Murphy Hektner, APSA
February 2025 - Gears
About the Image(s)
Found this interesting old steam engine on display in a city park in Eastern WA. It had recently been painted yellow which added a lot of impact rather than just old rusty gears. Thought the layout of the gears made for an interesting composition .DATA:
Here I used a tripod mounted Nikon D700 with a 20 0mm Nikon macro lens (1/1,000 sec, f/9, ISO 500) to capture this single image. A Photoflex Soft-gold reflector was used to modify the cloudy, late afternoon light. I post processed in Elements.
6 comments posted
What a fun image. The clarity and starkness of this image really gives an interesting feel to the presentation. It almost looks as though it was a graphic art type of image rather than a photograph. Still, I like it. Your choice of what elements to include and your composition goes a long way within this effective image. I also like the selected light and shadows as well. To me this does feel a bit on the flat side, meaning that there does not appear to show a lot of depth within your presentation. I might suggest darkening the elements that are further away to add back some depth. I know that you hear this a lot from me, but I still think this is appropriate to comment upon here again. I might also remove or de-emphasize (darken and desaturate) the greenish background elements at the lower left-hand side. This is the only place where this type of background appears, and it just looks out-of-place and odd here. Finally, the small pinkish gear face in the lower left quadrant bothered me some and I found that I kept trying to darken this to get it to blend in a bit. In this case adding more contract and a deeper red color added contrast, but made it blend better into the image as a whole. I know that this sounds weird but see if you do or do not agree. I have included a version of this image with these suggestions to illustrate my thoughts. See what you think. Posted: 02/10/2025 20:40:07
Hi Charlie: Thanks for your input on the "gears" and am pleased you liked the over all picture; also am always interested in your "take". You are correct in that I spent considerable time fine tuning the composition, what to include or not include.
What you are viewing here is a small part of the entire steam engine, and I think every photographer would approach this scene a bit differently, probably no two compositions quite alike.
Your alterations are interesting to me; it appears you have selected certain areas to darken just a smidge, and then added just a small amount of contrast to the overall scene.
The dark green at the bottom left was grass in the background, and as you mentioned it does not fit in with the rest of the scene; it looks better darkened as you have done. Cheers.
Posted: 02/11/2025 06:22:01
What you are viewing here is a small part of the entire steam engine, and I think every photographer would approach this scene a bit differently, probably no two compositions quite alike.
Your alterations are interesting to me; it appears you have selected certain areas to darken just a smidge, and then added just a small amount of contrast to the overall scene.
The dark green at the bottom left was grass in the background, and as you mentioned it does not fit in with the rest of the scene; it looks better darkened as you have done. Cheers.
Posted: 02/11/2025 06:22:01
Hi Murphy,
Very well done.
Nice play of light and shadows with surfaces of various angles. A keeper! Posted: 02/14/2025 21:25:31
Very well done.
Nice play of light and shadows with surfaces of various angles. A keeper! Posted: 02/14/2025 21:25:31
Hi Pierre: Thanks for your positive input on "gears". An unexpected find on a trip, wish the old steam engine was closer to home as there were more possibilities for other images just waiting to be photographed. Cheers... Posted: 02/14/2025 23:42:35
Nice capture of an appealing subject. The lower small gear does not appear real and perhaps darkening it ap bit would help. Posted: 02/19/2025 20:04:48
Hi Neal: Will work on that small gear and see if I can make it look a little more real. Thanks for the tip. Cheers. Posted: 02/22/2025 03:08:17