2nd Place The Empty Room ! by Canon DSLR Challenge

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The Empty Room !

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01-JAN-2007	Melbob

2nd Place
The Empty Room !

Transylvania or thereabouts?

This is version 27 ... with a little added 'spice' LOL.
I had anoither go at the floor, so this is post No. 203,427? Howz that for patience?

Canon EOS 5D ,Canon EF 24-70mm f/2.8L USM
30s f/3.2 at 40.0mm iso100 full exif

other sizes: small medium large original auto

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* Submitter retains all copyrights *

Canon DSLR Challenge		09-Jan-2007 04:19
I see you've tweaked the shot. I really liked it before but I like it even more now :) -Techo

alexeig		08-Jan-2007 20:11
Quite sinister. The light behind the door makes a nice touch

Canon DSLR Challenge		08-Jan-2007 05:59
I have not been following the iterations but the end result is indeed striking and thought provoking. ~kt

Nugar		07-Jan-2007 22:47
Bob, thanks for posting the "making of" series. I can only say WOW to the effort put into both shots. Kudos!

Guest		07-Jan-2007 19:07
A truly great fantasy...very stylish execution. -Michael

Canon DSLR Challenge		07-Jan-2007 18:56
I haven't read thru the host of other comments yet. But let me say, excellently done! Very interesting image, really appears to tell a story. --Melanie

iso3200		06-Jan-2007 17:09
Whatever you shot, and how you processed it, its all come together pretty well. Kudos for posting the making of as well. People always enjoy and learn from this sort of thing. Its all about sharing. Can you feel the love?

Canon DSLR Challenge		05-Jan-2007 02:23
Thanks Techo, yep I've lost track of the versions (LOL) but the floor really got me troubled. Had another try at making the floor a little less distracting removed the pretend wood grain and gave it some shadows. It really proves the point that it much better to do it right from the start because trying to fix problems later is so much work... but ones does learn a lot in the process? Thanks for taking the time to comment. Regards, Bob.

Canon DSLR Challenge		04-Jan-2007 22:38
Awesome! Thanks for posting the "making of" . Did you happen to post any other version, other than the 1st and this one? I just remember the window shadow on the floor not being as bright before, I found it less distracting. In any case, you have done an amazing job. Love the feel to the shot. -Techo

Bob AYTON		04-Jan-2007 15:51
Thanks Julie and Nugar. If anybody is interested I have posted a gallery herehttp://www.pbase.com/melbob/how_did_i_do_it which includes photos of every step in this rather convoluted 'fun' exercise. There are better ways to handle many of these steps and if I had been organised I would have taken better shots... but the exercise was really to post and learn... it is a great bonus if people actually appreciate it for what ever reason. Thanks everybody who has taken the time at this busy time of year, to comment. Regards Bob.

Julie Bird		04-Jan-2007 01:21
I love the 'feel' of this image Melbob. Well done.

Nugar		03-Jan-2007 23:12
Hey Bob, it would be nice if you posted the originals used as well as some intermediate stages somewhere, so we can see how that went.

Canon DSLR Challenge		03-Jan-2007 18:08
Thank you Sam, Victor and Vikas. You are very good Victor.. you picked everything I was not happy with but was too lazy to fix! I could not get the window and table view that I needed so had to 'compromise' a fair bit. The smoke stopped short because of the limit of the screen behind it so I should have PS it which I now have done. Tried a total re-shoot but the moonlight was not right.. waited to 4:00 am but clouds got in the way... OH DEAR! So I played around quite a bit to address some of the issues you raised (and rightly so..) I should not be so slack ... but I am learning! Wasn't happy with the floor... a rug was in the way, tried to PS it out but made a mess.. Just couldn't re-shoot the floor so I made a new one.... not as good as I would like but I think not so confusing as the previous version. I'm happy with the window pane/moonlight... I was aiming for that 'old... frosty/eerie' look and I achieved that by shooting the moon and haze around it outside then croped the bit I wanted and patched it behind the floor/window shot. I think you are right... it could be a good comp. if I had been a lot more careful with each shot. But... If time permits I'll do something different. Much appreciate all comments... sort of like my 'internship' and I should be able to post a decent comp. one day. Thanks again, regards, Bob.

Canon DSLR Challenge		03-Jan-2007 15:20
Simply fantastic Bob, this one is way too cool. Love the idea behind it and of course, the execution and excellent PS work. One of my favs from the challenge. Cheers, Vikas.

Canon DSLR Challenge		03-Jan-2007 03:42
I really like the overall effect of this picture. But I'm too distracted by the details. This picture looks too contrived to me. But let me try to be more specific. This is a hard excercise, so bear with me. * The moon behind the window is fine. The window panes are fine. * I don't really like the splotchiness around the window panes, though, especially at the very top of the picture. I have to say, though, that the splotchiness matches the rest of the picture, so consider that to be definitely in the preference category of criticisms. * The light cast by the moon onto (the floor?) is OK except for the portion that seems to be a rectangle that's orthogonal to the picture rather than to the shadow of the window. That looks like an artifact of some sort, but I can't guess what. Hazarding a guess, I'd have to venture that it's the shadow of a piece of board held behind the smoke or something like that, the shadow being from the slave flash. But I could be way off base there. * Below where the edge of the table meets the bottom of the picture is the same kind of splotchiness as on the top of the picture. I don't care for that. It looks overly aliased or texturized somehow. * The shadows of the items on the table are not right (there are double shadows). This is because of the dual flash setup, I'm sure. Since you are going black and white anyway, you might want to put a color filter over the master flash to prevent its making a shadow (don't use that channel when processing). Also dial in as much negative flash EC on the master that you can. Try aiming it away from the subject as well, perhaps to the ceiling or something -- or add some sort of baffle. * The garlic could be more clearly recognizable as garlic. I wasn't quite sure what it was until I read the comments. * The smoke looks fake. I don't think it's from the two curlicues as much as the way the smoke suddenly ends. That doesn't look natural. * The perspective of the table doesn't seem to match the perspective of the shadow of the moonlight on (the floor?). This may simply be an optical illusion of some kind, though. * The table to the right of the cup and gun is too patterned and distracts. * There is a vertical black sliver on the right margin of the picture. It should probably simply be cropped out. I hope this all doesn't sound too negative. The picture strikes me as a sketch of something that could be really stunning given a bit more work. -- Victor

Canon DSLR Challenge		03-Jan-2007 03:13
That's how you make people stop smoking. Trust me, I am a physician! Sam Attal.

Canon DSLR Challenge		03-Jan-2007 03:00
Thank you Fly, Shu, Mary Anne and Mikey and Nico again. I really appreciate your encouraging comments. Mary Anne, I used a piece of black card just above the table to capture the smoke rising above the table so it would not end abruptly when I blended the pics. The curly bits make it look contrived but they are original captures. I just realised that I left one of the incense sticks on the table, you can see it bottom RHS, a thin long stick. I admit that there is no earth shattering photography in this, but I did have fun trying to come up with something a little original, as is really hard to do with this topic! Thanks everyone, Regards Bob

Canon DSLR Challenge		03-Jan-2007 01:55
Nice job, Bob!! -mikey

Canon DSLR Challenge		02-Jan-2007 19:43
I like the photo, but I really thought the smoke was PS'ed in. Thank you for the explanation...and a job well done. --Mary Anne

Guest		02-Jan-2007 17:34
Nice implied story to this.

Canon DSLR Challenge		02-Jan-2007 14:24
BTW, thanks for the workflow. It's the extra step that adds so much to the viewer's understanding of how the image was created. I appreciate it!! shu

Canon DSLR Challenge		02-Jan-2007 14:13
You put this together admirably. It's definitely an image that demands many looks, IMO. shu

jnconradie		02-Jan-2007 12:29
Thanks for the explanatory comments, Bob, including the "Frank..incense" ! :-) It all sounds very impressive and lot of work... but also lots of fun. Congratulation again. I think the end-result is quite impressive. Regards ~jnconradie

Canon DSLR Challenge		02-Jan-2007 07:21
Woops... I forgot to mention the smoke... I stuffed a couple of incense sticks up the barrel ... Frank..incense of course!

Canon DSLR Challenge		02-Jan-2007 07:17
Hi Nico, thanks for commenting. Yes this is a composite of three photos... The Moon (fuzzed) and the Window were blended to look like moonlight through the window and block out all the extraneous visuals outside the window. The third is the smoking gun, clove of garlick and cup. I converted the window to B&W but left the table and gun slightly coloured but desaturated the reds and yellows to just give enough 'colour' to add to the contrast, otherwise the table and gun tended to blend too much. I used two flash guns Master and slave (580 driving a 550) to get light to appear to come from outside. (fired the slave into the camera with a diffuser. Used some filter/diffusion on window to help with 'surreal' effect because the window curtain surrounds made it too 'sloppy' to get sharp window outlines. Had a bit of fun with this because all of my other ideas were 'stolen' (LOL) before I could post them. Regards, Bob

jnconradie		02-Jan-2007 06:40
Superb work, Bob. The smoke is a wonderful touch. At first I thought it was bw, but then the table does seem to have a brownish colour. Did you do some type of sepia conversion, perhaps? I am not too sure about the object between the cup and saucer - perhaps a little bit too small to really make out what it is? In any event: Compliments! Regards ~jnconradie (Might also have been a good "Well Blown Highlight" entry?)

Canon DSLR Challenge		02-Jan-2007 05:25
Ha Ha!... you will have to wait for episode II for that clue? Regards, Bob

Canon DSLR Challenge		02-Jan-2007 04:37
There must have been a silver bullet in that gun! No body - what happened to Dracula? :-) CJ