Our workout today was called "Back to basics" which was appropriate since the shots I took today followed a similar theme, that is, getting back to a basic technique- focus.
A while back I got a suggestion from a reader, bentzurm. He pointed out that many of my photographs were soft and that I might try using a higher ISO if it allowed me to take sharper pictures. Well, today was the first chance I got to give it a shot (no pun intended). I'll admit, I didn't follow bentzurm's suggestions exactly: I was in a rush because I knew Browns' workout wouldn't last long (less than 3 minutes!) and I didn't want to miss any opportunities. So I used the sensitivity mode on my Pentax K10D and set it to 1600 ISO- basically, the highest sensitivity setting for my camera. Unfortunately, I was in such a rush I didn't realize some of the settings were still in place from an earlier shoot I had done over the weekend around a late-night bonfire so many of the shots had very weird exposures to say the least! I was forced to use the flash a few times against my will before I realized what the heck was going on..... Nevertheless, I think the focus was better overall today than in previous WODs, so I'm encouraged.
Like I said, I didn't have much time to set up these shots at all, so the background is cluttered and many of the pictures are spur of the moment snapshots. In an attempt to crop out the most distracting stuff, I cropped it wide and thin, almost like a widescreen perspective. I used the filtered black & white tool (red) to emphasize his tattoos and then brought up the contrast just a tad. Love the facial expression in this one. There's another one with an even better grimace, but the exposure is too dark to make much out of it, I'm afraid. You be the judge- see the rest at Back to Basics.
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5 comments:
Melanie
Thanks to Lisbeth for posting a link to you on the Affiliates blog today. I love your work thus far. I too am learning the ins and outs of Crossfit photography. Reading your blog has given me a lot of wonderful ideas. Thanks.
Keith
crossfitvirtuosity.com
Melanie hi, I'm glad you thought my advice is worth a try. I also like the results. I still feel that the high grain is tolerable especially in BW photos. It also gives this "gritty" feel you mentioned before.
This time I think that the pictures can be improved with better cropping and tweaking the exposure details. I took the liberty and did this for a couple of pictures and will link to a picasaweb album with them. If you want you can download them and then I can remove them from my account. basically I took the main picture you posted in the blog, croped it so that the clutter on the left side vanishes. This moves the athletes face from the center to a much better position in regards to composition (closer to the rule of thirds). I've also aligned the bar with the photos edges. I took also the other picture with the better grimace and tried to make the best out of it. I pumped the exposure up, which gives a nice exposure in the face, while burning the background which isn't that bad because there is nothing there to miss. I also cropped it in the same way.
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Oh and I forgot to mention how I really love the 9-11 picture from the last post. Really powerful.
Wow.... I didn't realize Lisbeth had linked to this blog again until I saw Keith's comment. Very cool! Thanks for checking in, Keith. As you can tell, I'm still very much a student who engages in as much error as I do trial, hahaha. It's nice to know other people are following along with my ups and downs. :-)
bentzurm, I must admit, I prefer your cropping to mine and uploaded your pics to my album so others can see your versions as well (labeled with your name). It's funny, I originally considered straightening the shot to the barbell but talked myself out of it before I even tried it because I imagined it would make the subject look slightly askew. Now that I see its effects in your version, I realize I missed an opportunity to improve my photo. Lesson learned!
As for the super-grimace picture, (I'm still kicking myself for such a poor exposure on that one!) the post-processing opens it up a bit, but I still feel like the fine details of his facial features are lost in shadow. Yet, the more I look at it the more it grows on me, so who knows?
Thanks again for your suggestions, though. I'm very glad for the dialogue and the opportunity to discuss these things with fellow CrossFit Photographers. If either of you have photo-blogs or gym-related albums, I'll be happy to add them to my sidebar as "Friends of Gymagery"....
I'm glad you liked them. Like I said, I think they work better mainly because the face is off-center. This is very typical cropping and it works well when the subject is at an angle and his gaze is towards the rest of the photo. The head is located at 1/3 of the photo and his gaze fills the rest of picture. I'm not sure I'm clear but you get the point.
Take a look at the second picture in this link as an example of this.
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