Its been a while. Finally took some shots of the G this morning (3/20/2011).
Hit a dip looking for spots and ripped off my hope depot lip towards the end of the shoot. Oh well, easy fix.

 

great pics

 

dammnn thats beautiful.

 

Ur making me hungry with all those pix

 

^ haha...
hungry for a G again?

 

awesome pics man

 

very nice set up. awesome photos as well.

 

Nice pics.. My only critique is that they are a bit too yellow. Dont know if thats something you did in post or not.

 

^ hey Dave, yes, 4-5 of them are a bit too yellow. I was trying to bring out the color of my G, just playing around w PS.
It is actually the same settings in all pics, the yellow pics are the ones when the sun came out and was shinning right on the car. I should have toned down the PS settings for those pics.

 

Very nice coupe and great pic! I no expert but I liked your background too with the focus still on your coupe....
Gary

 

I was at Tutti Frutti on Saturday before visiting Blake about my text messaging issue. Great yogurt place

 

Thanks all of you.

 

Sup man.. Sorry it took me so long to reply to your PM..

Without telling you something you already know, my first thought was that some of the shots were over processed.. I guess in my personal taste, I am a purist as far as trying to get as much correct in the camera as possible.. And then very little post production, maybe some sharpening and increase of contrast, and call it a day.. I rarely spend more than 2 mins on each shot unless I'm tone mapping or creating a design or something..

I know that you have photographic skill so I think what you did in post production was trying to create a themed style more than compensating for lack of talent.. But I think too much of a good thing can be overdone as well..

It's VERY easy to over process an image, especially if you're doing it in batch, or if you've been looking at pics for a long time and your eyes get fatigued..

I often times when I'm really working on a single image will walk away, go do something else, come back and see how the image looks.. More often than not, I'll reduce my settings even more because w/ fresh eyes, I can see that I added too much.. Try to think of image editing in the subtractive sense just as much as additive sometimes.. You'll see that removing something (color, sharpness, tone, etc) can be just as attractive..

I think that something you might wanna check out is consistent coloring and tone.. Whether you're creating a style in post production, or lighting a series of shots, when you get done, you want to ensure that there's consistency in the tone between each shot, especially color and lighting on your subject..

For example.. Take shots 1 and 2.. You can tell that you have more of a cool tone in the first shot, and in the 2nd shot you have more of a warm tone. I'd say pick which tone you like most and is more attractive for your subject, and stick w/ that as your base tone, and then edit the other shots accordingly..

Lightroom really helps in that feature because you can create the settings for one pic, and then import those base settings for the whole shoot and then tinker w/ individual pics. If your camera settings didn't change much, you're basically done w/ editing..

I think your style is more commercial rather than expose.. Number 4 is a perfect example.. I could see text or an advertisement where the sky is.. That also might be because of the background you chose. In some shots, unfortunately, the car seems to get lost among the like colored buildings and distracting plants and trees.. I caught myself looking at the surroundings in some of the shots instead of your car.

Setting is a HUGE part of your shot, especially if you're going to have the whole image in focus.. You want to have colors and shapes and lines that draw the viewer to your subject not distract interest away..

I think image 6 is a very strong image.. You successfully utilized the setting and didn't have too much that was distracting.. You also managed to integrate a little color that complimented your car.


Question... In Image 7, is that building BUILT leaning like that? That's just crazy.. LOVE the sky in that image by the way.. Nice exposure.. I just think the building in that image is too like to your car's color, and your car blends in too much.. You want to look for settings where your car POPS.. I think complimentary colors to your car would be greens, deep reds and blues..

Make sure when you're processing that you also have a true white, and a true black.. Taking images 8-14 for example, there is no true white.. It makes the overall tone of the image look dingy or dirty.. The clouds are all gray and your yellows are really over saturated..

Image 14 is really artistic, I like the idea there.. Would have been really strong if that glass was 1 solid piece..


Overall, I know you stated it was a quick shoot, and glad you shared and good to see you shooting.. That's why I focused more on the post production rather than the images themselves.

Hope what I said made sense..

 

Yessir, I know I went overboard with my highlights and shadows, I know it over processes the pictures, but thats the style I have grown to like to most, playing with PS for the last 3-4 yrs.
I would not do this style with portraits of people/pets/animals, but anything else, I like this style the most.

Agreed and agreed.

Agreed. I do some sketching every now and then, and walking away from the sketch and coming back to it after a few mins and looking at it from a different distance than the normal working distance definitely helps. Random thought -> I wish I could apply this to my software coding as well.

Agreed. The later pics do have a more yellow tint on them, b/c the sun came out around 745am and was shining right on the car and during post production I did not tone down my PS settings and that was all part of the plan and done on purpose.

Yes, again totally agree with the subject/background comments. I have always been wary of that, but, as the title says, this shoot was not all about the G, it was about "Addison TX" as well and I wanted to capture the beauty and colors of my neighborhood and share it on the www. And I was actaully happy that you mentioned you found yourself looking at the surroundings as well.

No, the building it not like that, its the angle of the lens, that makes it look like that. Yes, again agreed on the car getting lost in the background, but I wanted to capture the silver guys even if it meant losing the subject. Now, if I had your G at the shoot, I would have parked yours in that pic, instead of mine.

The later pics do have a more yellow tint on them, b/c the sun came out and I did not tone down my PS settings and that was all part of the plan and blah blah blah. But, after posting them I do realize that the yellows are a bit too much and going forward, I wouldnt go this far.

Yes, I like 14 but I think I could have executed the image better with the whole exhuast tip showing and not wasting all the space between the back bumper and the front bumper in the glass.
I like 15 a lot as well (even though I shook my hand on this one a bit), I just had to post it!

Thanks homie. Its always a pleasure to get your inputs and read your thoughts.
Unfortunately, I did not cause any other cars to get into wrecks during this shoot. Fist-bump.

 

I still remember that day.. And every time I shoot, or am assisting on one, I am watching the cars passing to see if someone's about to get rear ended...

I just hate neither one of us (both w/ cameras in hand) never took a shot of that accident our cars caused.. Definitely a moment of pride.. We caused the wreckage of a benz.. Dude was PISSED!! LMAO..