High Fashion in the Country

[smunited Profile Private messageWebsite]

Hi everyone, I could use your feedback. Last September I had the opportunity to visit a friend who was working on a large cattle ranch. We spent two intense days shooting in multiple locations in many different outfits. I shoot with my friend alone mostly but did do a shoot with her boyfriend. I had a great time and have a large number of images. I am not sure if it makes a show or not. Would love your feedback. The show is suitable for all audiences and is about 4 minutes. Thank you for taking the time to look. Your comments really help me. Sandra


http://www.photodex.com/share/SFiedler/46c9pmg4

[bsalisbury Profile Private message]

I liked this a lot. I am not usually a big fan of highly processed images, but the content and great music made this most enjoyable to watch.

[debngar Profile Private message]

Your conceptual images were intriguing. Some of the ones that specifically caught my eye appeared at :57, 1:52 and 2:26.

Speaking from a post-processing point of view, I was wondering, in some images, if the man's masked face was left darker on purpose - in 1:52 for instance. In some of the images it might have been nice to see more detail to his face area too instead of it being more hidden. Or, was that a gradient mask layer that was maybe covering more of his face to darken it?

Also was wondering if you reduced the size of the images significantly. The edges of the people on my screen were not as clear as one might expect, having jagged edges compared to straighter clean lines.

Thanks for sharing what new things you've been up to Sandra!

[smunited Profile Private messageWebsite]

Thanks for watching and commenting bsalisbury. My post processing is not to everyone's taste, so I am glad that the content was enough to keep you watching.

Deb, thanks for your comments. I am really looking for just your type of critique. It was challenging to work on the images of Dakota. The mask covered his entire eye area and he also had smaller eyes, there really isn't much detail. I was only using ambient light and two off camera flashes. It was one of those shoots that was for fun and there wasn't a lot of time for proper set up. I only had two hours with Dakota and Alysha together so I amazed I got anything.

As to the cropping and sharpness, that is interesting. Most images are full size or almost full size except for the one at 1:52. Before I posted here I watched the show (posted on the Photodex Gallery) on my desktop, it was fine, on my laptop it was not sharp. I am going to have to do further research. If anyone else has had this problem please let me know. I am also using the newest version of Producer.

Once again, thanks for commenting. Sandra

[debngar Profile Private message]

Now that I checked a few of my own older shows in my Photodex gallery, I think the jagged edges may be a problem with the Presenter. They look similar on the edges and I never reduce images used in my shows as they are exported full size jpgs. Hmmm...

Turns out I had recently renamed the "benchmark.px" file in the Presenter folder to something else and I was supposed to change it back to its original file name. Apparently that file affects the GPU acceleration mode, changing it to something else plays the show back in a lesser quality mode. Now that the file is back to the right name, your show looks as it should. Only thing now is Presenter shows are crashing on me again upon first trying to load them. Sigh...

[sierra whiskey Profile Private message]

Hi Sandra

i always find your shows interesting & love the way you manipulate images. this show was perhaps not as interesting as some of your shows but I nevertheless still found it inspiring.

thanks for sharing

Steve

[smunited Profile Private messageWebsite]

Thanks Steve, I agree. This wasn't a show that inspired me to be creative with the show. I was more inspired with my photographs and wanted to share them. There wasn't a story that pulled me in and wanted to be told, if that makes sense. That is why I am so happy to have a place to share. I don't think I will invest more time in this show. I will move on and see if there is a story in some of my other images waiting to be told. Hope you are well. Sandra