Yet Another BMW

Davesumner (e2 Member)

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4 Jun 2012 - 4:44 AM

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Hi David,

I wonder after reading your description, what your motivation for taking this shot was? Is the car yours, is it for sale etc etc. The reason I ask is because that would disctate different methods of taking images of a car for e.g. if the car was for sale you would want to take the whole car whereas if it is has some other significance then you might want to take a different view.

With your shot I must pressume you liked the car and wanted to take a picture of it so with that in mind there are some approaches to getting a better shot before you have even taken the image. First of all with regards to the light, there are some pretty harsh midday shadows in this image but if you look in the sky there are also some pretty big clouds. If you'd waited for a cloud to cover the sun, you would have got a much better lit subject with even lighting. Secondly, the background. We can see some sort of concrete grandstand, some signs, red umbrellas, other cars and people all of which are a distraction away from your main subject, the guy on the right is easily removed. It isn't always easy to do but changing your position may well reduce some of those distracting elements. Also you could have used a shallower depth of field and blurred out some of those distracting elements. There is a lot of space above and below which doesn't really add to your image so don't be afraid to crop to suit, regardless of the size it ends up as.

So in a nutshell, it is better to think about a shot before you take it rather than trying to fix these things in post production. Reducing as many distractions as possible also saves computer time at a later date. I have had a go at a very quick modification where I have cropped the image top and bottom to reduce things that are not part of the shot. I then straightened the image so the car looks like it is level and desaturated some of the background colours such as the red umbrellas. I then blurred the grandstand and other background items to make the car stand out more as well as dodging some of the darker details such as the grille etc. I then sharpened.

These are just a few ideas and I hope they help

DaVeS

Constructive Critique!