musician's hands

[swthomas55]

I shot this during an outside performance by the Cadillac Cowboys, a long-time Ann Arbor "adult saloon music" band. This is my friend Alan's hands, playing his pedal steel guitar.




Vitals: Nikon D100, 135MM, 1/500sec, f/5, ISO 400

Basic question: color or B&W? The color is more interesting, but also somewhat distracting, particularly the yellowness near his fingernails. The black & white pares it down to the essentials but isn't as grabby as the color.

Also, I struggled a bit with the composition. I'm putting the end of the steel, which is in a way the focal point, near one of the "thirds" positions, but there's still something that feels not quite right. Perhaps it's that the negative space above is almost exactly balanced by the positive space below?

[windrider86]

Perhaps a lhigher angle and have the instrument strings more visible.
I like the b & w as the color one has more distracting elements in it. Mainly the colors themselves.
Just add some more contrast to the black and white so you have more than just shades of grey

[224]

Wow, cool photos! I like them.
Overall, I like it better in black in white, the colors are a little bit more distracting. However, I like the reflection off of his hammer thing in color, that seems to be much richer. I think it would look really cool if you desaturated the entire image but then history brush-ed the colors back into that to get the rich reflection back. It would make it the focal point instead of hands though, so it may not be what you are going for.

Just an idea...overall I think it's a cool shot!

[swthomas55]

Neat idea. I think I'll try that.

[rosburg]

I like the b&w one. The background on the color one distracts me. Love the shot

[guyzer09]

I like the B&W one also. Maybe add just a little bit more contrast to to it. overall its a greap pic.

[swthomas55]

I tried using spot-color just on the reflections in the steel, and pumped the "definition" a couple of notches. Here's the result, which I definitely like better. Thanks for the ideas.

[wal]

like the bnw without the selective coloring... the reflection in bnw is good, clear and very distinct already..

[deborahinky]

i always like BW, but I like the symbolism of the color. Color & music go together.
I also think the roughness of the hands, and age, shows up better in color.
The negative space above is more distracting in color though.
Like the shot - I hope you get to shoot it again the way you want.

[Talete]

Absolutely B&W!
IMHO