weekly Elaine's 52 for 2015 - Christmas added - finished!

This sorta PP is really not my bag at all so cant offer any crit! I would say however as an image it could be great for marketing purposes! Good work and ontheme!
 
Thank you for looking and commenting :)
 
Thanks for the comments Philip and Graham.

Week 2 - Fragile

I have a bowl full of these and my original plan was to arrange a few of them in an artistic fashion :rolleyes: However, the one right at the bottom of the bowl was broken and I thought that was more appropriate for the theme. Shot it on my bathroom work surface which I decided looks a bit like sand in close up, desaturated the bg and then added the vignette to give it more of a bottom-of-the-sea feel. Not sure if I've messed about a bit too much, but I enjoyed experimenting with the different effects! In case anyone's wondering, it's a sea urchin shell.

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Hiya Elaine... good take for the theme and bang on subject. The vignetting suits the subject (being round) but I might have reduced the effect very slightly? I like the positioning of the broken bits - that works well. The shadow inside is good too but I think there's a tiny bit of blowing of highlights both inside the shell (mid right) and on the white backs of a couple of the broken bits? Not massively distracting, but would be great to reduce the light intensity / soften it enough that these don't blow.

Focus is tricky: I might be tempted to choose a smaller aperture just to give myself a bit more leeway with depth of field, but it's pretty close as is. I like your choice of background as it works well, even without reading your explanation.

The only negative for me is I hate sea urchins: have stood on one when windsurfing and they always seem to appear on my plates of sashimi when I'm not expecting them to: horrid orange bits of slime :(

But that's nothing to do with your picture, which I think is a smart take on the theme... a tiny bit of work on the highlights and I think you've got it. (y)
 
Thanks Paul. I wasn't sure about the dof and tried lots of different apertures, but I wanted to get both the broken bits and the main part of the shell in focus, so this seemed to be about the best shot. I fully agree about the blown highlights! It didn't look too bad in photoshop, but it definitely looks blown here. I've been back to the pre-vignette stage (I've recently been trying to get into the habit of saving my work as different versions at various stages of pp for this very purpose!) and tried re-doing it, but I couldn't manage to get the light intensity right without losing too much of the vignette effect, so I copped out and just took a bit of the brightness out of the 3 worst blown bits. I think there's a slight improvement o_O

Fragile - Edited version


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Hi Elaine :)

Quick off the mark today !!!

I personally would have prefered a plainer background so that the shell stood out to a greater extent,I really like the colours and the edited image certain does work better, really good take for the theme (y)
 
Hi Elane


my god woman...how many holidays do you have each year............only jealous :D

Bliss , yup ,on theme for sure but a little too pasted on for me...not that I could have done any better !

Fragile....I love those shells , edited version works a bit better with less vignette but focus still seems a bit soft ? Are you using a tripod & self timer to avoid camera shake ?
 
As Perry said, I love the idea of the shot but I would have preferred for the whole to shell to be in focus. :)
 
Thanks for looking and commenting. Tend to agree that the bg isn't ideal. I initially tried using both white and black card, but the pale inside of the shell merged with the white and the darker details on the outside did similar with black. Should really have tried harder!
 
blondie606 said:
Hi Elane


my god woman...how many holidays do you have each year............only jealous :D

Bliss , yup ,on theme for sure but a little too pasted on for me...not that I could have done any better !

Fragile....I love those shells , edited version works a bit better with less vignette but focus still seems a bit soft ? Are you using a tripod & self timer to avoid camera shake ?
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Hi Lynne. Got 4 holidays booked for this year - first one is 2 weeks today - yeehaw :D

For the shell, I used my usual method of steadying the camera with whatever was handy - in this case one elbow leaning on the worktop and the other jammed up against the towel rail :oops: :$ I suppose that if I'm going to be doing this challenge for another whole year I really need to excavate my tripod from whichever cupboard it's been buried in for the last 2 or 3 years. As for the self timer, I've already made the effort and just had a look in my camera's manual to see how to switch it on - oh yeah, the button with the little clock on it, obvious when you know it's there :rolleyes:

I really appreciate your advice and comments, because you tend to suggest practical stuff that I often know I should already be doing, but you give me that little push I need to get my arse in gear and actually do it :ty:
 
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Hi Elaine, nice to see you here, playing a bit of catch up myself so it will have to be brief sorry
Bliss, you certainly are the holiday queen here can't complain thats its not bang on theme for you
fragile, I think its all been said regarding the focus etc, you need to dig out that buried tripod it will be worth it, not sure the BG works a bit of sand maybe :thinking:
 
Archaeological dig successfully completed and tripod located - now I just need to remember to use it ;)
 
Hi Elaine! Bang on theme with the shell. I quite like the background really, blends in with the greyer side of the shell quite nicely. [emoji4]
 
The subject definitely fits the theme, I can't add anything over and above what has already been said with regards to use of tripod etc, I personally don't mind the background. Feet up till Friday now.
 
Pinkbikerbabe said:
Fragile - a good subject for the theme nice sharp the only thing I am not that keen on is the vignette.
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Haha, maybe I watched too many Jacques Cousteau documentaries in my youth, but it kind of reminded me of somebody exploring the seabed with a divers' lamp strapped to their head o_O
 
... should have used a sun-kissed beach as BG ;)

That certainly is or was fragile Elaine (y)
 
Week 3 - Scenic. I was very tempted to leave this one till I'm in Malaysia next week (have I mentioned that I'm going on holiday? :exit:) but then I realised just how far behind I'm going to be by the time I get back anyway, so I whilst it was a bit sunny this afternoon, I braved the cold and dragged myself off out. This is only about a mile from where I live, so I pass it several times a week and have always meant to take some shots of it, but somehow never got around to it until now.

Scenic Railway

2015 52s Week 3 by Elaine Key, on Flickr
 
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Pinkbikerbabe said:
Scenic - fits the theme, I find the tree branches distracting me from the view of the lovely bridge. But I get the impression there is limited points for getting a clear shot.
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Yes, I wanted to get the stream and the sunny field beyond it in shot and this was the only place I could do that without a tree right in front of me :(
 
p3ryg said:
Like the shot and good to catch a modern train on an old bridge
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Thanks Perry. This was actually the last shot I took. I waited for what seemed like ages for a train to cross the bridge on the track closest to me and my fingers and toes felt like they were about to drop off with the cold, so I was just about to give up and go home when this one came across :)
 
Hi Elaine, I quite like the composition with the train tight at the top, but the trees are slightly distracting do you not carry a chainsaw in your camera bag :LOL:

Have another good holiday (y)
 
Enjoy your hols Elaine :cool:

I'm going to disagree with your wait as I find the train a bit tight to the top of the scene, maybe portrait style would have allowed you to include everything you wanted to. IMHO it would look better cropped to the top of the viaduct and would be a cracking pic then. but I'll get my coat now :coat:
 
As already mentioned for a busy looking picture it all works together really well for me
 
Hiya Elaine... nicely spotted and well waited for the train! I'd be inclined to lift the shadows a bit (and perhaps reduce the saturation a smidge) and then for me you have a really strong image.

Nicely done just before you scoot off and make us all jealous with shots of sun and san and sea :(
 
I like that. It's on theme, and the train is well worth it's inclusion. I do find the extent of the branches a little distracting, but there's not really anything you could do about that.
 
rpn said:
Hi Elaine, I thought you have captured the theme well with a busy image. The tree branches, stream, bridge arches, train and the open space in the background. You timed the shot perfectly to capture the train at the exact moment.
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Thanks Stan. As I said, that was the last shot I took and that's actually the back end of the train leaving the bridge, but somehow it looked better that way round than the one with it coming in from the right o_O
 
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