Phatmike Posted November 9, 2005 Report Share Posted November 9, 2005 Hey guys, just got a load of films back (more than £50 at boots! :D) and here's my favourite selection of photos. ^_^ Let me know what you think. :P The bridge in Bristol. Tic. :P Peter Backgarden in Birmingham. Peter again in "Gap to Bash Action"! Me in Bristol, taken by Ben Rowlands - thanks. :P The other Swindon James. Ninja Ian, in the car. Peter again, in Birmingham. Peter again in Bristol, with a huge static gap! Ian again, with a massive air! If you really want the full size of an image - let me know. ^_^ These are all completely unedited, so no cropping (apart from Pauly's face), and no changes to light etc. ^_^ Mike. (More to Come - stupid tf!) Porter in Bristol. Peter again!! in Bristol. Pauly - haha. :- Seb JT. Matt Burrows, with a cool 90 gap - one of my most favourites. Ian again. :P Ian again, with craaazy compression! Pauly, with an up. Mike. ;) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mr ailsbury Posted November 9, 2005 Report Share Posted November 9, 2005 very nice! :D My fave is proberbly the third one done of Peter in Birmingham :P keep up the good work ^_^ TOM Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Pauly Posted November 9, 2005 Report Share Posted November 9, 2005 ah cool mike they loook real good that pic of me backwheeling that wall came out good after all, anyways im loveing them all Cheers Pauly Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rob_P Posted November 9, 2005 Report Share Posted November 9, 2005 (edited) Some VERY nice shots there, I espically like the low angled rolling gap one, contrast of dark and sky is great. The one that bugs me is the one of someone on a rail with there frontwheel, nice macro but the focus should of been the other way round IMO. The sunset ones, yeh ok but too much clutter around the bike, bushes + houses etc. Fisheye ones are cool (although I dont like your lens :P) espically the compression one! Also love the one of porter, so simple and effective. Anyway, if I think of anything else i'll say Top job, getting it right with an SLR is hard, so nicely done for that, espically 11 films and not one that didnt come out as it should of ^_^ Rob :D :P Edited November 9, 2005 by Rob P Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Monty_susanne Posted November 9, 2005 Report Share Posted November 9, 2005 YEY!! MEGA!!! ^_^ think its the best pictures i have seen for a long time!!! :P I hope to see more pictures from you soon again! Like the second and 5th picture best i. Because of the nice light and Mike and Tic's arses and everything! more pictures...please :D //Suss Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mark W Posted November 9, 2005 Report Share Posted November 9, 2005 The one that bugs me is the one of someone on a rail with there frontwheel, nice macro but the focus should of been the other way round IMO. IMO, it looks better the way it is now than it would if it was the other way round. It just sorta stands out from the usual cut-and-dried sorta trials shots everyone's doing at the moment. Makes you look twice at it and keeps your eye, which is a good thing. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
haydon_peter Posted November 9, 2005 Report Share Posted November 9, 2005 YEY!! MEGA!!! :P think its the best pictures i have seen for a long time!!! :P I hope to see more pictures from you soon again! Like the second and 5th picture best i. Because of the nice light and Mike and Tic's arses and everything! more pictures...please ^_^ //Suss :D Cheers :P Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DTT - Echo Team Posted November 9, 2005 Report Share Posted November 9, 2005 (edited) i like that photography alot, a certain style that looks pukka. ^_^ espeacially "porter" / "TIC" :D Edited November 9, 2005 by DTT - Echo Team Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
James_Porter Posted November 9, 2005 Report Share Posted November 9, 2005 (edited) TIC IS ADDICTED TO PORN!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! i like the pics, told you on msn, cant be arsed to write it out again. some of them im not keen on though. ps, susanna, will you go out with tic? he asked me to ask you. Edited November 9, 2005 by James_Porter Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mitch Posted November 10, 2005 Report Share Posted November 10, 2005 fair play mike some nice stuff..that a death lens?? or just a super fishy lens? xx Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Endohopper Posted November 10, 2005 Report Share Posted November 10, 2005 Great photography , damn my cheapo camera and sloppy riding skills ! This one in particular ... ...is brilliantly done . Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
flipkickbs Posted November 10, 2005 Report Share Posted November 10, 2005 Awesome pics mike, had no idea you took photos of me for almost all of them, lol. Some top work there though, colour beats black and white, hands down in my personal opinion, especially for action shots. Now buy my flash, i'm poor! ^_^ Ian (aka ninja for most of those photos, i hate being photographed :D ) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Luke Drewery Posted November 10, 2005 Report Share Posted November 10, 2005 Nice pictures, that static gap that Peter Backgren did in Bristol looks massive! I like the first one, mixture of lighting looks cool. :D Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Monty_susanne Posted November 10, 2005 Report Share Posted November 10, 2005 TIC IS ADDICTED TO PORN!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! i like the pics, told you on msn, cant be arsed to write it out again. some of them im not keen on though. ps, susanna, will you go out with tic? he asked me to ask you. Haydon_peter:ah yeah right! haha dont change my text! :D haha James: dont want to go out with Tic! ^_^ Dont be silly :P Anyway like all the pics but these two that i said before most. not because of their arses! :P //Suss Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Siders77 Posted November 10, 2005 Report Share Posted November 10, 2005 Cool pics, Mike. I likt his one best....."Keep it Tic, KEEP IT!!!" :D Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
pinky Posted November 10, 2005 Report Share Posted November 10, 2005 IMO, it looks better the way it is now than it would if it was the other way round. It just sorta stands out from the usual cut-and-dried sorta trials shots everyone's doing at the moment. Makes you look twice at it and keeps your eye, which is a good thing. Agreed but robs just got dodgey long exposure tastes :D Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AndyT Posted November 10, 2005 Report Share Posted November 10, 2005 love them all! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Biff... Posted November 10, 2005 Report Share Posted November 10, 2005 Very nice pictures, good riding and good angles. Cheers Kyle. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
haydon_peter Posted November 10, 2005 Report Share Posted November 10, 2005 Haydon_peter:ah yeah right! haha dont change my text! (Y) haha James: dont want to go out with Tic! :lol: Dont be silly :) Anyway like all the pics but these two that i said before most. not because of their arses! (Y) //Suss I didnt change your text?!!! Its in your original post and im not a moderator! I spose it could have been a bored mod/admin playing games (N) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
manuel Posted November 10, 2005 Report Share Posted November 10, 2005 If thats a static gap then im king kong ..... or is he a trials god ? anyhooo I love this photo. and the one of swindon james II (the other) . . . . . .. . warming up for the PHOTO COMP ? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
F-Stop Junkie Posted November 10, 2005 Report Share Posted November 10, 2005 Ok Mike, it's time for my comments. All constructive, some positive I hope (Y)) Good colours in the sky, and also the backlighting on the... thing. Perhaps a little tweaking in PS needed to really bring out the colours. That hair or something needs cloning out too. Interesting shape though. Could you have gotten a slightly higher vantage point or something like that, and used a tele lens to flatten the perspective. There's a little too much dead space in the middle for my liking. If the buildings at the bottom were cropped out, I don't know if it would make it better or worse. Needed a little higher shutter speed to really freeze the rider. A little too much sky with a busy background and bottom third. Crop out the circular bit top and bottom and it would be better. Blown out sky, but then it's a very tricky exposure to do, and it's gotten the important bit of the rider, take off and landing! Could have worked better landscape with less foreground and sky? Never had a head on shot I've been happy with. Nice inclusion of the arcing thing in the background to add a sense of scale, and provide interest thought out the picture, but this is really blurred. Looks like a bad lens add-on rather than low shutter speed. All out of focus, but otherwise good colour and pose. These shadows are the only time you can get away with a rear view of a rider, during the day all you'd get is a view of their rear... Typical mistake when taking a photo of a person, instinctively putting their head in the middle of the frame. Go in tighter and make sure they fill the frame, especially when the background doesn't add anything like here. Lovely and sharp though! Edit: Having read Mike's comments, I really don't think that the background brings out the rider. It's more like cammoflage, where I would want contrast to really make the subject pop out the photo. Given that composition was chosen like that, I take back that comment. Like it. Crop the black top and bottom, but keep the circular bits. Follows the rule of thirds, but somehow doesn't quite work. The rider is just too small, and too far away to work well. Plus there's an errant bit of wheel on the right which could be cloned out, and the rail end nearest the camera isn't in focus. edit: The rule of thirds basically says that things look nice when arranged in thirds, or hit the line between two of the thirds. In this case, the rider is in the top third of the picture, but it leaves two third of nothing but rail. What I'd have perhaps done is gotten lower, flattened out the rail so it filled the bottom third, then had the rider bigger in the picture. Odd pink tint too. Why was this fisheyed? Again, the back of a rider too. Flash is a little on the strong side too. Interesting to exagerate the perspective from high, rather than low down like normal. One thing I've just noticed too is that the flash isn't designed for the fisheye adapter, and hence there's a strong pool of light, with darker edges where the flash has gone off. Could be a cool effect that. Now this I like. What I would suggest though is crop it to a panorama, removing the railings and sky out. The bottom half of the image is good though, nice and sharp, with a sense of depth and strong contrast between the rider and background. Horrible blurry lens attachment! Not nice. Plus, the landing is so close the takeoff in terms of composition and colour that it looks more like a drop of a foot onto gravel, rather than a gap jump. Good. Sharp, bit of DoF. Nice pose too, got the timing just right so you can quickly see what move is being done, from where, to where and so on... Just covering his eyes, which is a shame, but otherwise good lighting and exposure, with a good use of fisheye here. Would be a good first frame of a sequence. For a standalone shot, it just looks like you shot too early. Too much nothing, around a very well lit rider. There's a lot of cropping opportunities here, as the foreground is rather dull and dark, but the tree and rider are very well lit indeed! Could do a thin, tall crop, or even just loose the entire bottom third of the image! Generally these shots are good, and certainly better than most. The cheap screw on lens attachments do ruin a few otherwise good shots. I'd suggest for the future that you critique these yourself Mike, and that will give you a guide for future shooting opportunities. Maybe look at pre-focussing techniques for low light pics too to help keep them sharp. Finally, investigate DoF and how you can alter it. Some of these shots - especially the Mike Burrows one - would have worked much better with a shallow depth of field. Start to grasp this, and you could really enhance your work! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Monty_susanne Posted November 10, 2005 Report Share Posted November 10, 2005 I didnt change your text?!!! Its in your original post and im not a moderator! I spose it could have been a bored mod/admin playing games :lol: haha oh my god! (N) sorry! wonder what i was thinking of when i wrote that! (Y) hahahaha so sorry! hope u can forgive me!//Suss (Y) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
joe b Posted November 10, 2005 Report Share Posted November 10, 2005 (edited) Sweet pics Mike. I love how they're all dead 'arty' if thats the word... No, wait, 'artistic' :lol: . I don't like em as much when the little circle thingy is to small though (Y) . Cheers, Joe. Edited November 10, 2005 by joe b Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Phatmike Posted November 10, 2005 Author Report Share Posted November 10, 2005 (Sorry for quoting the pics again!) Thanks for the feedback Chris, maybe you could post some of your favourite pics up, would be interesting. :P Like I said, all of these images hadn't been edited, I'd just got back from a long ride, don't have PS on this pc, and just wanted to get them up with minimal effort! Obviously I'll be playing with them digitally eventually, but for the large part, I'll be making my own prints of them to go towards my Photography A-Level... I also much prefer having the photos "raw". These days you're able to push manipulation as far as you want, even create images from nothing! I'd rather keep them as they are, and if I feel the need to make improvements, I'd think about them on my next few films. I could definitely improve the images, digitally, but having them un-edited doesn't make them a bad photo! I'm happy with the way they are for the purpose of posting them here - if they were going into professional print, then yes, I'd take the time to edit them! It would also be good to see why you like a particular image, rather than just say "Good", and then slate it offer constructive criticism, it is helpful, and appreciated, but I'd prefer to hear your opinions (and same goes to everyone else too!) on what I'm doing right in an image, not just what I'm doing against your taste. :) Good. Perhaps a little tweaking in PS needed to really bring out the colours. That hair or something needs cloning out too. Interesting shape though. Could you have gotten a slightly higher vantage point or something like that, and used a tele lens to flatten the perspective. There's a little too much dead space in the middle for my liking. Unfortunately, without sneaking into the buildings behind, a higher viewpoint would have been impossible! Personally, I like the fact I was close, and didn't zoom in from far away, it adds to the largeness of the object, and helps convey a feeling of it towering over you! Something definitely less achievable from further away. Needed a little higher shutter speed to really freeze the rider. A little too much sky with a busy background and bottom third. Unfortunately, a faster shutter speed wasn't really much of an option for the shot, I was using the smallest f.stop I could, and a shorter exposure would have meant less light and saturation reaching the film. I agree that the foreground is a little too cluttered for a perfectly clean shot, but that's another thing to think about in the future... Crop out the circular bit top and bottom and it would be better. Blown out sky, but then it's a tricky exposure to do, and it's gotten the important bit! Could have worked better landscape with less foreground and sky? As you said, a shorter exposure to increase the intensity & contrast of the clouds would have been nice, but due to the poor lighting that day, would've made the rest of the photo glaringly too dark! I'm happy with the angle of that photo aswell. Too close, and I feel the photo would have lost the size of the move... Not sure what you meant by: "and it's gotten the important bit!" :P All out of focus, but otherwise good. These shadows are the only time you can get away with a rear view of a rider, during the day all you'd get is a view of their rear... Yeah, this was a shot Ben (Rowlands) got whilst he was having a play with my camera. He had to get very low on the floor, & has trouble focusing normally, so it was a bit tricky for him! Typical mistake when taking a photo of a person, instinctively putting their head in the middle of the frame. Go in tighter and make sure they fill the frame, especially when the background doesn't add anything like here. Lovely and sharp though! I wouldn't call the framing of this photo a mistake. Getting tighter into the person would have meant losing lots of interesting aspects of the photo. The fact you are distanced from him, and he's looking off into the distance for one, wouldn't have worked if I was closer in. Also the random hand at the bottom, it adds another interesting point in the photo, again, might've been lost with tighter framing. I'd disagree with your comment about the background not adding anything to the image entirely, it's one of the main reasons I like it! Especially the red staircase running beside him, and the colour of the building complimenting his skin and teeshirt tones - I like it. Follows the rule of thirds, but somehow doesn't quite work. The rider is just too small, and too far away to work well. Plus there's an errant bit of wheel on the right which could be cloned out, and the rail end nearest the camera isn't in focus. Odd pink tint too. I'm not entirely aware of the rule of thirds, (I can kind of imagine...), and in what way doesn't it work? Again, conflict of opinions, you think Peter appears too small. I like the rail (albeit slightly out of focus, but I'd wouldn't say it hinders the image greatly!) and it's mix of textures and colours, and that it leads the eye to a faint rider in the background, it sort of works. Do you prefer this image?: Why was this fisheyed? Again, the back of a rider too. Flash is a little on the strong side too. I fisheyed this to add to the (already impressive!) height of the jump. It's impossible to tell exactly how high up he is! Just stating "the back of a rider" doesn't really say much, I just presume you don't like it? There are loads of photographs around taken from the back that I like. This one of Peter again (albeit an aweful use of the fisheye!) I like, and wouldn't have been possible to take from the front, due to the light. And yeah, I definitely agree with you about the flash, maybe not too bright I could just do with a flash I can aim, rather than ontop of the camera! If it was directed at the rider, it would have boosted the photograph alot, and provided a nice effect between the light of the rider and dark of the ground. Again, something to experiment with. :) Horrible blurry lens attachment! Not nice. Plus, the landing is so close the takeoff in terms of composition and colour that it looks more like a drop of a foot onto gravel, rather than a gap jump. Hmm. I was quite pleased with the composition of this image, the way Peter's body is (to a trials rider anyway!) shows that he's putting in a lot of effort! The fact that a large part of the foreground is nicely in focus I think goes well with the very distorted part of the wall in the foreground! Good. Sharp, bit of DoF. Yeah, obviously there will be a narrow depth of field to some degree, as I'm using such a low aperture (3.5 I think for that photo) to be able to work with a high shutter speed needed for the photo. (Obviously) getting an even narrower depth of field would have meant getting further back and zooming in more. This would have lost some of the angles in the plant pot gained by being close to it, and also led the risk of hand-shake! Still I could just blur a lot of the background on photoshop. :turned: Too much nothing, around a very well lit rider. There's a lot of cropping opportunities here, as the foreground is rather dull and dark, but the tree and rider are very well lit indeed! Could do a thin, tall crop, or even just loose the entire bottom third of the image! definitely agree with you here. This is the image that struck me most about being able to convert it so many ways by cropping. A tall, thin frame, like you said works, as does cropping it to a landscape at 800*500px sort of dimensions. There's lots of scope for improvement in all these pictures, and it does help to hear what can be improved... :) Thanks for the comments from everyone else too. :) Mike. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
F-Stop Junkie Posted November 11, 2005 Report Share Posted November 11, 2005 Mike, I've gone back and added a little more detail to my comments above. If want to discuss anything further, then please PM or MSN me... I agree to an extent about a raw photo, and that it should be right when you take the photo, but then I only indulge in minor tweaks (cropping, brightness, etc...) which are things which could generally be done in a traditional darkroom. A lot of great photographers take shite pics, but then have darkroom wizards who pull out a great image. Even Ansel Adams was a keen darkroomist! I think I'll try and gather a few of my favourite from the year together - but not my comp entries! See what my style is like. Was there ever a consensus on a photog's ride one day? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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