Stone statue- critque PLEASE!

I like the composition of the first one but the strong shadow in the upper right hand corner is really distracting to me. I think shooting this at a different time of day or perhaps on a paritially overcast day would have worked better.

The second shot I'm not really crazy about but I'm not quite sure why. Again the shadows are harsh, but what I find here is that my eye seems to be more drawn to the fountain in the background and away from the main subject. I think the sharpness and the DOF are good but I just don't really care for that second shot.

Just my $.02 worth,
Peace,
Jim

agreed about the overcast day.

sadly, i only have this 40D for another..uhh, few hours. haha. I have it again for the whole weekend but...still.

it sucks not actually OWNING your equipment.

#1 - the chin is slightly cut off; don't care for the shadow. Shoot later or earlier in the day.

#2 - shadow problem; don't particulary care for composition of fountain.

Like the texture in the stone but the shadows are too dark.

Need fill flash - or reflector to bounce light into the shadows. Shooting at a different time of day or changing the shooting angle........ Probably a combination of two or more would achieve better lighting for this statue.

It is a neat statue...if you get a chance shoot it some more!

gooble wrote in post #5511827
#2 - shadow problem.

Wouldn't the picture become pretty flat without the shadows though? I'm not trying to be a smart ass or anything. I'm curious on how I could go about getting rid of shadows but keeping the detail,depth, and grain of a subject like that.

seaside wrote in post #5511919
if you get a chance shoot it some more!

It's sitting about 5 feet outside of my back door :P

A certain amount of shadowing can be good. The trick is getting the right balance. If the contrast is too heavy it sometimes takes away from the composition.

The angle of the sun, availability of some clouds or lack thereof can greatly effect the shadows that are cast.

"Out your back door"! Sounds like you will be able to take hundreds of photo's of this statue from sun up to sun down!

hahah...well, depends on when i have the camera. it took me two weaks of convincing before my teacher let me borrow the 40D. She lets me take the rebel whenever I want.

I plan on dropping about 1500-2000$ in the next few months on my own equipment though.

Also, would someone mind pointing out to me which shadows are ok and which ones are the "harsh" ones in the second picture?

It's not that you want to "get rid of the shadows", it's that you want softer shadows with less contrast. A little bit of soft shadows is a good thing as it does help define shapes and such...give a flat image a little more depth. But what you have here is bright stone with -DARK- shadows cutting across it...and that doesn't work.

This is why you'd want to try shooting either in the early morning or the late evening or on a partially over-cast day...you'll still have some shadows to give it depth, but not harsh contrast. As seaside said, even a reflector would help here as it would at least soften the shadows up a bit...bounce some light back into those shadows without loosing them completely. Since you have harsh light to begin with here, I don't think a flash is the way to go as flashes tend to be harsh as well but I think a well place reflector would make a big difference.

The sharp, contrasty shadow under the statue's left eye and that dark "V" under the statue's face.

To give you a comparison in that same picture, look at the shadow running across the statue's left cheek...it's a smooth fade. The two shadows I mentioned are -sharp lines- where the light goes from very bright to very dark.

I hope this helps,
Jim

Yeah, that helped a lot! Thanks man. I'll know what to keep my eye open for now. I'll try redoing this set this weekend.

I don't mind shadows but when they cover up key features like eyes they don't help (in general). They're also not good when they obscure texture and detail.

When applied at the right angle and intensity they can accentuate detail. That's what you want to find.