December 21st, 2007 | Musings |
New Top Ten - Your End-of-Year Favorites
I have put together a “Top Ten” part of the portfolio, and I will try to keep it fresh and new throughout next year as well. For now, here are the ones that appeared to be your favorites throughout the year. Of course I like em too… or else I wouldn’t have posted em. 
December 21st, 2007 15:34
I was at the taj mahal over the summer and should have taken the time and gone to the other side to take a shot…
December 22nd, 2007 15:25
Your use of HDR is sloppy and makes your photographs look like unnatural and blurry.
December 22nd, 2007 16:39
DUDE, AWESOME, VERY VERY COOL….HAVE A BEAUTIFUL CHRISTMAS……
December 22nd, 2007 20:19
DCP, you are sloppy and I hate you.
December 22nd, 2007 21:11
haha thanks all… even the bad comments… I can take it!
December 23rd, 2007 03:44
DCP,go take a vacation…. in Southern Iraq.You are a douche.
December 23rd, 2007 13:07
DCP isn’t completely wrong.
I love hdr but it isn’t always the easiest thing to shoot.
Good work, I’m sure you’ll perfect your technique with some more practice.
December 24th, 2007 06:32
i dont know much of High definition shooting but i must say tehre are alot good ones between them he will be better at the time anyway guys everyone was a starter needed to get the right angle and technique
December 24th, 2007 17:11
I love the last one.. I don’t recall seeing it before.
December 24th, 2007 18:46
I dont see nothing wrong , beutiful shots. I just wished you had label them please what is the city scene the one where it looks like it in a valley oh heck just name them all LOL LOVE IT ALL !!!
December 24th, 2007 18:47
I don’t see anything wrong.
December 26th, 2007 05:13
nice collections
love to see that
December 26th, 2007 06:29
i dont know WTF dcr or hdp is but those are friggin awesome and i love em!! especially the fireworks one, the cathedral thingomajiggy and the building against the cloud! they are all awesome once again i love it your a great photographer!! and if you didnt take them all, you have an awesome collection:)) 70 million kudos:)) i cant fully express my wownessity by this its amazing!! k whatever you get the point so ill stop:)
December 26th, 2007 08:08
Some people just cant take critisism. Souriously, those pictures look like you are abusing photoshop filters. The church and the tree look like they are from a videogame.
but, hey, call it a “bad comment”, if it makes you happy…
December 26th, 2007 10:01
Thanks all… I take criticism very well… no worries… I have many psychological layers and matrices to defend and deflect any interruption patterns.
December 26th, 2007 17:56
Some of these photos look incredible; others look like incredible screenshots from games. Either way , I like the look. I wish I had the kind of time, money, and talent needed to take these kinds of pictures :/.
December 26th, 2007 19:08
Amazing!!! Downright beautiful! The 2nd and the 4th one are my all time favorites. Such amazing art..
December 26th, 2007 23:49
photography is a form of art with that being said who gives a fuck if they don’t look realistic in my personal opinion they are great looking images nice job
December 30th, 2007 08:40
Awesome job
December 31st, 2007 14:35
nice
January 1st, 2008 07:29
These are beautiful and I’m jealous that you’ve been to all of these places to take these pictures.
January 1st, 2008 17:05
Wow. Those are AMAZING!!
January 3rd, 2008 02:18
2nd and 4th pictures are my favorite
January 4th, 2008 05:53
I think the reason HDR photos look so “fake” is that they defy what we think a photograph should look like. A color slide film will give you like 5 stops total of exposure… Ansel Adams was able to get 10 stops out of black and white film, with special processing and tons of dodging and burning and even modifying his negatives with pencil. He basically created the idea of HDR.. but I digress. The human eye is used to seeing things naturally like HDR because it can adapt to the lighting of whatever it’s focused on seamlessly, so that we don’t notice the variance in contrast. Psychologically, we’re used to photographs having a very compressed dynamic range, though our eyes can see much more. We come to assume that, for a photo to look natural, it must have that contrast, otherwise it would look cartoonish. Every scene we see with our eyes takes up our entire view (duh), but a photograph takes up but a fraction of the total view, so our eyes aren’t adapting to various parts of it. While the effect may look cartoonish, who are we to say it’s crap or unpure photography? Yes, it may look like it’s computer generated, but in a way it is. The Chicago school of photography put out some very interesting abstract photographic ideas… Man Ray, etc… and even RIT with Minor White (who taught Jerry Uelsmann, yet another person many people may have initially disregarded as “crap” because it looked fake…) Yet Uelsmann’s the king of post-visualization… and these photos are a combination of both pre- and post-visualization. What a novel concept.. HDR introduces yet another possibility into photography. And yet some dismiss it as crap because it looks fake. I’m not personally very good at HDR.. I’ve tried it, and I get frustrated every time.
Who cares what the colors and contrast look like, though? The compositions are solid, I think. The Chicago one is alright. I think it only got a high rating because of what it is. I feel that it’s slightly cluttered and hard to read; but the others are pretty solid.
But that’s just my two cents (and a penny for my thoughts… somebody’s making a penny somewhere..)
January 7th, 2008 14:31
Fantastic work!
January 8th, 2008 17:52
I love your photography. It looks like something out of a dream. Really creative.
January 8th, 2008 21:05
Thanks yall!
January 11th, 2008 04:59
I really cant see why some folks have to be very aggressive in there dislike of this work with words like “I hate you” thats just childish and daft. So some may say that the skills are sloppy, maybe… I neither know nor care and I don’t think that he work suffers as a result, for what its worth I like that fact the images look un natural and that they look like they could possibly have come from a game, and perhaps that ,makes them more relevant and interesting then taking the well trodden path. Personally I really enjoyed the images and hope you don’t change your style. Cracking work…
January 14th, 2008 00:22
I don’t care if anything looks “fake”. I think the artistic value of these photos is high no matter what kind of photoshop filters someone uses. The ability to create these photos is awesome. Ok, i’m not a pro photographer and perhaps according to a couple commenters there is some technique that could be improved… But regardless, i really like these pictures. I plan to use them as desktop backgrounds. thanks!
January 14th, 2008 11:44
Very nice work. It may look fake as the above comments mention, but that should not be negative. The creativity is the main point here and the author did a great job. I say congratulations !
January 14th, 2008 15:00
yeah the colors are great.
good job man.
January 16th, 2008 16:15
wow. those pictures are truely beautiful. they make reality seem like a fantasy
January 16th, 2008 16:25
why is everybody’s English so bad?
January 17th, 2008 23:00
Honestly love your technique, very good use of your brushes and filters. The shots magnificent! I got to say the cathedral by far my favorite those vitreux is like they r evrywhere very nice work you set the right mood for a complete barroque experience! My biggest and honest admiration.
January 18th, 2008 04:40
es impresionante la calida y hermosura de esas fotos!!! bellisimas
January 18th, 2008 12:32
nice photos
nice work
guy
January 18th, 2008 21:28
Wow!
January 18th, 2008 22:52
As Odilion Redon once said…”Artist’s who approach perfection do not have many ideas.” Anyone can go “there” and take a picture. It takes an artist and an artist’s eye, and even more, an artist’s mind to make a work of art. Like my dorm prefect at RISD said a decade ago…”Don’t worry Honey. All art is subjective.” I say Bravo for marching to the beat of your own drummer.
samatha
ps-not to be petty “Lloyd” but shouldn’t it be “Why is everyONE’s english (expressed) so badLY? lol :o) cheers
January 19th, 2008 07:49
Really beautiful and excellent images. They make you feel something and are most interesting than, for example, those ones in B&W that shows a boring side of realistic world, It’s very easy to criticize and make nothing good
January 19th, 2008 10:06
Kudos for taking the time: for those who make negative comments, I’m sorry you feel such negativity to be necessary, perhaps you could suggest better ways? Show us your work?
For your efforts, I commend you to put it in a public forum. I find the shots inspiring. Great work and keep it up and show us more!
January 19th, 2008 15:35
Thanks all… I don’t mind the negative nancies… I have a thick skin.
January 20th, 2008 09:32
Nice work. Please don’t correct your technique.
January 21st, 2008 15:03
Beautiful photographs made all the better because they’re released on creative common.
Excellent work!
January 23rd, 2008 22:58
I don’t really understand why people are flamed for giving ‘negative’ comments. Your opinion is, well, your opinion. I for one can’t stand the look of these. So kill me. I just don’t like the blurry, overly colorized look. I tend to agree with one of the other posters, to the effect that they look like video game stills or photos that were incredibly stylized by cheesy photoshop filters.
That being said this guy has talent for being able to do this in the first place. While I don’t like it, I’ve never been able to demystify HDR images and for that I gotta give some KUDOS! I do think this photographer will get better with the technique as time goes on, but if he doesn’t want to and is perfectly happy with the way they are then so be it. That’s his decision.
I would only hope that the photographer would take some of the criticism to heart, and try things different next time. Perhaps tone down the dramatic colors to lose some of that fake photoshop look. I don’t think you have to go for Ansel Adams realistic work, but if you tone things down a bit I think all the photos could be stronger and benefit from it. It’s sort of the same technique with film. Some of the best effects in film are the subtleties one overlooks.
I do agree that if you are going to speak negative or speak your mind, you should at least give some constructive criticism. I hope I did.
January 24th, 2008 16:14
Too much of HDR!
January 25th, 2008 18:33
photos are shit hot wish i had been there to take them don’t stop you will only get better
January 26th, 2008 02:02
Hey
Nice pictures…Really good work……..
Some of the places can be identified while others not.
For example, the tree with the sunny background; the railway station and especially the third picture which is so bright and colorful….I just want to know which place that is.
Could you please label the pictures with the place and date, if possible?
Thanks
January 26th, 2008 10:10
Thanks all - you can see where and when the pics were taken if you click on them and look on the Flickr page
January 26th, 2008 19:48
I bet some of these photographers used Phase One digital backs.
January 27th, 2008 21:39
Hi, I could only see two of the pictures since the others are on Flikr, which is blocked in China. I loved those two pics very much and wish you could use a non-blocked site so I and the other 500million online people here can enjoy them as well.
January 27th, 2008 21:41
I could see the two pics on farm3 @ flickr, the others were blocked…
January 29th, 2008 15:57
These looks really, really good. I don’t care what DCP thinks, and yes, they do surreal, but that’s what they’re aiming for!
Great pictures, I can’t get enough of those city HDR shots.
February 2nd, 2008 06:51
I just read every comment. Wow. Okay, that means I’m bored, sure, but that also that means I got the opportunity to see several points of view. I have never really used HDR but am a fan of photoshop filters and other alteration tools. I personally found the photos fascinating (otherwise I would not have read the comments). Many of my friends do not appreciate what I do with photos (filters, etc.) and offer constructive feedback with the best of intentions. I have found that if a photo, drawing, painting, etc. brings any criticism that actually affects my mood towards the creation then I never truly was satisfied with it. Not that I do not wish to improve, only that I will never apologize or change that which I have created and already looked upon as truly finished–that is, matching what my mind had intended.
I dig the styling and composition (whatever you may have used).
-Chris
March 27th, 2008 16:59
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May 26th, 2008 15:36
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July 31st, 2008 11:26
Well, I’m not a photographer and I don’t know what the hell HDR is and really don’t care. I will tell you this: when I stumbled upon this site I really thought it was great art work and probably would have never guessed it was photography until I looked at the heading and the comments. I think your photos are fantastic, especially the one of the city (I suspect Chicago) where it looks like the city is in Hell and the one in Asia where it looks like the clouds are taking the shape of the tower. It’s beautiful. You make me want to be a photographer. Glad you’re man enough to take my constructive criticism;)
September 25th, 2008 01:10
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