[Pook]

Sunny day... interesting sky... woman in bikini.... gotta be done.

[Matty]

wow! Fashion, Beauty, Fine Art and glamour all rolled into one shot! the only thing that i find a little distracting is the lsightly bright patch by her left elbow(right side of the picture)

What effects have you used on this shot Pook? I think it works well.

[CT]

Ah... Mrs Pook! Now I see why she appears in a few of your shots.

Excellent composition - her body connects three 3rd intersections, and the sandy path is a strong diagonal. Natures spotlight behind her head just makes it for me. It's an excellent pose too.

Perhaps she might have been a shade more to the right in the frame, but it's a fine call. Can't really fault it. Damn!

[Steve]

Great shot and composition however I see some evidence of where you have dodged and burned if you look about halfway between her wristband and the end of the frame moving upwards diagonally. It looks to me like four or five signs of use of the round brush, if not then that’s a little distracting anyway and would benefit from some attention in PS.

Otherwise a stunning shot of a pretty model (wife) that has been well thought out and executed.

[Pook]

Originally Posted by EosD

wow! Fashion, Beauty, Fine Art and glamour all rolled into one shot! the only thing that i find a little distracting is the lsightly bright patch by her left elbow(right side of the picture)

What effects have you used on this shot Pook? I think it works well.

Yeah... it's a bit hot around that elbow, but then again, if I tried to do anything about that, it would almost ruin the effect of shooting into the sun.. I know what you mean tho.. it's always hit and miss when you point your lens right into the sun.

Not many effects believe it or not. Just did the old digital cross processing thing by manipulating the RGB curves... increased contrast... fine tune with colour balance, and then what gives it the "look" it has I suppose, is I copied the whole shot (ctrl+A, then ctrl+c), then pasted it back in as a layer (ctrl+v). I then desaturated the new layer totally... applied a fair bit of gaussian blur, then changed blending mode to hard light. This gives the effect of a diffuser on an enlarger (blacks bleed into whites instead of the usual opposite). Pretty much it really.

Originally Posted by CT

Ah... Mrs Pook! Now I see why she appears in a few of your shots.

Excellent composition - her body connects three 3rd intersections, and the sandy path is a strong diagonal. Natures spotlight behind her head just makes it for me. It's an excellent pose too.

Perhaps she might have been a shade more to the right in the frame, but it's a fine call. Can't really fault it. Damn!

Yeah.. I love shooting into the sun. Gotta be careful tho.. especially with something like the 350D where you only have a 1/200th flash sync with the on camera flash. Yes.. obviously fill flash was essential if you want to retain sky detail AND have a good exposure on the subject. If you get the balance right (in this case -2stops) it's hard to tell. The shadow on the leg behind gives it away a little if I was to be picky I suppose.

I'll convey your compliments to Mrs Pook :-)

Cheers for the comments and critique.. maybe I should have tried to cool that highlight down a little in Rawshooter first... I dunno.. may re-dev it through when I get some time.

Originally Posted by Steve

Great shot and composition however I see some evidence of where you have dodged and burned if you look about halfway between her wristband and the end of the frame moving upwards diagonally. It looks to me like four or five signs of use of the round brush, if not then that’s a little distracting anyway and would benefit from some attention in PS.

Wanna point them out to me Steve... crop it, and point them aout with an arrow or something... for the life of me, I can't see anything here... then again, I'm looking at the full-res version here. The sky was burned, yes, but only around the edges to give the vignette/Lomo effect, and the brush was so soft i can't image it leaving any tell-tale nasties. Point it out please, cos if it's something I'm just not seeing, I'd like to correct it on the hi-res version before I print it. There's a patch of cloud that looks a little weird... do you mean that? about half-way between the hands and the top left? If so, then teh clouds really ARE like that.. however, they do look weird. You reckon I should blur them a little?

Cheers!

[CT]

Never mind Pook, knowing your standard, we'll give you a kicking if we can! :lol:

I couldn't see what Steve was talking about but I can now I think it's those two bits of weird cloud. If you want that leg shadow sorting mate, just shout, not that I doubt you can do it yourself anyway,

[Pook]

Originally Posted by CT

Never mind Pook, knowing your standard, we'll give you a kicking if we can! :lol:

I couldn't see what Steve was talking about but I can now I think it's those two bits of weird cloud. If you want that leg shadow sorting mate, just shout, not that I doubt you can do it yourself anyway,

Just had a bash at it, and to be honest, it looks well weird without the shadow, so I'm leaving it. Gonna blur that freaky cloud a little too, but i'm finished messing I think. Where's my premium glossy!

[CT]

I can see how the legs might blend together without the shadow.

[Steve]

Originally Posted by Pook

There's a patch of cloud that looks a little weird... do you mean that? about half-way between the hands and the top left? If so, then teh clouds really ARE like that.. however, they do look weird. You reckon I should blur them a little?

I think we are looking at the same place there Pook, on the version shown above to me it looks as though there are two small groups of round brush marks, one of three and the other of four or five that appear to be marks from bad burning. knowing your skill level though I was quite suprised and accept it may just be the way the clouds have formed thanks to mother nature.

If they are not visible on the high res version then I wouldn't worry to much about it although as you say it wouldn't take long or hurt to fix them now.

If you still are unsure that we are talking about the same area of the picture I can do as you asked and crop and ring the exact part for you?

[Pook]

Originally Posted by Steve

If you still are unsure that we are talking about the same area of the picture I can do as you asked and crop and ring the exact part for you?

Nope... same place. Just doesnt look like that on the raw or finished TIFF... I think it's just aliasing and artefacts make it worse. Looks fine on the hi-res.

[bruce2006]

Great shot Pook.
Very dramatic composition and strong lighting. I love to shoot down on the beach.

Id like to have seen this shot done with the same effect re light etc but without the sand dune behind, just the dramatic sky and shot from the same low angle.

Its still a great shot.