hey guys, I am going to try to post after a longish absence, so that you can get a flavor of what I was doing. let me know what you think - good and bad. I am posting in showcase, so you do not feel obligated to critique, but i do welcome critiques.

P

# 1



# 2



# 3



#4


#5


#6
[img]http://www.shuttertalk.com/forums/images/upload/Witnesses-of-Scholars-Gone,-Convocation-Hall,-University-of-Toronto,-March-2010_DSC9944-768-s'.jpg[/img]

#7

(everybody hates this one, but i like it - it shows ordinary pile of dirty snow scraped from A McDonald parking lot (a very common view here in winter) turned into gems

I will post some more if there is any interest in this. By the way Julian, I found out I lied. It turns out that most of my files are between 500 k and 1 Mb. These are the small ones. My older photos I kept mostly below 300 K, but The quality was degraded and now I use bigger files.

Thanks for comments guys.

P

Hi, Pavel!

You have presented a very eclectic series of images. I believe that this is a really good thing, indicating that you are quite a versatile photographer, able to document the world around you with your own unique intepretations. All the images are very well done. The explanation of the creation of #7 should be welcome to your audience. A good example of making something out of seemingly nothing. (I was in the same parking lot and didn't give the dirty snow a second thought.)

Regards.....Dennis

Some absolutely stunning images here. #2 is absolutely awesome and 5 and 6 also big favorites! Its been too long an absence...

Hi Pavel,

I love to see how much your photography has grown and the path it has taken... As Dennis said...

Quote:you are quite a versatile photographer, able to document the world around you with your own unique interpretations.

All great pictures.

#1 Love the reflection, clean and free for interpretation. I like a lot the subtle texture in the water. I feel myself in a quiet lake. I am in two minds about the proportion/size of the subject in the frame.

#2 beautiful contrast with the one before. So dynamic!

#3 Excellent Macro, Pavel!!

#4 Beautiful as well, I like very much your work with colors in this one. The subtle repetition of the red in the bg, it works great. The light is also beautiful, in excellent position to get that texture...

#5 So meaningful. Your color palette in this one works great. Lovely to see contrast in many levels in this one.

#6 Beautiful repetition and colors Pavel. I like very much the way you composed this one.

#7 I can imagine that this one has lovely details and lights. The meaning that came to me was that even in the dirt you can find gems...

I see a lot of work and dedication.
Congratulations, Pavel.

Thank you all Dennis and i started this journey to change from snap-shooters to photographers April 12, 2008 (just over 2 years ago). Obviously we are just starting and still it is nice to see that we have traveled some distance. I am not very competitive, but I always hope to be better now than 3 months ago and worse than i will be 3 months from now. I believe I have been able to achieve that, although sometimes it was close and sometimes I doubted the changes are there. There is so much still to learn! Just go on DP Review and look at the challenges. So many hugely gifted and capable people - they can do so much and i do not even know sometimes why their photos are so good..

Dennis, thanks for commenting, even though you have been forced to see all these photos before and you commented on a good number of them.

Robert, you have a good eye. Flickr has an algorithm which picks the best photos of the week based on the number of views, comments, faves and I think the caliber of the people who do this commenting and viewing. # 2 is one of 7 images of mine that made it on the Explore list and it is rated as the "most interesting" of my photos. Thanks Robert.

Irma, I can not wait to see you in flesh and blood in Prague. I have always learned a lot from your comments and I do plan to "pump you" when I see you. I will start asking you about "the path I have taken". I see myself as omnivore - photographing anything that is available. Spring- flowers, Summer and autumn- landscapes (my real favorite), winter landscapes (if snow), architecture and abstract (indoor and outdoor) and if I can afford it this year to buy a 500 mm (Sigma 150-500 or the rumored Nikon 80/100 to 400/500) lens than Zoo.

Thank you for commenting on individual photos. i particularly value your comment on #7. As always you are one of the few who always understands my intent. With # 1, I considered a square frame, central placement etc., but this seemed most "comfortable" to my eyes. You did not comment about whether or not my colors are over the top. I have been struggling with that when I was here and I still can not decide. Usually after a lot of back and forth, I end uop going with the gaudy version. On #4, you like the colors. I simultaneously love them and hate them. #5 is among my favorites and thanks to both Robert and you for getting it. # 6 just happened. When I tried to push the colors and this came up, I said to myself wow! I do not deserve any credit for these - this is just a lucky accident.

Again, thank you all for comments.

Pavel

Dear Pavel, 2 and 3 and this one are what I liked most especially this one, fascinated me. But I hope you don't mind for my change, I just wanted to see in B/W...(it may not a good quality what I did, sorry) I loved these birds... so beautiful.



Thank you,
with my love,
nia

Thank you Nia. Really nice conversion. Did not think of it, yet it works very well. P

Wow, #2 is awesome - and it's a photo I haven't seen before, if you know what I mean. #3 is also exceptional, and I don't hate #7. Knowing my tastes, though, that might not be a good thing.

The colors in all your pictures are superb, Pavel...

So at the end you will go for the 500mm?? I am happy for you.

Btw, what lens do you use for your macro? Wouldn't you mind to share your settings, light conditions and so on of your picture #3.
I like it very much. I don't know whether I could take something like this with my macro.... :/

Camera: Nikon D300
Exposure: 0.006 sec (1/160)
Aperture: f/32.0
Focal Length: 105 mm
The above is an exif dump. I post the entire Exif on Flickr. A real secret is in postprocessing. I use NIK, which is simple (I learned in hours what took me years with the CS, although to master it and learn the full potential probably takes years) and amazingly powerful. With Nik, in no time you just think of what you want to do and not in the least how to do it.

The secret behind this photo is selective application of contrast to highlights, shadows and midtones and to selective areas (all done with tonal contrast filter, a part of NIK Color Effects plug-in (A collection of tools primarily for color, but useful for pre-processing for BW. I went for good contrast and detail is small part of the photo and creamy soft effect in petals. The next step is selective sharpening. Nik sharpener pro gives excellent control over sharpening and it is in fact difficult to produce sharpening artifacts even with heavy-handed sharpening. You can choose the amount of detail you wish to sharpen, amount of sharpening applied. The filter also unsharpens (opposite direction of the same sliders) and I use it sometimes. The whole set is hugely useful and I do almost everything in NIK and only a few things in CS.

Excellent, dynamic photographs.

Numbers 6 and 1 are my faves; I especially like the tones in the chairs. Number 2 would have pipped it for me, yet I find the top left a little distracting. Number 5 for me(and I stress my subjectivity here) doesn't quite have the shallowness of depth of field for me to pull the bird out..yet I do think the mono treatment sells it well, as we're then talking about tones and textures rather than colours. Now, I know darn well that number 7 is excellent, and I'm cutting it the slack in my mind by imagining it at 16x12 plus...'tis a shame that the web works so much more sledgehammerlike to (rightly) allow minimalistic shots to be scorchers yet doesn't quite capture the nuances of print. Come to think of it, the macros are tasty too. Thank you for posting these, a breath of fresh air.

Thank you Don and Zig.

@Zig, your comments are insightful, as always and give me a stimulus to think or rethink what i did. I agree with your comment on #2. I did not notice until you mentioned it. I am not sure I agree on #5. I have versions with shallower DOF, but that way you loose the impact of the steel mills, which although deliberately out of focus are the real story of the photo. I like the trick of out of focus 500 pound gorilla in the photo. The 500 pound gorilla will always grub attention, even out of focus, no matter how pretty the flowers in the foreground are.

Take care and thank you both.

Pavel

Love them all Pavel and I really admire how you have really pushed yourself to expand your skills. I also like the NIK software but have not used it enough yet to get the benefits out of it.

Cheers,

Chris

Thanks Chris. Nik is wonderful. If you want some suggestions on my favorite filters, let me know. P

nia Wrote:Dear Pavel, 2 and 3 and this one are what I liked most especially this one, fascinated me. But I hope you don't mind for my change, I just wanted to see in B/W...(it may not a good quality what I did, sorry) I loved these birds... so beautiful.

http://www.shuttertalk.com/forums/images...d/77_2.jpg

Thank you,
with my love,
nia

Thank you once again dear Pavel, yesterday I tried to make a watercolour paintings... I hope you don't mind, these birds inspired me so much and I wanted to make their pictures... I am not a good painter like our dear Don! But at the end I did something. If you wish you can see on general page, I don't want to waste your beautiful photography thread.

Have a nice and enjoyable day,
with my love,
nia

i know this is from a few years ago, but how did you get the effect on number two?

Woahh.. Great find thread..

You can achieve that photo by long exposure. Most likely you'll need ND filters. Way down stops..

Love these set of photo..

(Jun 6, 2013, 04:40)PhotoPlay Wrote:  Woahh.. Great find thread..

You can achieve that photo by long exposure. Most likely you'll need ND filters. Way down stops..

Love these set of photo..

Thankyou, I'd also love to know how to achieve the first effect