorpe's flower photographs.

I was a little unsure of the composition - on first viewing I would agree with Neil and suggest that 'portrait mode' would have been better. Also I think I would have liked to have seen more of the vase, as you have gone to some trouble to preserve some contrast; so that it would be 'ichibana - ish'. However on second viewing I think your compositions are more challenging and I would find more to think about when looking at them. If you had followed what I suggested above the results would have simply been decorative and after a while would fail to hold the attention of the viewer.

Well that's the opinion of a snapshooter and one who has yet to take a photograph worthy of being enlarged and hung on a wall.

Regards

[Varun]

Vary nice Shaun,

Painterly and soft. Which film? may I ask. Are these 6x6 images- the frame is not though.

In the 80s people like Myerowitz and Shore and others started using negative Kodak colourfilm and that too 'L' type. Their dye transfer images were made to look painterly.

[Spectral Morn]

Perhaps, if I could see the originals my reservations would be reduced or removed. For me the biggest issue is the lack of dimension, detail and colour in the first 2 photos (as seen here on AOS). The third image is more successful but I to would like to see more of the vase. For me the point I was trying to make was that IMHO there is slightly to much of the white background and I for one would like to see more of the subjects. I guess I prefer close up of this type of subject matter as there is so much in the texture, inner/outer structure, graduation of colour that is missing for me in these images. Its a question of taste I guess.


Regards D S D L

[Haselsh1]

Vary nice Shaun,

Painterly and soft. Which film? may I ask. Are these 6x6 images- the frame is not though.

In the 80s people like Myerowitz and Shore and others started using negative Kodak colourfilm and that too 'L' type. Their dye transfer images were made to look painterly.


Thank you very much for all of your comments. Marco, my response was also very 'tongue in cheek', please do not take offence.

Varun, alas very rare for me, these images were taken using a Nikon D1X camera with a 35mm lens. The shutter was triggered by the self timer whilst firmly bolted to a tripod. As already stated, the background was brilliant white and lit by two studio flash heads. The flowers were then front lit by two more studio flash heads.

In Photoshop a lot of work was done using levels and then the image was heavily desaturated to reduce the colours. I specifically wanted a cross processed effect were using an E6 slide film would be developed using C41 negative chemicals. This was all the rage a few years back.

Regarding the composition. It is purely my own way and any way would work. In the west we tend to read from left to right so I compose my photographs to be viewed the same way. My flowers generally look into the white space from left to right. The flower is effectively looking into the photograph the way we would. In response to Barry, a portrait would have worked just as well. It's simply that I choose not to do it that way.

[Haselsh1]

Its a question of taste I guess.


Regards D S D L


Davros, it is indeed a question of taste and I thank whoever that we are not all the same. How bloody tedious would that make the World...? What would be the point of doing anything...?

[Varun]

Shaun,

I could not agree more with issues about composition and standards. One has to have one's own approach.

My mother-in-law is a keen camera club photographer in Sussex. Every time I have shown her many of the photography books I have- even of the old masters such as Atget, Lartigue, Kertez or Cartier Bresson- she found the images appaling as they break the rigid rules of composition promoted by the Salons-camera clubs being one of them. Atget was doing this more than 100 years ago. His work has attracted a lot of re-newed attention because of that.

[Varun]

Shaun,

I am sure you know this masterpiece very well. Igor Stravinsky photographed by Arnold Newman.


http://img87.imageshack.us/img87/4015/stravinsky.jpg