Dragon Wall

[Bob]

I am stuck in a hotel room since the weather is just raining too hard.
So I thought I might try to salvage at least one shot from yesterday's shoot.
The problem with the image below was a very bright featureless sky and sharpness everywhere (WATE 16 at 5.6). So I diddled a bit, but something still is bothering me.
All of the shooting was very close quarters with very limited selections of vantage point.
All comments are welcome.
-bob

 

[Terry]

Bob,
One thing that is jumping out at me on this is the bokeh at the top of the building aroung the antenna. While the rest of the building is soft this area looks more smeared. I'm playing around with crops but what seems most effective is trying to find a way to make the tree behind less sharp or a lighter color to make the dragon pop out more.

 

[Bob]

That is plain old gaussian blur. The original is tack sharp everywhere and it is totally distracting. I blurred the mid-ground trees a bit, and the background building even more as well as taking it down in brightness and de-saturating the red. I could work on changing the color of the leaves a bit. Maybe I just paint out the antenna too...
-bob

 

[Bob]

OK, I took another go at it.
Erased antenna ant top floor of building, painted in sky,
Masked dragon, added lens blur to background and a gradient blur to the dragon.
Added local brightening to the dragon head, desaturated the red writing on the building, and added a curve for good luck.
How is this one?
thanks
-bob

 

[Bob]

I Lied, it was taken with a 50mm summarit
The mind gets weaker all of the time
-bob

 

[Mitch Alland]

Bob, I don't think that the antenna was the problem: to me it's the busyness of the dragon head against the leaves, which is sort of head-ache inducing. There is also a compositional problem in the dragon head fighting the corner of the roof, which are the two main elements in focus. If you value this picture perhaps you should start over, without the gaussian blur and see whether you can bring attention to the dragon by changing only the tones or colour saturation. My feeling is that this could work with having to blur some of the background. Perhaps the nest way to see what can be done in to convert the picture to B&W and see what can be done with the tones, which might give you an idea of what to do in colour.

—Mitch/Bangkok
http://www.flickr.com/photos/10268776@N00/

 

[Bob]

Yes,
This shot is a train wreck.
1. Lack of tonal contrast or textual interest between the Dragon's head and the trees
2. The fairly dominant corner of the roof distracts
3. The contrast between the tail and the wall draws the eye (in the wrong direction)
Maybe one for the slag heap where it will join thousands of others.
-bob

 

[Haya]

I was thinking this image would really work in black & white and if it doesn't for you then you can do what Mitch said and adjust the tones for color.

 

[Bob]

Well, I tried working it again, this time in B&W and removed the distracting roof in the corner. The B&W conversion was done to lighten he greens in an attempt to better isolate the Dragon head. Unfortunately there is just too much black in the foliage to get it to lighten much.
Here is another go. The next attempt, if any, might be to composite in a new background entirely.
thanks
-bob

 

[Jack]

I've been pondering the image trying to figure why it doesn't work. I think what is killing you is the white fence underneath combined with the busy tree behind -- together they draw too much attention from the darker dragon.

My .02

 

[Haya]

it looks much better with the right side building removed, maybe if you can lighten the tree in the background like jack said its too distracting.

 

[drazin]

i like the color better. great shot