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Photographer's Comments |
Challenge: Free Study 2012-06 (Advanced Editing VII)
Camera: Canon EOS-20D
Lens: Sigma 24mm f/1.8 EX Aspherical DG DF Macro for Canon
Location: MERLIN radio telescope at Darnhall
Date: Jun 13, 2012
Aperture: f/11
ISO: 100
Shutter: 1/13
Galleries: Portraiture, Science and Technology
Date Uploaded: Jun 13, 2012
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Shot as a book cover concept. Something that's been rattling around my mind for a long time, the concept of a satellite dish at night or dusk seeking up at the sky in the background, its inert but straining posture echoed by a female form in the foreground, reaching her arms towards the heavens in a welcoming OR yearning posture. At once druidic and cyberpunk, the strip shades occluding her eyes evoke the imagery of a hood; she kneels at the foot of this monument to the heavens, the same way a celtic priestess may have knelt at the side of a stone circle reaching up to the same stars ten thousand years ago.
The execution is never as easy as the concept. Having been hunting around Jodrell Bank for a long time for good angles, I eventually spotted a sister sub-site from an aircraft on approach to Manchester Airport (the same way i spotted the location for  in fact). Eventually managed to visit it, having tracked it down on google satellite view (no pun intended) and found it a rather unwelcoming location, without going into detail. However, I later discovered that it was part of MERLIN, and there was another MERLIN site just half an hour further away - this was intended as a scouting trip for the site, but eventually turned into the final photoshoot.
Editing consisted mostly of dodging and burning, and selectively adjusting contrast curves and gamma; raising the background gamma a little and reducing contrast to compress the dish into a surreal, marginally misty, monumental shadow. Bit of cloning to remove the remnant of the barbed wire fence that remained after the burn, the remains of the flare of a flash at the top of the frame, and several flies dotted around the image that are lit up by the same flash.
The book cover style composition is intended to permit author's name and book title in the band of space at the top and the band of darkness at the bottom, respectively.
The mask used for selection:
Outtakes:  
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