Melbourne, Australia - not the usual postcards

[dkatchalov]

Hey guys, took my 5dmk2 & 50mm 1.8 for a walk in the city yesterday.

these aren't the usual glamour shots of the city :)

C&C much appreciated. thanks.

http://i823.photobucket.com/albums/zz153/dkatchalov/IMG_0347.jpg

http://i823.photobucket.com/albums/zz153/dkatchalov/IMG_0350.jpg

http://i823.photobucket.com/albums/zz153/dkatchalov/IMG_0354.jpg

http://i823.photobucket.com/albums/zz153/dkatchalov/IMG_0456.jpg

http://i823.photobucket.com/albums/zz153/dkatchalov/IMG_0465.jpg

:)

[cheggy]

I like the one of the clocks. All these people sitting around with time passing them by. I think it also works really well with the contrast of the white clocks on the black archway.

The first one seems a little dark for my liking. It might be nice to see a little more detail in the shadows on the bottom right corner of the image although I don't imagine there was much light on that day.

Cheers, Tim

[dkatchalov]

Thanks Tim.

The first one looks pretty light on my monitor, i guess thats one I need to calibrate it :)

appreciate the feedback - thanks for looking.

[Robert_Lay]

Each of the several shots seems to have unusually high contrast. Using the histogram tool, we can see that only one of the pictures has highlights without clipping but all have heavily blocked upshadows.

For some reason, these scenes all seem to have a dynamic range beyond the camera's ability to capture.

Why do you suppose that is?

The only thing I can think of would be that for your Picture Style, you may have set the Contrast parameter to its highest value.

[dkatchalov]

Hi Bob

thanks for looking and the feedback.

My PS is set to std, which only has sharpening +3, everything is 0.

i do PP in lightroom and do a high-contrast B&W conversion as I like the look that this creates.

is this wrong? is there another way to achieve same result ?

thanks again.

[Robert_Lay]

Hi Bob

thanks for looking and the feedback.

My PS is set to std, which only has sharpening +3, everything is 0.

i do PP in lightroom and do a high-contrast B&W conversion as I like the look that this creates.

is this wrong? is there another way to achieve same result ?

thanks again.
Very difficult to judge something as wrong - there are quite often legitimate departures from convention. Not only that but there have been people who became idolized for this exact same style of photography - for one, the famous "WeeGee".

I have to base my critiques on what I think is the norm for "good photography", and that calls for a range of tones that has detail in both the shadows and highlights and a little extra in between. Not everyone will agree with that, but everyone on the "corner" knows where I'm coming from.

[Meaty0]

Hey...I like high contrast B&W! And my favourite city, other than Brisbane of course.

I have to agree with Bob here. While I like contrasty images, the large areas of blacks with no detail are a bit distracting.

[dkatchalov]

Interesting - thanks guys, appreciate the feedback!

[cheggy]

Well I think on the clocks image, the strong contrast works because it takes away distractions like what's inside the station and focuses on two asssets; the clocks and the people.

As mentioned though, I find there to be too much darkness in the first because the bottom right corner of the image looks like there would be some interesting things to look at (paths, patterns, people, trees, etc)

[Fastfwd13]

Train station's one has a good feel to me. I like train stations in general but this one has a nice feel to it due to the clocks looming above the people waiting. The clocsk feel like a time pressure to me but the sitting people are the opposite to that.

[dkatchalov]

This thread is aweomse for the variety of views offered on what draws people to various images. thanks heaps.