Assignment #101, Windows, Gates & Doors (ASSIGNMENT)

Use this thread for posting your comments, and/or current/prior work for Assignment #101: "Windows, Gates & Doors".

I've always been fascinated by windows, gates and doors from an architectural perspective. Sleek and modern, or old and weathered - these three items make wonderful subjects to photograph.

In our motorcycle travels, we each get to observe tons of windows, gates and doors in various locales from boarded up ghost towns to the largest metro areas in the state. This assignment will focus on your ability to find a window(s), gate(s) or door(s) and present the subject in the best way possible. Think about ways to make the subject stand out, be interesting, tell a story, or make you question something. Concentrate on technical aspects such as creative use of composition, lighting, and DOF. And use your imagination to find one of these items! Some ideas off the top of my head include churches, a cemetery, high-rise buildings, looking in or looking out, boarded up and so forth.

Specifics:
1) Camera phone, point & shoot, DSLR, or even film; all shooters are welcome and encouraged to participate!
2) Post processing is allowed for this assignment.
3) All forum posting rules apply regarding suitability of an image to post.
4) Your photograph has to have been taken between now and Monday, February 25th at midnight.

Here's a few from my archives to get you thinking and maybe provide some inspiration....

Great idea!
Here's a few from my archives...



This is my sister, taken before her wedding down in St. Marten

Yep. Poser is on the right track...

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Window peeper...



Locked gate...



Birth of a Door...

Here are a few oldies of mine,







Would this count as a gate/door?

Tourmeister said:

Would this count as a gate/door?

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In my book it would. A BIG one at that.

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M38A1 said:

In my book it would. A BIG one at that.

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Unfortunately, I don't have any trips to Mexico planned in the next two weeks...

Tricepilot...? Paging Tricepilot to the white phone please...

Looking forward to this. Posted previously on the old gas stations thread,
a radius glass block window with a Honda 90 enshrined in its diffused sunlight.

Nice. That block wall did a nice job.

One like it gave me fits shooting at the pool the other day.


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Some of my prior stuff:

Dang, I was hoping to use some photos I took at Eastern State Penitentiary last May in Philadelphia. But now I see most are posting old photos so I will too.





I have many more but will limit it to these. Was with an Olympus P&S. No processing.

Yep... I knew old puppy dog was going to show up when you found this one...


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Door... window?

I like it. Tons of possibilities on this one.

And a few from my archives:









Now, I've got some thoughts on this already, and my bike will be playing a role in the shot, again...

From the collection

Gates



Windows & Doors

Great idea, Scott!

What a great bunch of pictures. Looking forward to the entries.

The house in which I have been living the past three years
was built by my grandfather in 1948.
Now it's just me, my dog,
five generations worth of stuff
and the ghosts.

That's nice shooting, Mac....

M38A1 said:

That's nice shooting, Mac....

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Thank you. I'm trying but how do you fellows make your photographs look polished like the ones in full page magazine ads?

Mad Mac said:

Thank you. I'm trying but how do you fellows make your photographs look polished like the ones in full page magazine ads?

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They do it by shooting in raw and post processing in Lightroom, Photoshop, or something similar. The camera has to be able to save raw files though. Cameras that do not save raw still shoot in raw, but when they go to save the file, they apply all the exposure, scene, while balance, etc,... settings on the camera to the raw file to create a jpeg which is saved. The raw file is not saved. So you are stuck with the jpeg as a starting point for any post processing, which really limits what you can do.

Shooting in raw creates a file that basically stores the sensor data without applying any corrections/effects to the file. Then in post processing you get to make those changes manually and immediately see the impact on the image. So after the fact you can tweak color, contrast, exposure, white balance, etc,... It really lets you fine tune the image.

Mad Mac said:

Thank you. I'm trying but how do you fellows make your photographs look polished like the ones in full page magazine ads?

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Depends on what you mean by polished. Could be post-processing like TM suggested. Also, there's the "artistic value" of the photo--things like composition, negative space, rule of thirds, leading lines, shape, form, texture, etc.

At it's most basic level, what makes a photo "art" and what just makes it a "snapshot"? Lots of books, articles and beers have been drunk over that question. We're all on that journey together here to try and discover that in each photo we shoot

Well..... sort of.

Shooting RAW is an easy concept to understand since it's all data. Zeros and ones to be exact. When I shoot a RAW image, I first try to get it all as correct as I can IN-CAMERA via my controls I have available in the area of shutterspeed, aperture, ISO and any exposure corrections. I'll also use what I know/have available for light modification such as reflectors, lights etc or just natural. That's getting it right IN the camera so I have very little post-processing to do.

But back to the RAW vs .jpg. The RAW file I shoot is about 10MB in size, a fairly large file. It's jam-packed with data regarding how that image was constructed. Keep that thought in mind.....

When you shoot non-RAW, the camera captures the image as TM said in a RAW format, but then applies that image against an internal database of thousands of images and makes slight corrections/adjustments based on what it calculates to be the best image it can produce. Then as TM said, it applies those changes to the file, saves it as a .jpg format and kills the RAW file.

Where this becomes important is, the resulting .jpg file is only about 800kb or less than 1/10th the file size as the original RAW file. Again, hold that thought. So far we have either a 10MB RAW file or a .8MB .jpg file.

Let's assume we don't get the desired result in-camera. That's where the digital darkroom comes into play. Most people think "Photoshop" right off the bat which in some aspects is true. But there are MANY programs that assist in post-processing. Lightroom is but another which many of us use here. Without going into specifics of workflow, we'll just call Lightroom a digital darkroom post-processing package for now.

So my image isn't what I wanted. It's under or over exposed. It's maybe dull. Or the image looks blue or 'cold'. These are all things which can be manipulated in post-processing via the digital darkroom software. Don't like the exposure? Simple move a little slider and it tells you how much under/over exposure you are dialing in as well as SHOWS you the result as you are doing it. Some say it's "cheating". I on the other hand say it's no different than dodging/burning in a paper film based darkroom from 20 years ago. It's just digital now.

Now... back to the RAW vs .jpg. When you pull that image you want to work on into the digital darkroom, would you rather have TEN MEGABYTES to work with or less than one megabyte to work with? That's why we all shoot RAW because there is sooooo much more data to work with in post processing. That's how many of us are creating more what the eye actually saw, or in some instances really pushing the boundaries into the 'art' realm.

Oh, and good glass helps.


Look - a squirrel...................


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Tracker said:

Depends on what you mean by polished. Could be post-processing like TM suggested. Also, there's the "artistic value" of the photo--things like composition, negative space, rule of thirds, leading lines, shape, form, texture, etc.

At it's most basic level, what makes a photo "art" and what just makes it a "snapshot"? Lots of books, articles and beers have been drunk over that question. We're all on that journey together here to try and discover that in each photo we shoot

Click to expand...

^^this^^

As an example, here's how the past assignment for me came out of the camera:


I knew I wanted to really change it up, getting into the 'artsy' look, so with only a few keystrokes, turned it into this:


HUGE difference in the way they look. Polished? Probably not, but 'artsy', without a doubt. Again, all in post.

Maybe as I shoot for this assignment I'll post some before/after images if that helps some. Much of my post centers on a few basic simple tasks like cropping for effect, clarity/sharpness, contrast, color and black points. And most of it is really very very minor, but added up it makes a difference.

Does that help?

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Oh, I get it. It's just skill, knowledge, experience and hard work.

I'm embarrassed to admit that my camera is capable of giving me RAW images to work with, but I do not have it set up that way. As it is now I do a little touch up in Picasa or I can choose an art mode when I shoot, as I did for the Big Jugs picture with soft focus.

In the meantime, I'm enjoying shooting and seeing the work of professionals. Thanks for the information.