Wednesday, April 27, 2011

Don't Lose Focus - Practice Cutting

Although the model has a beautifully developed body, I think his body pose is less than ideal, and his eyes, arguably the most emotive element of a face are cropped out.

What truly drew me to this shot was the background.  The model is running through a forest with dappled sunlight striking foliage behind him.  His back and shoulders are backlit.  The foliage in the original image is out of focus, and I wondered how I would go about using the cutting technique which has very discrete sharp lines defining the edges of color to create an image that was out of focus, which by its very nature has no such lines.

I think the result is successful.  This makes me want to work with other intentionally out-of-focus phtographs.  Below is the off-axis shot illustrating the complexity of the out-of-focus areas.

It should be noted that the piece is 16x20 and consists of seven layers.  The lightest of these is a little too light.  The highlight on his chest, distracts a little bit from the bright explosion of shades behind him.

No comments:

Post a Comment