First Post -- Coach Lamp

**EJC** · 10-14-2008, 09:24 PM

Hello.

Thank you for the help this site provides to help us make better pictures.
This lamp caught my attention as the scene felt warm although it was a cold overcast day. Did I capture and project that feeling? Your advice please.

cheers

**tirediron** · 10-15-2008, 02:25 AM

Welcome to the forums!

I get a sense of fall from the scene, but because I can't see the sky, I don't really have any frame of reference in which to place it. One of the tricks to improving photography is being able to think about the scene you want to capture objectively; that is, seeing only what the camera sees, and not what all the rest of your senses see. Unless you have a picture of snow and ice, or desert, temperature is a difficult thing to convey in a photograph.

Just a couple of other thoughts; while you have a potentially interesting subject, it is getting lost to some extent in the cluttered background. There's no EXIF data appended to your image, so I don't know what your settings were, but I would suggest that your DoF was too great. Even though the background is soft, it's still far to clear. One possible suggestion would be to shoot this from a greater distance with a telephoto lens (longer focal lengths have less DoF than shorter ones).

It's also important to remember that not everything we see can be turned into a good picture. I don't know if that was the case here, there may well be a different angle to approach it from, BUT the important thing is that you're thinking about what you're trying to convey. Keep it up, looking forward to seeing more!

Just my $00.02 worth - your mileage may vary.

~John

**tegan** · 10-15-2008, 07:55 AM

Considering your comment that it was an overcast day and looking at the photo, I wonder if your overall colour temperature is on the cool side (toward blue) and less warm than it was when you saw it with your eyes.

Some photographers use the shade (colour balance), Vivid in their colour menu choice or a filter to warm up the colour in this situation. Post work in correcting the colour is also done.

Tegan

**Marko** · 10-15-2008, 09:13 AM

T.I. is bang on, on all points here IMO.
Tegan is also right, the image looks 'cool' even though your eyes saw it as warm.

But for me the biggest problem as T.I. mentioned are the distractions in the background.

Hope that helps
Marko

**EJC** · 10-15-2008, 07:25 PM

Thanks folks. This is the advice I am looking for.

Tirediron, is there a way to save the EXIF data with the photo? I am using PS CS3. (its my daughters from school and we are both new users)

cheers

**kiley9806** · 10-15-2008, 07:46 PM

to clean up the background a bit, so you can make this one a keeper, you may try to crop it a bit on the left & top, and clone out that sign that looks like it may say 'willow' in the bottom righthand corner...
you can also warm up the tones in postprocessing, as tegan suggested, making it more orange than blue. it would have maybe helped to envoke that 'warm' feeling in the viewer, if the light bulb were actually burning. not someting you can control...

**kiley9806** · 10-15-2008, 07:55 PM

i hope you dont mind, but i took a crack at post-editing your shot... please tell me if i've over-stepped my boundaries.
i did this really quickly, croppng, clarified it a touch, up-ed the orange tones & saturated it a bit more. you can see i've buggered up the stand/post a little, but with a bit more care, this could be improved greatly!
nice shot!

**EJC** · 10-15-2008, 10:37 PM

Looks great Kiley. Thanks for the demo. I played with the colour balance and tried sharpening the focal areas and bluring the background too. It looked much better. (though next time I'll use a shallower DOF it's easier). Your border really makes a difference.