Hehe, that was really good: "... millions of years of this effortfull creation of our planet is sent for repair in a pressing of the button of either one of these!!" (Hassie or Mamy). Well... gimme five, brother!
Thinking about your description of that image I must say that you find me here of quite the same idea and opinion. Very often I had to "balance" between contrast and gradients and this never really satisfied me. Perhaps one could say that "we want to much" form an image, but it appears very limiting, very unsatisfactory and also in some ways very sad to me. Why do I have to be unfair with the one in order to satisfy the other? It is much like telling a friend that he/she can't be with you for a drink tonight because the other friend wouldn't like that... Non, no, this is not my world. I want the fool cake and the well fed uo dog, as we say in German. ;-) Impossible? Well, we will see. We manage to get the possible immediately done. For the "impossible" we need some days more. ;-)
So I guess we just keep on trying and our treasured cameras surely keep all means available for us. It is only that we have to find them in order to keep gradients and plasticity but also contrast and power to high degrees.
Such lovely things like the Mamy of the Hassie are capable of everything, I have the impression. We just keep updating our skills to match their incredubly high standards. ;-)
hi Nick and thanks a lot for the reply and question!
your Hassie and my Mamy can do miracles- sometimes, i get the feeling that millions of years of this effortfull creationof our planet is sent for repair in a pressing of the button of either one of these!! now you do the counting! ;)
there was a very nice picture that i had the chance to see in an exhibition of artistic photography. it was simple in composition; hard light comming in from the window, its reflection on the floor and a nice highlight of the contours of the face of a person standing by the window. it was very graphical, due to high contrast, and i like it how it was composed. but, one thing i thought might be improved was the highlighted face contours, which for me were somehow plain and to harsh- and i think that if i were to do something similar, that highlighted part on the face would look much different. there would be nice smooth and organic shifting of gradient. that is to say that the harsh light coming through the window would still be the same, both on the window and floor, but the only difference would the gradients on the face. and, yes, this would be a perfect example for perfect contrast and gradients. and i think it is Very possible. we only have to hunt how light perfectly shapes itself around objects! so, nothing only wishful about it!~
Thanks a lot for the details on the making, Visar!
Alas, if we could only find a way to preserve contrast and still have the gradients untouched. Here is one of the big questions to me: Just when do we prefer gradients and when high contrast? And can we have them both perfectly? Can we?
In other words I am looking for the cake that remains full even after we fed our dog too, but this is the stuff for wishful thinking, I guess.
On another idea, what could result out of this if you just had a strong light source pointing upward? Could that generate yet another interesting image or do you think that it would rather destroy the certain "continuity" that we see here?
Hi Nick, and thanks for the comment and suggestion.
I am looking at your suggestion and i think it is nice for it really helps on generating a more "real" image as you put. the gradients, do suffer a little fading but they do not change the content. and so it seems to me, and i am considering your suggestion.
in fact, the original version, before retouch, had a similar contrast as your suggestion. but i played with exposure a bit thinking of putting more emphasys on the mesh.
The sharpness of the mesh is simply top of the arts, Visar, as it shows clear and crispy contours but not a single region of pixelized stair-stepping effects. I say that since I take it as a certain kind of "basis" for the rest of the image.
So, I look at it, and in front of the white background (sky) it looks dark, but it also seamlessly chainges behavior and presents highlighted parts in front of the much darker shirt of the man! And I just can't say where exactly this change of behavior starts and where it ends! The gradient is perfect!
Add the great gradients on the cloths (for example trousers) that ass so much to the relief of the subject, and so we get an image with a very great amount of tension!
A bit of more contrast makes it more... "real" but I have the impression that the great but so seamless gradients suffer then. Or is it only my impression? (Attachment)
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{K:127263} 11/5/2009
