crop; brightness/contrast; auto saturation full photo; full photo sharpen; border; resize
Sure, there are a few flaws here and there, but even if there wasn't, someone somewhere will find one, so it really is of no matter. You can only do so much with basic editing rules :)
To me? This is cool. To others who are used to these tricks and this type of photography? It maybe be old news. But anyway, this is how it was done for those that don't know and want to know....
This is an old little-red school house photo which I printed out on both sides of the photo paper. I cut a hole in it to insert the hammer. By printing it on both sides, as the paper bent from the hammer it would show the school roof and walls coming through instead of the white backside of the paper. On the very edges that are sticking out where the hammer breaks through, I blackened those with black magic marker. A few white spots remained at the base where some rip occured, but all in all it still came out as planned.
The black inside the hole where the hammer handle is? That is from my purse, which is black and large. LOL...I don't have any black backdrops or any high falooting studio equipment, so I have to make due with what I have. I had my husband hold the hammer handle base with one hand and the bottom of the photo up with the palm of his other hand and directly in front of my purse. This gave the "black hole" effect where the hammer handle meets the inside of the school house.
The hardest part was not getting a shadow of the hammer against the paper of the photo when I took the shot. I didn't want a shadow on the back of the paper in the sky part as it wouldn't look realistic enough. With basic editing rules, I wouldn't have been able to fix that. So I had to take several shots at different angles in a medium lit area. You can see some shine around the outside of the hammer head still, but it gives almost the illusion that the sun is hitting the hammer head and reflecting off, rather than the lighting from the shot.
I was pretty lucky in a sense, as in this photo you can see a shadow going up from the chimney on the right and across the roof. It gives the illusion though that the shadow is going down and from the hammer teeth in the back of the hammer head. Also, under the hammer head itself is another shadow that is slight, but seen on the roof top. This makes it seem this is from the hammer head itself. So I was pretty pleased, as this wasn't something I noticed till after the photo was processed and submitted. I worried about the angle of the shadows verses the hammer head and placement, and it seemed to work in my favor from the photo I chose as my muse. That is always a nice feeling when things "work" in a challenge entry. :) The shadows are really from trees unable to be seen in the shot. As you can see, the sun is mainly on the other side of the school, but only shadowing through the trees on this side of the school. This helped me greatly in wanting to use this shot, but the shadow placements on the roof worked nicely as well.
The rest was all done in post processing. Mainly just brightness and contrast and a few other basic full photo applications. A bit of neat image to remove some noise, and that was it.
I think it is quite humorous. Not sure how it will do. I did predict a very decent score on this, but you never know what others might dream up as well, since all types of education really goes - flight school, astronaut training, etc, etc. The ideas could really be endless and the competition tremendous, but I am really happy with my entry in any case.
I am hoping that others realize this IS a school house and others know what a "Shop Class" is...LOL. I may have trouble with out of country voters on that one? Not sure. In my day it was a class for students to work on wood projects such as bird houses, cabinets, etc. It was called "Shop". It was for boys only in my day too, so I didn't attend, but it worked as a title for the entry. I was going to call it "No more pencils, no more books, no more teachers dirty looks" and actually had another shot of a hammer coming down on the school. However, I later changed my mind and wanted it to be a bit more about others wondering how this was done then just holding a hammer against the top of the roof as the other shot I did showed. So I changed the photo and the title to the shop class one. I think it fits much better and hopefully a few "will" wonder. I LOVE it when a photo is asked to be validated. :) Hopefully this one will be!
Well, I hope I inspired another photographer or two. It was fun to do and work on, ribbon or no ribbon. :)
Rose
Statistics
Place: 100 out of 145 Avg (all users): 4.7770 Avg (commenters): 5.5385 Avg (participants): 4.5082 Avg (non-participants): 4.8558 Views since voting: 911 Views during voting: 512 Votes: 269 Comments: 15 Favorites: 0
I thought it was good too neenee, but I guess it went over the heads of many. LOL....THANK YOU neenee for your comment. It was really appreciated.
This photo started at a 3.0 score and with the first comment being on possible editing violations. I thought so, as the score seemed to reflect that others had concern. I therefore, asked along with one or two others I assume, the photo be validated. During this time, it seems that the rules were changed and the photo didn't show it was validated as has been done previously, so still comments on editing were coming in even after validation went through. Hopefully they will change how a photo validation looks in the future, as I think this had a major effect on my score this round. Then again, many just didn't like it, and that is fine too, but I don't think it was as many as thought it was a violation, and that is how I believe it ended in this spot. As you can see, it had nearly double the views as votes, so to me that means either there was a lot of interest in this shot, or people just didn't know what to do with their vote.:) Views after challenge are at 41. That is quite a bit for a 101st place entry, so once again, I am very appreciative of the interest.
Thank you to everyone who thought this was creativly done or clever. It made me smile and very happy to read those. I also appreciate a shot that is done in such a way where others have to ask for clarity from council or from the photographer, as several did in my comments.
I much prefer to have a photo in this placement and for reasons of wonder, then a photo that is just "ho hum" and comes in at a middle of the road placement. This to me means more than any virtual ribbon!!
This is a great shot! I searched for it in the top ranking photos. I was shocked to see it place 101. Anyways I enjoyed it, thanks for sharing the "how to" of this.
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