All American HDR

[gitim4God]

This photo was taken at the Airborne and Special Forces Museum in Fayetteville, NC on May 28, 2011 at approximately 4:30 PM. It was edited with Photoshop using two RAW photos as layers. I am just learning about layers and I obviously need a lot more practice. The photo didn't turn out as I intended, I wanted it to be more B&W and a little less HDR. For some reason it took on the look of the lighter photo when I flattened them.

I would appreciate any critique/advice on composition, processing or anything else that would make this a better photo.

Thanks!
Tim
Soli De Gloria

Exif data:
Camera - Nikon D90
Exposure mode - Aperture priority
Focal length - 33.0mm
Lens - 18.0-105.0mm f/3.5-5.6
Max aperture - f/3.7
Flash - Did not fire
Shutter speed - 1/1600
f/4.0
ISO - 200

[BigFuzzy]

Being a person who wore a couple of tabs on my own shoulder and knowing Fayett'nam very well, I can appreciate wanting to take this photo.

Having said that, I think it's simply waaaay over done. In case you're not sure, the appearance of 'halos' when doing an HDR is commonly considered a bad job in doing the HRD and this image is chock full of them.

I think a more traditional and simple conversion would have served this image a lot better. Others who don't know how HDR 'should' be might not mind and find the halos an interesting element of the image, but to me, it screams "over-processed" the second I look at it.

To me the secret of post processing work is subtlety. When your post processing actually becomes one of the elements of the image as opposed to simply enhancing the image, then you've gone to far. This is commonly the issue when people smooth skin, vignetting, whiten teeth/eyes... and HDR.

Do you have lightroom? If so, a technique that I use that helps get this more edgy b&w without the halos and over-brightened blacks is to do a basic conversion to b&w and then play with the "Fill light" and "Blacks" sliders often sliding both to around 75 each. Not sure how to duplicate this in PS.. but should be able to do it with the Shadow/Highlight tools.

Also, change your perspective.. we all get so caught up thinking of the image as we see it, we forget to move our bodies. You're clearly standing there with the camera at eye level which is a very standard (and if I may, boring) position. Get lower, get higher do anything to make it stand out more than every other person who stood there with the camera at eye level. And yeah, i get you were trying to make it different with the Post processing you tried.. I would have gotten lower to ensure that Iron Mike wasn't lost in the background and gotten more sky behind him.

There's something here, you just have to push yourself to make it different from every other snapshot taken from this position... without going too far in the PP.

[gitim4God]

Thanks Al, that is exactly the criticism I am looking for! I usually look for a "different perspective" when I'm taking photos but I have to admit I didn't even consider getting lower on this one. I don't have lightroom and I'm really just learning how to use PS but I will try your processing suggestions.

I actually think the photo is pretty gaudy myself but I was trying to do something different for Memorial day. Guess it's safe to say it is way overdone!

Thanks!
Tim
Soli De Gloria!