Storytelling in B&W

[lerabu]

Hi all!

I just came back from London where I had the opportunity to make some interesting shots. I will be posting them one a day since these are the rules of the forum

I am looking for feedback on:

- Composition
- B&W treatment - have I managed to emphasise the "message" of the photograph
- Story - Does it tell the story it is meant to tell?

First up is a photograph of a 2CV which is pretty rundown and left for abandoned in a garden in front of a house that also appear the same way.

Does the photograph below convey that sense? If not what are the changes you would make and why?

I am pretty new to treatment of photos so any advice is welcome as I am looking to learn. Thanks in advance for your replies!

EXIF:
Camera Nikon D80
Exposure 0.004 sec (1/250)
Aperture f/4.0
Focal Length 24 mm
ISO Speed 100
Exposure Bias 0 EV
Postprocessing: Lighroom 2

I think I could have gone with f11 here for a better "flat" aperture.

[SwissJon]

Hi..

Welcom. First off I like this, but without the owners permission it might be a kindness to obliterrate the number on the car so it's unreadable.. To you this is a pretty shot.. To a someone with bad intent, it's a possible opportunity. I don't think it's illegal or anything, but it would certainly be a courtesy.

The white on the house is blown out and the car is in the shade and looks somewhat underexposed, now I'm not a fan of it, but this picture is probably one that would really benefit from the HDR treatment. If you shot in RAW, this might still be possible. HDR in B&W looks much better than colour. It's a shame you didn't shoot it at a time when everythign was in sun or everything was shady.

I would also have been tempted to move forwards and use a shorter focal length, and perhaps a lower stance, that way the walls of the garden would appear to come out and grab you and pull you into this picture.. You don't appear to have been standing quite central, which is a shame.

I like the B&W treatment.. it's perfect for this kind of picture..

The story seems to be a little elusive to me.. perhaps because the garden is in the shade, perhaps because it seems so far away, maybe the angle is wrong.. I get what you're conveying, but only because you told me.. When I looked at this photo uncommented I completely missed it. I tend to look at the photo first, then read the commentary because that way I get an unbiased idea of what story the photos are offering.

I don't think you needed F/11, you'd lose what little depth you have.

Hope that helps.

[lerabu]

Jon.

Thanks for the feedback.

The blowout on the wall was something that worried me also when I took the shot but it was my last chance as we were making it for the plane. The issue is that the dynamic range of the shot is huge going from near black to overblown walls. The time of the day didn't help either.

As far as perspective goes, it would have been nice to have it a bit closer in as you say. More detail would have been captured and as you say you would be sucked in by the shot. Unfortunately the widest I can go is 18mm on a cropped 1.6 sensor and going any closer would mean getting into the middle of a very busy road lol

I wanted to test out how it would look when it was apparently all in the same plane.

I will try the HDR treatment, I have the shot in RAW format, so I hope something will come out of it! I wanted to avoid HDR but it seems it will have to be involved. I will try different crops also.

Thanks for the feedback! I will post the redone shot.

PS: True for the plates, I'll use some PS magic on those

[SwissJon]

You said it yourself, the dynamic range was very high. Using HDR will bring out details in the shadows and hopefully deal with that blown white. You might want to try a ND filter in Post Processing if it's a RAW file.. You could do the oposite for the shadows to increase the exposure.

LoL.. There's always a busy road, a 20 foot drop or a plane that won't wait, preventing the perfect shot.. You need to learn superman skills. The 18 end of the kit lens would have been good enough, although I would suggest not standing in the middle of the road. I've missed a train for a photo, but I'll probably draw the line at that.

Well, it's your camera, you're the driver.. go for it!

Looking forward to the reposts.

[tlpphoto]

I'll 2nd SwissJohn's comments. Looking forward to seeing an HDR version of this image.

Tim