Converted from Raw
A lot of editing i made 2 copies of the same raw file, one where the model was exposed a bit more properly, and the other was a bit darker to make the image more contrasty., curves and levels to match the background, layer masks, sharpening, crop, neat image on the face.
I had a hard time getting rid of a halo hope its not too noticable. Raw is amazing.
I'd like to thank my model Corey for waking up at 6am on her day off. Can't say I would do the same thing. lol
Title is a song from Porcupine Tree, love that song.
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Thank you all for the comments!
I know the light poles kinda got in the way of a perfect picture. I wanted to do a tribute to Larus's famous style photos and add a little twist on it with some acidic colors. The road that this was taken on is a very busy intersection here on Al Asad, so as i was takign this a truck of some sort was fast approaching behind me and who ever was driving it probably was thinking im some sort of idiot for standing in the middle of the road. i learned a lot editing this photo and I'm not normally satisfied with my editing for most of my photos, but for this one im very very happy with the way it turned out. Again thanks for all the comments and pointers.
For a setup shot, you've shown a good eye for creating a scene that works well with the subject. Here the strong points of the image are the perspective of the street moving back to the horizon and centering the subject within those lines to make her pop out of the scene.
Things that likely held this back are the overall darkness of the image, the background clutter coming up from behind her head and a slightly soft focus on the subject.
If you have access to a flash, that would help light the subject so she stands out more while still allowing you to catch the soft morning light in the sky behind her. You could also take another stab at using various masks and other assorted digital wizardry in your image editor to see what could be done - but there is never a replacement for getting the lighting right 'in real life'.
Shooting the model from a lower point of view, or physically moving her forward to block the clutter coming up from her head would help as well. I would keep the centered placement, just find a spot that hides the light poles. Centered compositions are often panned, but think it works very well here.
Sharp focus is the bread and butter of scoring on DPC. This looks like a dimly lit scene so if you were on auto-focus, your camera might have been struggling to stay locked on. Manual focus may be your friend in a situation like this.
Great shot Corrie. You have a unique world to photograph, I would definitly consider making these shots public after the war or once you get home. I think it would do well. It's also important to show a bit of that world as well...the good moments and not always the bad ones like we tend to see none stop now in Iraq ( not trying to tone down the horrors of the war here), Good work. I always enjoy going through your portfolio.
Your part of the world is far more civilized than where I've been - or so it appears from this! I thought you'd put a Marine over a shot taken from elsewhere but now that I think about it, that wouldn't have been possible given the time frame of the shoot. I do like this. And tell Corey she's a good sport for getting up at 6 am!
The traditional no-no of having background items springing from her head actually creates a "crowning" effect that I find quite moving. Unfortunately, the more I look at it, the more I realize that this is not a miraculous candid in a war zone, but a carefully staged Larus photo of a beautiful model in fatigues. You had me going for quite a while, though. But I'm not sure what that gets you.
An interesting take on Larus' series. While the technicals are not close to Larus', the low lighting and lack of fill does help give it mood and character something Larus' own commercialized work tends to lack. I think something in between would be idea.
Well I do like the colors and DOF but having those lightposts growing out of the head is not exactly what I would call flattering, I would have placed the model elsewhere, crouched down or failing that, removed them in post processing. 6 from me.
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