[danpen]

First thing I've posted in this section, don't be too gentle, I am after honest opinions. I usually take shots of wildlife, particularly bugs but I've been trying to broaden my horizons ...





There are more in this series on my site, but these are the ones I like best, I got some rather strange looks knealt in a wet street taking them and people kept apologising for getting in my shot. I drummed up some courage to ask the owner of the boots if he'd mind moving a bit while I photographed his feet, don't know what he thought.

These were taken handheld with an EOS 20d using a Canon 24-105mm L IS. I used the Photoshop channel mixer to convert to grey and then converted to duotone to add a bit more depth.

[Dave]

Like the idea of this series...good to be different

I like the angle on the 1st one , with the position of the boot vs the pavement lines. Not sure if it would look better without the boot in the background though

[Dave]

2nd one reminded me of Steves shot here :- http://www.pixalo.com/gallery/showph...to/428/cat/529

Like the conversions on both shots

[danpen]

Dave, thanks for taking the time to have a look and comment.

Yes, I agree about the boot in the background on the first shot, I really need to look more thoroughly at the edges of the frame when I'm taking a shot. I tend to concentrate on the subject only.

I hadn't seen Steve's shot but was aiming for the same sort of effect, I think he pulled it off better.

Thanks for the comment on the conversion, I'd not worked in monochrome before and learned a lot doing these.

[Steve]

I like the first shot a great deal, the detail retained, the dof used and the duotone conversion really suits the subject matter. Like Dave said the second pair of boots in the top of the frame let it down a little and weaken the overall impact.

I can speak with some experience about the subject matter in the second shot While I was attempting my shot that Dave has already pointed out, I also received many strange looks and people went out of their way to avoid their feet being in the shot. In the end I just sat on the floor and waited until people got used to me being there and ignored me. This then allowed me to take many different shots at different shutter speeds and apertures. Eventually I got the right settings and the right subjects too.

Again your shot suffers from parts of your main subjects not being completely in frame (as there is only two this is quite vital) and although the direction of travel is into the space as it is such a tight crop it doesn’t quite work. Also the main focus is slightly nearer to the lens than where your subjects are, the cobbles are sharper than the feet. This again weakens the shot. I think that the idea for this shot (and series) is actually very good, but you should attempt to re-photograph the moving feet to get a better result.

Out of the two shots here the first is the stronger photo but I think you have a better second shot in you some where, you just need to make some time and get a cold bum to get it

Hope that helps