Sorry, but, I don't like the processing; to my eye it doesn't emphasize the bike and lift it from the back-ground, the high contrast, high saturation, hi-key highlights have a 'studio-shot' style ... that against a plain, probably back or stars & stripes, infinity screen could 'work' (Cheesily!) as a brochure shot.... the incongruity that it ISN'T though just draws me into the more natural back-ground, and I get lost in the clutter.,,,,which begs question... why is the woman over the tank, in fuzzier focus than the chaps obviously further from the bike left and right of her?
Personal I would have got up close and personal, got down low, and opened up wide, and not gone for the slap straight side on, 'profile' centered on the air-filter; that bike has a fat back, and high bars; I would have probably gone for a more 3/4 on shot from behind, to foreshorten the perspective, making the bike shorter in the frame, and the bars, further from the camera, lower, whilst emphasizing the fat back, more prominent in, and filling lager area of frame... and let the back-ground take care of itself, as best as, providing 'context'.
It's not a very custom 'custom'... so what's the 'interest'? If I wanted a sterile or isolated brochure shot.. I'd just just pick up a brochure! So what about THAT bike, is interesting? Catalogue slash-cuts and an accessory poker-table filter cover, aren't exactly big features, and if that's all the bike has (if that!), then that' shot's not pulling them out of the scene. The leather clad hat on the bars, is more of a feature, and does suggest a bike in use, with a bit of go-over-show; THAT is probably the feature I'd want to draw out, and emphasize the point of a bike-in-use, retaining the cluttered 'real' back-ground, to under-line the "This isn't an arty brochure pastiche, this is real bike, in the real world", ridden not hidden, sub-text.
Being utterly brutal; its a Harley; there is a paradox there to start, in the notion of a 'factory custom'; a bike that is significantly style over substance, to start with; something of a poser's fashion statement; to try treat t to another fashion victims sort of HDR / High-Sat, photo-effect, is layering cliche on cliche... which could 'work' if the intent was to play on the cliche's and make feature of them... but, as a salvage job, it doesn't really work for me; intent was lost at capture, and treatment has failed to make anything 'more' from it; I suspect I would find the straight unprocessed image, more endearing, I'm afraid.
Harley Davidson Breakout by Jon, on Flickr
