Diana Magor, MPSA, APSA
About the Image(s)
This was taken on the one morning when I abandoned Brian for an hour walking round the town as it was so beautifully sunny, although very cold. This was at the lakeside Winter fun park, but I do feel that the bikes were not going anywhere! It was taken at 1/320 F9 at ISO 250. Some of the photos I took were given a one or two stop aperture increase and some I just let the camera decide. I know the increase is designed to allow correct exposure of the bright snow but sometimes I think it gets it wrong.
All I've done is crop the top, and then put a 1 stop neutral density filter over the top in Nik to make that area darker. I like the starkness of the bikes against the snow. Does it work? Would it do anything in competitions or is it too boring?
This round’s discussion is now closed!
8 comments posted
Just looking at this image makes me cold! The conversion to black and white and your cropping helped minimize the strong shadows and other distracting elements in the original image (although I found the pattern on the wall interesting). You are correct about exposure situations like this one being particularly challenging. The blacks in the monochrome conversion look very good on my monitor, but it is showing the highlight areas of the whites as still being a bit too bright to hold the details. If you do decide to use this for competition, you may want to try a detail extractor or otherwise adjust the highlight brightness a little more if possible. Of course, the challenge then becomes to keep from losing too much contrast. Ironically, I have a photo of bikes covered in snow that I took at a train station in central Sweden several years ago. Although I like it, the image never did get score very well in the few competitions in which I entered it. I never tried a conversion to monochrome, though, so I cannot say whether that would have been any more effective.
On a side note, the exhibition my PSA Council sponsors is closing in not quite two weeks, on March 16. Entry information is at www.sjvccc.org under the SJV Inter. Ex. 2019 link on the upper right. Unfortunately, we don't have a monochrome division yet (although I am lobbying hard for one to be added), but I would love to see some entries from our group if anyone is so inclined.   Posted: 03/05/2019 00:01:54
perhaps the answer to entering competitions is to choose places which don't get snow because then it is unusual!
I shall try to enter your salon.   Posted: 03/05/2019 05:03:31
  Posted: 03/20/2019 00:32:31