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TallPaul


Photograph Information Photographer's Comments
Challenge: Motivational Poster III (Basic Editing*)
Camera: Nikon D70
Lens: Nikon MF Nikkor 50mm f/1.8 AIS
Date: May 11, 2009
Aperture: f4
ISO: 200
Shutter: 1/80s
Galleries: Nature, Digital Art
Date Uploaded: May 12, 2009

 So after having my Demotivational entry up all week and stressing about if it was legal or not I've now gone and changed my mind at the last minute.

This picture was inspired by this wonderful image by Techo. I had always wanted to recreate it and now with lots of dandelions around now seemed the perfect time.

Having collected a bunch of dandelions in the very windy weather we've had this week (easier said than done) I then arranged them on a frosted glass door I'd removed from an IKEA cupboard in my office, which was suspended on a weight lifting cage in the garage. Lit from underneath using a 500 watt builders lamp with a white sheet drapped between the light and the glass door in a kind of U shape to achieve the graduation in the background.

Post Processing was some fairly agressive changes to the RAW image in Adobe CameraRaw 4.5 to change contrast, saturation, black levels and brightness and exposure. This was alot of unscientific fiddling (I'm sure other PS novices will relate to this approach) until it looked ok.

Then in Elements 7 crop and much more 'fiddling' with sliders for levels, saturation, highlights etc etc all on the background image, no layers. Finally lots of experimentation with noise reduction, sharpening and very subtle gaussian blur to try and control the noise created with all the changes without losing too much detail. It was all very suck it and see until it looked like I wanted it too.

I like the resulting image and I think the quote works really well alongside it. I hope the voters agree.

I expect a heap of amazing shots in this one but I'l stil hope for a PB @ 6.1+ (how's that for setting yourself up for a fall!)

Post Challenge

WOW! What an amazing feeling. Thank you so much for all the comments and votes. Its been a long long week and with the scores thread so quiet I was wondering what today would bring.

Thanks again

Cheers, Paul.



Statistics
Place: 2 out of 134
Avg (all users): 6.9404
Avg (commenters): 8.1364
Avg (participants): 6.9649
Avg (non-participants): 6.9317
Views since voting: 8282
Views during voting: 448
Votes: 218
Comments: 44
Favorites: 14 (view)

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AuthorThread
 05/24/2009 12:37:23 AM
the saying is perfect for the photo and for us all to keep in mind!
Congratulations on a fine entry and a fabulous finish!
  Photographer found comment helpful.
 05/23/2009 03:28:58 AM
another fantastic saying .. i'm very into pithy sayings by the way .. totally loved the small darkroom known as fear, and this one .. well, its so true ..
another superb visual respresentation .. you do these extraordinarily well ..
many congratulations on the red, a pb and something very beautiful that it would benefit us all to keep remembering .. !! ... :)
  Photographer found comment helpful.
 05/22/2009 07:27:00 PM
Congratulations on a great entry. Great job.
  Photographer found comment helpful.
 05/21/2009 11:03:11 AM
Congratulations on the ribbon and new PB score! I bet you're pretty happy you switched (although your other poster is wonderful too).
  Photographer found comment helpful.
 05/21/2009 06:19:09 AM
Stunning entry, excellent work and a very deserved ribbon.
  Photographer found comment helpful.
 05/20/2009 10:30:42 PM
Congratulations! Beautiful image!
  Photographer found comment helpful.
 05/20/2009 06:23:33 PM
Lovely! Congrats on the ribbon.
  Photographer found comment helpful.
 05/20/2009 02:41:06 PM
Congrats on your ribbon! This was such an amazing photo. I'm really happy for you.
  Photographer found comment helpful.
 05/20/2009 12:35:02 PM
Congratulations on your ribbon!!
  Photographer found comment helpful.
 05/20/2009 09:55:01 AM
Nice work
  Photographer found comment helpful.
 05/20/2009 09:36:43 AM
Great shot Paul.
  Photographer found comment helpful.
 05/20/2009 09:22:07 AM
Congratulations Paul on your ribbon, this is a amazing capture.
  Photographer found comment helpful.
 05/20/2009 08:57:57 AM
Congrats Paul on your Ribbon love the colors!!
  Photographer found comment helpful.
 05/20/2009 08:09:10 AM
Congrats on your ribbon, great job! I also like your demotivational poster.
  Photographer found comment helpful.
 05/20/2009 07:58:01 AM
oh! good for you!! loved reading your comments and how you worked for this one! CONGRATS!!
  Photographer found comment helpful.
 05/20/2009 02:37:39 AM
Aren't you glad you changed your mind?
This is great! Congrats :)
  Photographer found comment helpful.
 05/20/2009 01:01:56 AM
Huge congrats on the red!! wonderfully done.
  Photographer found comment helpful.
 05/20/2009 12:47:19 AM
You did a great job here, Paul. Congrats on your ribbon and new PB.
  Photographer found comment helpful.
 05/20/2009 12:43:48 AM
WOW PAUL!!!! A RED! Congratulations mate, well done!!! PB and first ribbon - must be time to celebrate!!!
  Photographer found comment helpful.
 05/20/2009 12:32:14 AM
Nice job! Congrats on the red!
  Photographer found comment helpful.
 05/20/2009 12:05:59 AM
Personal best by a wide margin AND a ribbon! Congrats! And thanks for sharing the details - always helpful.
  Photographer found comment helpful.
 Comments Made During the Challenge
05/19/2009 11:55:20 PM
This is my fav! I really hope this ribbons! 10/10
  Photographer found comment helpful.
 05/19/2009 09:19:30 PM
Great shot, great quote...perfect for each other.
  Photographer found comment helpful.
 05/18/2009 07:04:33 PM
Very creative. All around well done.
  Photographer found comment helpful.
 05/18/2009 01:06:32 PM
One of the best tie-in's of the imamge and caption I have seen.
  Photographer found comment helpful.
 05/17/2009 11:18:15 PM
Excellent photo composition for this, i like the overall placement, the diagonal composition, the scattered parts. it all works for me in that sense.
You chose the text and border colour from the photo, which normally is exactly the right thing to do. However, in this case, maybe is makes everything a little too brown. Would have to experiment with the colours to see if something worked better........
The phrase is great, matches the photo, however the text size is too small, and I don't think it should be capitalised. Maybe script in a larger font would have worked so much better. A great photo for this, but the overall presentation of this is not quite as good.
  Photographer found comment helpful.
 05/17/2009 03:30:39 PM
Nice capture and framing.
  Photographer found comment helpful.
 05/17/2009 01:04:55 PM
Great job. I like the diagonal feel to it.
  Photographer found comment helpful.
 05/16/2009 11:11:44 AM
Not a very appealing background, I'm afraid.
  Photographer found comment helpful.
 05/15/2009 10:32:25 PM
My fav of the challenge. Excellent photo with an excellent message...
  Photographer found comment helpful.
 05/15/2009 08:31:57 AM
One of my ribbon picks - I like the muted, duo-tones, the sentiment, and the composition (not to mention how tough it is to get those seeds in motion) well done.
  Photographer found comment helpful.
 05/15/2009 12:10:41 AM
Looks good.
  Photographer found comment helpful.
 05/14/2009 03:33:37 PM
Well said,
  Photographer found comment helpful.
 05/14/2009 02:54:22 AM
wow, love it.
  Photographer found comment helpful.
 05/13/2009 10:01:03 PM
Very well done.
  Photographer found comment helpful.
 05/13/2009 09:15:52 PM
I love the color behind the subject !!! It is so delicate and lovely !!!
  Photographer found comment helpful.
 05/13/2009 01:47:09 PM
Beautiful shot, excellent layout.
  Photographer found comment helpful.
 05/13/2009 12:41:30 PM
The colors work well with this picture.
The pace of change is also good.
  Photographer found comment helpful.
 05/13/2009 08:47:37 AM
Great quote and photo selection!
  Photographer found comment helpful.
 05/13/2009 08:36:10 AM
Amazing. The tittle brings it all together!
  Photographer found comment helpful.
 05/13/2009 06:49:33 AM
EXCELLENT! Wonderful photo capture, concept and text layout! Best of luck and a 9 from me.
  Photographer found comment helpful.
 05/13/2009 05:45:04 AM
I could see this as a poster...great tones...I wonder from a desktop publishing stance if the tagline would have been better in white...just a thought 8 (Good Luck)
  Photographer found comment helpful.
 05/13/2009 05:41:49 AM
In my belief there are more things that contribute for a great motivational/de-motivational poster:
Idea/creativity:10
Quality of the photo:10
Artistic viewpoint:10
Frame/borders:10
Appealence of the font:10
Average:10 one of my favs on this contest
  Photographer found comment helpful.
 05/13/2009 12:58:26 AM
near perfect, from the image to the color to the tag line! 9
  Photographer found comment helpful.


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