Cooper's Comments - NTX

For a seemingly simple assignment of finding something to photograph
with a subject starting or using the letters N,T, or X, the posted
results seem off the mark in many cases.

I don't mind so much, since I appreciate an interesting photo even if
it doesn't say "mandate accomplished".

Walter Bank's connection to NTX eludes me. I caught the Escher
reference, but can't figure the connection Walter saw. Yeah, the
birds are duplicated in reflection, and the snow and water can pass
for sky and water, but the birds don't morph to fish. Oh, well, maybe
someone will explain and I'll slap my forehead and say "Duh!".

The Duck could have done better. He usually does. These two look like
he grabbed them at the last minute.

KPetre's heraldic saltire is OK for the mandate, but I would have
liked to see something of central interest in the photo with the X's
as a secondary inclusion. I don't see that the mandate shape has to
be the primary point of interest.

Clever inclusion of both N and T in Tete-a-Tete. The daffodils do
remind one of Narcissus with his head bent down to admire his
reflection in the water.

Bowser's Duck Bridge is not a compelling photo, but it is interesting.
I like Bowser's placement of his diagonals in his compositions.

I'm not so fond of the cropping of the train. I don't like the
cow-catcher bumping the edge like that. Tires...yawn.

Bob Coe came up with a good X, but it would - in my opinion - work
better in portrait with the entire left side omitted. The X is still
there, and there's less clutter.

Tree stumps? That's the T mandate link?

Nia's a great shot of the girl, but that dress deserves a chair closer
to the period. Or, just a straight wooden kitchen chair or stool.

I take it Bob doesn't do much in the way of post. I would be itching
to clone out that orange rope or whatever it is to the right and do
some burning on the grass to the left.

Still, Nia's expression is a good capture.

I can see Bob and Martha arguing over who takes the slender bent trees
and who takes the fallen logs. I have wonder at conditions that
required an ISO of 400, 1/100th at f/4.5. Then, seemingly on the same
day (4/20) she shoots trees at the same ISO of 400, but 1/500th at
f/11. The next day she's still shooting at ISO 400 for a tree in full
sun. You need that high an ISO in Mass?

Back in Indiana, we used to dig up a root of a sassafras tree, slice
it lengthwise, tie the slices in a bundle, and make sassafras tea.
Now, I think they say that sassafras is a cause of cancer. It's a
wonder I survived childhood.

Now we get to FrankEss. I no longer expect Frank to conform to
something as bothersome as a mandate, but I always look forward to
Frank's submissions. He didn't disappoint.

I can hear the wind whistle around the two youngsters. I can hear the
laughter of those seeing those Mexican Hairless dogs.

The NTX factor is shaky, at best, in PeterN's Terrace, but it's a
great sky and the trees to the right work well. Another photo,
though, that makes me itch to use the clone tool and take out those
concrete blocks.

"Todler" (sic) doesn't, as far as I can see, meet the mandate since
the mandate is not the Greek gamma, but it's one that I don't care if
meets the mandate or not. Good subject matter, good composition, and
good conversion to b&w. This is one where that tight crop at the left
and top is exactly the thing to do.

Peter's "Tree Impression" is too far out there for me. I don't get
it. Is that a truck, though, in the very lower left corner?

If you didn't read the comment on my "OneX", it explains that this is
a composite of two images: the full sign and the letter X in the
sign. Without seeing what the full sign is like, it looked like I'd
created that X. It's actually black plastic cut out and placed over a
very shiny metal. The lower part I photographed a different day when
I saw that I needed the explanation. You can see me in that X.

The bar that I shot the TwoXs in doesn't serve Dos Equis beer. I
bought a six-pack at a liquor store and brought it in, shot the
picture, and gave the beer to a guy at the bar. He said I didn't have
to, but I bought a bottle of Budweiser beer just give the bar some
business. I gave that to another guy at the bar. I was popular.

They ought to close that bookstore as an offense against the eye with
those colors.

 

I think Walter was stretching things by applying the "T" of "Two
Escher" to the qualifying "T" of "NTX".

Correct. I wasn't over enthused with this particular mandate. It might
have just been me, but I pushed myself to find the time for the two
shots I submitted. Maybe next time I feel that way I just won't bother.
The ennui was so deep I was reluctant to make comments this time around.

 

You got it, the title as submitted was Two Escher.. The NTX is two
and the ice, water and and sky is the Escher reference. The lake
was all out of morphed fish and the NTX deadline loomed..


Thanks for the comments..
w..

 

I suppose Two is a stretch, I couldn't find a way to include
Nature and Escher. It is rare that anything Escher could
be created without photoshop.

As a side note on how far digital camera's have come. I
have wanted to always have a camera with me. This was
shot with a 16Mp Samsung point and shoot with a
reasonable F2.5 lens. Every decade or so I buy a P&S
and after the size advantage wears off decide it was a
waste of money. This one is small enough
(3 3/4 by 2 1/4 by 3/4) and tough enough it will survive
in a pants pocket. ($80)

w..

 

You really should add your comments. I think the comments could be a
vital part of the Shoot-In. It allows us to see how others see our
images.

Food shots don't interest me, but I'll look for shots where the
barbeque aspect is the activity but it will involve the people doing
it.

 

Nice story. I bet you were popular! Dos Equis Ambar is my favorite beer -
except for maybe Heiniken Dark, but I can never seem to find that around
here anymore. southcentral PA

 

: For a seemingly simple assignment of finding something to photograph
: with a subject starting or using the letters N,T, or X, the posted
: results seem off the mark in many cases.

Considering the SI deadline's proximity to the income tax deadline, I'm
willing to consider it the best we could expect.

: I don't mind so much, since I appreciate an interesting photo even if
: it doesn't say "mandate accomplished".
:
: Walter Bank's connection to NTX eludes me. I caught the Escher
: reference, but can't figure the connection Walter saw. Yeah, the
: birds are duplicated in reflection, and the snow and water can pass
: for sky and water, but the birds don't morph to fish. Oh, well, maybe
: someone will explain and I'll slap my forehead and say "Duh!".
:
: The Duck could have done better. He usually does. These two look like
: he grabbed them at the last minute.
:
: KPetre's heraldic saltire is OK for the mandate, but I would have
: liked to see something of central interest in the photo with the X's
: as a secondary inclusion. I don't see that the mandate shape has to
: be the primary point of interest.

That one sent me running to Google. I didn't know what a saltire was or even
that Scotland has its own flag.

: Clever inclusion of both N and T in Tete-a-Tete. The daffodils do
: remind one of Narcissus with his head bent down to admire his
: reflection in the water.
:
: Bowser's Duck Bridge is not a compelling photo, but it is interesting.
: I like Bowser's placement of his diagonals in his compositions.

I think I like it better than you do. Look at how the perspective emphasizes
the bridge's length. I've driven over it several times, and I can assure you
that it isn't as attractive as Bowser makes it seem. I might, though, have
tried to clone out the fragments of some otherwise unseen structure on the
right edge.

: I'm not so fond of the cropping of the train. I don't like the
: cow-catcher bumping the edge like that. Tires...yawn.

I disagree about the train. There's a composition principle at work here that
I've long espoused: If a picture looks cramped on one edge (as it is here by
the cutoff of the long locomotive on the right side), balance it by cramping
the opposite edge as well. The subject then looks as though it were zoomed in
on, rather than mispositioned. I've used this principle to good effect myself
on many occasions.

: Bob Coe came up with a good X, but it would - in my opinion - work
: better in portrait with the entire left side omitted. The X is still
: there, and there's less clutter.

Yeah, you may be right. If I get a chance, I'll try that and see if I agree.

: Tree stumps? That's the T mandate link?

"T" is for "tree". And for "two". There's even a "T" in "stumps".

: Nia's a great shot of the girl, but that dress deserves a chair closer
: to the period. Or, just a straight wooden kitchen chair or stool.

Yes, her mother lamented that we didn't try harder on that point. I did use a
straight wooden chair in some other poses, but they didn't turn out as well,
for reasons not the fault of the chair. We were in a bit of a rush, because
the dress was uncomfortable and we weren't sure how long Nia would last before
her willingness to pose ran out. That said, she was as good a model as you
could hope to find in an 11-year-old. Betsy and I were both feeding her
instructions as we clicked away, and she followed them extremely well, doing
total changes of expression with ease.

: I take it Bob doesn't do much in the way of post. I would be itching
: to clone out that orange rope or whatever it is to the right and do
: some burning on the grass to the left.

"That orange rope or whatever it is" is a branch of the bush. That's perfectly
clear in the RAW original, but squashing the file down to the size required by
the rulz is going to cost you some clarity and detail. BTW, I was using fill
flash, despite what it says in Pbase's rendition of the Exif data.

: Still, Nia's expression is a good capture.

Thanks. I got lucky; that's not one we told her to do.

: I can see Bob and Martha arguing over who takes the slender bent trees
: and who takes the fallen logs.

Not exactly. Martha spotted the fallen log X first, so she had the rights to
the scene. I did take a couple of shots of it, but her best was better than my
best anyway. And once she had that "X" shot, she went on to trees, so I got
the standing "X" by default.

: I have wonder at conditions that required an ISO of 400, 1/100th at f/4.5.
: Then, seemingly on the same day (4/20) she shoots trees at the same ISO of
: 400, but 1/500th at f/11.

Both scenes were strongly backlit, but differed in that she had to preserve
the foreground in the first but could let it go dark in the second. Under the
circumstances, I don't think those exposure values are unreasonable.

: The next day she's still shooting at ISO 400 for a tree in full sun.

I would probably have used ISO 250 or 320 for that scene. Martha often uses a
higher ISO than I would, but that exposure is well within her camera's comfort
zone.

: You need that high an ISO in Mass?

Actually, all six of our pictures were taken in Pennsylvania.

: Back in Indiana, we used to dig up a root of a sassafras tree, slice
: it lengthwise, tie the slices in a bundle, and make sassafras tea.
: Now, I think they say that sassafras is a cause of cancer. It's a
: wonder I survived childhood.

Betsy and Shep are worried about that tree. It's very old and not doing too
well. The previous owners of the house apparently spent quite a bit of money
keeping it alive.

: Now we get to FrankEss. I no longer expect Frank to conform to
: something as bothersome as a mandate, but I always look forward to
: Frank's submissions. He didn't disappoint.
:
: I can hear the wind whistle around the two youngsters. I can hear the
: laughter of those seeing those Mexican Hairless dogs.
:
: The NTX factor is shaky, at best, in PeterN's Terrace, but it's a
: great sky and the trees to the right work well.

"T" is for "terrace"; what's not to like? Well, the white balance, actually.
The overall color doesn't look quite right to me. I'd at least try it with the
ambient color temperature set a few hundred degrees higher. Of course it
depends on what time of day it was and on what it actually looked like to the
photographer's eye.

: Another photo, though, that makes me itch to use the clone tool and
: take out those concrete blocks.
:
: "Todler" (sic) doesn't, as far as I can see, meet the mandate since
: the mandate is not the Greek gamma, but it's one that I don't care if
: meets the mandate or not. Good subject matter, good composition, and
: good conversion to b&w. This is one where that tight crop at the left
: and top is exactly the thing to do.

Why doesn't the toddler qualify, independent of the gamma?

: Peter's "Tree Impression" is too far out there for me. I don't get
: it. Is that a truck, though, in the very lower left corner?

I don't get it either, quite. But I'm surprised you didn't advocate cropping
or cloning out the tree branches that intrude from the right. They don't seem
to contribute anything to the picture.

Bob

 

I was a little put off by the sky. It made it a bit heavy at the
upper right, but I do like the perspective. Bowser always does a good
job with composition and diagonals.

We differ, there. I look at it holistically and don't really count
the right side as controllable because the train continues off the
edge. I want space to the left, though.

Yet, in Peter's "Todler" (sic), I like that close crop to the left and
top.

Yeah, I see that when I look closely. The branch is illuminated by
the sun and comes across as orange to me.

My two grandchildren hate posing for me. But, when it comes time to
look at the images they crowd up to the monitor.

Shoot at that ISO with my Nikon, and it's Confetti City. Terrible
noise. I have to run every 400 photo through the NIK Dfine noise
reduction software. The grandson's baseball games start at 6PM, and
the last shots of the day are peppered with noise if I keep the
shutter speed at even 125th.

I don't see noise in her images. Must work with her camera.

It's just weak for a T as far as visible theme, but I do like that sky
color and effect. See below on how I view the mandate presence.

Higher, though? Wouldn't higher be warmer, and warmer more yellow
than it is already? I like it like it is. He shot at 800, and
there's noise in the wood, but it actually adds to the effect.

Gamma is an upside-down L, and that's her shape if you reverse it.

I want the image to say what the letter is, not the title to say. You
should be able to know what the photographer saw without a title. You
could make this a "C" for child or a "B" for bending over, or an "F"
for flower, or an "L" for lily and so on.

Even so, it's one of my favorites in the group. The lady frames the
boy, the light is good on the boy, the lily is their focus point and
is placed right in the image, etc.

Peter was after something, and I can't catch what it is. It's a
double-exposure or two layers of the same image or something. Without
knowing what he was going for, I wouldn't comment on a crop or a
clone. I do see those two branches you are talking about, though.

 

:
: >On Sun, 28 Apr 2013 01:34:45 -0400, Tony Cooper <>
: >wrote:
: >: I can see Bob and Martha arguing over who takes the slender bent trees
: >: and who takes the fallen logs.
: >
: >Not exactly. Martha spotted the fallen log X first, so she had the rights to
: >the scene. I did take a couple of shots of it, but her best was better than my
: >best anyway. And once she had that "X" shot, she went on to trees, so I got
: >the standing "X" by default.
: >
: >: I have wonder at conditions that required an ISO of 400, 1/100th at f/4.5.
: >: Then, seemingly on the same day (4/20) she shoots trees at the same ISO of
: >: 400, but 1/500th at f/11.
: >
: >Both scenes were strongly backlit, but differed in that she had to preserve
: >the foreground in the first but could let it go dark in the second. Under the
: >circumstances, I don't think those exposure values are unreasonable.
:
: Shoot at that ISO with my Nikon, and it's Confetti City. Terrible
: noise. I have to run every 400 photo through the NIK Dfine noise
: reduction software. The grandson's baseball games start at 6PM, and
: the last shots of the day are peppered with noise if I keep the
: shutter speed at even 125th.

Some Nikons have excellent high-ISO performance, or so I've been told. At
times they've been considered ahead of Canon.

: >: The next day she's still shooting at ISO 400 for a tree in full sun.
: >
: >I would probably have used ISO 250 or 320 for that scene. Martha often uses a
: >higher ISO than I would, but that exposure is well within her camera's comfort
: >zone.
:
: I don't see noise in her images. Must work with her camera.

She routinely uses ISO 1600 indoors or when she needs to use a very high
shutter speed. The noise is still well controlled.

: >: The NTX factor is shaky, at best, in PeterN's Terrace, but it's a
: >: great sky and the trees to the right work well.
: >
: >"T" is for "terrace"; what's not to like? Well, the white balance, actually.
: >The overall color doesn't look quite right to me. I'd at least try it with the
: >ambient color temperature set a few hundred degrees higher. Of course it
: >depends on what time of day it was and on what it actually looked like to the
: >photographer's eye.
:
: It's just weak for a T as far as visible theme, but I do like that sky
: color and effect. See below on how I view the mandate presence.
:
: Higher, though? Wouldn't higher be warmer, and warmer more yellow
: than it is already? I like it like it is. He shot at 800, and
: there's noise in the wood, but it actually adds to the effect.

Yeah, I think I'd like it a little redder, like most sunset pictures. But I
don't know that I'd still feel that way if I saw it with the change.

: >: Another photo, though, that makes me itch to use the clone tool and
: >: take out those concrete blocks.
: >:
: >: "Todler" (sic) doesn't, as far as I can see, meet the mandate since
: >: the mandate is not the Greek gamma, but it's one that I don't care if
: >: meets the mandate or not. Good subject matter, good composition, and
: >: good conversion to b&w. This is one where that tight crop at the left
: >: and top is exactly the thing to do.
: >
: >Why doesn't the toddler qualify, independent of the gamma?
:
: Gamma is an upside-down L, and that's her shape if you reverse it.

Gamma is an upside-down and backwards L, and that's her shape if you don't
reverse it. But the connection to the mandate depends on the little boy
(toddler).

Bob

 

What I saw was a lot of "x's" in the composition. And I like
perspective shots.

The train was a grab shot that included more X and Te elements. Not a
work of art.

And what do you have against tires?

 

The image was flat. I like images that are pumped up.

 

....groan...

lol

 

On 4/28/2013 1:34 AM, Tony Cooper wrote:

Terrace, table, trellis, trees, all present. I agree about removing the
concrete blocks. However, removal with a clone tool is not that simple,
and I felt lazy.

Thank you.

I could have used the title "Xperimental." I have been xperimenting with
taking multiple exposures of trees, while walking around them.
this shot was seven exposures, on one image. I wonder why the exif file
says it was taken with a 44mm lens. I used a 28. And yes, I should have
cloned out the truck.

As always, I appreciate honest comments, and thank you.

 

I thought yo were simply tired.