SiO 2018 - Outtakes/Behind the Scenes

[bilzmale]

Not happy with the proc of my Day 14 pano so I reinstalled AutoPanoPro and restitched using 7 images. The On1 stitch I posted fell apart in Aurora and I was not 100% happy. The first image below is straight out of APP and the second is pp in Aurora where it held up better. I am impressed with the content-aware fill tools in Affinity Photo (a major reason I bought it last week) and used it to remove the power lines and poles.

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[grebeman]

The single image taken on the 15th reproduced in colour which for me didn't have quite the impact of the monochrome version. Others might beg to differ

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Windfalls

Barrie

 

[marlof]

I am impressed with the content-aware fill tools in Affinity Photo (a major reason I bought it last week) and used it to remove the power lines and poles

For an automated job it’s very good. That said: I’m pretty sure that the people in the house on the right would not be too happy if the construction company would have done that job.

 

[AndyMcD]

The single image taken on the 15th reproduced in colour which for me didn't have quite the impact of the monochrome version. Others might beg to differ

I think you made the right choice.

 

[AndyMcD]

My outtake for today. I am no sort of street photographer...

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[grebeman]

I think you made the right choice.

Thanks for the feedback. I have to say that the discouragement of comments in the actual day to day posts is, for me, making the whole process much less involving than I remember for the first SIJ back in 2012, which I find a great shame and would cause me to consider whether it's worth the effort in future. That in itself is sad given that we have now moved to a degree of rotation of the months for this enterprise. Hopefully I will feel motivated to see the month out, but at the moment it's touch and go.

Barrie

 

[AndyMcD]

Thanks for the feedback. I have to say that the discouragement of comments in the actual day to day posts is, for me, making the whole process much less involving than I remember for the first SIJ back in 2012, which I find a great shame and would cause me to consider whether it's worth the effort in future. That in itself is sad given that we have now moved to a degree of rotation of the months for this enterprise. Hopefully I will feel motivated to see the month out, but at the moment it's touch and go.

Barrie

I hadn't really thought about this tbh, as I've never been involved in the 'Single in...' threads before. However, back in my NikonCafe days, the challenges were run a little differently - where each participant had their own thread and we would all comment in that.

 

[MoonMind]

I'm not aware of comments being discouraged at all. It's just that we refrained from commenting and went for "likes" in order not to take away from the impact of the images. However, there's no reason why we shouldn't comment if it's done in moderation. A thread per participant is another possibility - I'd say we should talk about this at the end. In fact, I'll set up a "How's it going?" thread tomorrow (at halftime, so to speak) that can host this discussion; if it's a pressing matter for many, I'll do so later today.

In former installations, we used the Gallery and commented on each entry, but running into the opposite problem @grebeman voiced this time: too many uniform comments, stress because of the felt obligation of commenting on every post ... I guess we can't please everyone; I personally like having the images to look at first and foremost and comments and discussions in dedicated threads, but I'm not at all religious about this. I personally think we should run a poll on this when evaluating the whole SiO.

M.

 

[bilzmale]

Thanks for the feedback. I have to say that the discouragement of comments in the actual day to day posts is, for me, making the whole process much less involving than I remember for the first SIJ back in 2012, which I find a great shame and would cause me to consider whether it's worth the effort in future. That in itself is sad given that we have now moved to a degree of rotation of the months for this enterprise. Hopefully I will feel motivated to see the month out, but at the moment it's touch and go.

Barrie

Barrie it was not my intention to stifle comments. My Day 1 post said, "Comments are welcome if pertinent but conversations are probably best in a separate thread." On reflection, it seems comments are few and far between this time around and others may have felt constrained too. There is, after all, only your own judgement as to whether a comment is pertinent.

Matt will be posting a thread today asking for member's reflections and feedback so far, so I encourage you all to contribute on this and other matters. Barrie I hope you see the SiO through to the finish.

 

[marlof]

I thought pressing a like button was sufficient feedback... Just kidding of course. Thing is, I'm hanging in here as it is, shooting, posting, and looking at the other images, and pressing a like button. I can't find the time to comment on all images. If I do comment, I do want to say more than just "wonderful" or "beautiful light".

I do have an idea: what if all participants start a thread at the end, describing their experiences, and showing their favourite image from the month. In that thread, people are invited to comment on the collection of the topic starter, and specifically the image that was selected.

 

[grebeman]

Barrie it was not my intention to stifle comments.

Bill, I'm not pointing the finger at anyone over the comments issue, least of all you since I've already expressed appreciation of your setting up the next days page before you turn in for the night. With respect to comments over likes, it would appear that most people tick the "likes" box for most of the images. I noticeably do not, not because I don't like the images, but because I feel that it falls short of constructive comment. It tails off for those who are far to the west because I guess those further east have moved on somewhat. I suppose I'm coming from the situation of having been in the past a member of a local camera club where entries are critiqued, usually by the same experienced member during one evenings meeting. It's not an enviable role for that person and some of the comments can, depending on the individual, be rather cutting. However they can also be constructive. If people feel unable to comment then fair enough. At the end of the day I expect few would wish to, possibly for fear of giving offence. In the club situation we were given guidelines as to how to critique an image and score it based on those criterion.

Perhaps I'm guilty of hardly posting any images in the "outakes", it looks to me as though most of those posted are different to the selected post for the day and therefore difficult to comment on. Likewise the comments wouldn't relate to the chosen days image. Today I happened to take just the one image and processed two different versions so felt it relevant to post the alternative, which actually drew a comment. The fact that it supported my opinion on my images was encouraging. Had it not perhaps the author would have posted his reasons for disagreeing with me which would again have been very interesting to me and given food for thought.

Barrie

 

[AndyMcD]

I suppose I'm coming from the situation of having been in the past a member of a local camera club where entries are critiqued, usually by the same experienced member during one evenings meeting. It's not an enviable role for that person and some of the comments can, depending on the individual, be rather cutting. However they can also be constructive. If people feel unable to comment then fair enough. At the end of the day I expect few would wish to, possibly for fear of giving offence. In the club situation we were given guidelines as to how to critique an image and score it based on those criterion.

Barrie, the impersonal nature of internet picture sharing is a personal bugbear of mine. I see people post things on Facebook (for example) and get polarised, monosyllabic responses which don't help anyone. I sometimes post on those and will try to cover off composition, technique etc. to give a more considered response and some encouragement. I've never made it to a local club, but have been a member of an online/postal club for nearly two years and that has helped me a lot.

I do like this site though, because people tend to be more considerate, helpful and open on here which is refreshing compared to some of the other sites. I also like the idea of us each picking our favourite from the month and everyone trying to take time to discuss each one.

 

[grebeman]

I also like the idea of us each picking our favourite from the month and everyone trying to take time to discuss each one.

Andy, there was an added element to the first SIJ, and that was that each participant picked their two favourite images and they were collated into a book that was available either on line or as a hardback publication. If I remember rightly that was proposed sometime through the challenge. I think it made for more group involvement than I feel exists in the current format. The organiser, Mark (stillshunter) in Australia even asked me what breed of a bull featured in one of my images which caused me to make a return visit to the farm in question to discover that information.

As a retired individual with no family who has become very parochial I might be making it harder for myself by restricting much of my image making to my own small rural parish where subject matter is limited. I'm not really a "people person" and find images of people difficult, so it's surprising that one of my favourite photographers is James Ravilious who specialised in images featuring people at work and play in the rural heartland of Devon taken some 20-40 years ago. They now form an invaluable record of a near vanished way of life. Perhaps one or two trips to my local town with my camera instead of a shopping bag will force me to try more images out of my comfort zone, watch this space, or rather the daily posts.

Barrie

 

[marlof]

Barrie, I have struggled with the same issue. I loathe anything Facebook related, and disliked the like buttons at first. But I got used to them, and press them whenever I can in this challenge.

To me, this challenge is not about soliciting image reviews. It’s about getting out there, and use the camera you have. The daily thread to me is just a proof that we went through yet another day without giving up. So when I press a like, I don’t necessarily like the image. I like the continuous participation.

Even when I don’t have time to really sit down and comment on the images, if I’m particularly struck by an image, it’ll get a wow or winner icon. Which I should probably do a little more.

But there I am, a very verbal person, limiting my responses to a few standardized icons. Who would have thought.

 

[grebeman]

Interesting responses. thank you guys for taking the time to express your thoughts. As has been the case throughout my life I perhaps dance to the tune of a different drummer

Barrie

 

[MoonMind]

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Over the limits this time ... The scan swallowed the last hints of the details in the foreground shadows, and I can't recover them with my current means. Even so, the image capture much of the mode early this morning (only a couple of minutes after sunrise).

EDIT: This is the scan from Google PhotoScan. As usual, not very sharp at all (and with ugly reflections that shouldn't be there at all according to Google), but it reveals a bit of what's been lost when scanning ...

M.

 

[muzee]

Some of the 'honourable-mentioned' for day 16:

I was almost ready to load this early on and be done with ... but the weather turned out OK, so had time for a photo walk.

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I worked on this one a bit, but decided the bird was more interesting:

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[NoSeconds]

Day 15 outtakes...

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[NoSeconds]

Day 16 outtakes...


I really liked this one to start with despite the extreme shallow DOF but after developing the raw and playing with it in Snapseed, it started to lose it’s appeal...

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These two pretty much sucked no matter what I did with them....

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[Matero]

This popped up to me when hunting churches

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