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In the past month or so I've been trying to do some of the classic photography trick shots (water drops, smoke, suspending by fishing line). I feel I learned a lot by doing those photos, but I think my work suffers from not so creative composition. So I set out to take make the simplest yet well composed photo I could that would score well.
I did this with a tin heart-shaped cookie cutter and a sheet of textured red paper. I held the cookie cutter upright by poking two holes in the paper underneath the heart and running some fishing line up through it to pull down on the cookie cutter.
I made a snoot out of construction paper for the smoke challenge and I held it over my flash to focus the light.
I took hundreds of shots, and for a while I though I had some good photos. The more I looked at them the more I realized they sucked (too much red).
I try not to do too much Advanced editing, but I was desperate. I selected the background of the photo using magnetic lasso and played with the bright-cont, shadow-highlight, etc...
Desperate for a better photo I hit auto levels in Photoshop and it turned part of the background selection yellow. I wish I had thought to adjust the levels like this, but it was just a pleasant surprise to me. I put the photo aside, but came back to it later dissatisfied with my other photos.
I really hate this photo. :(
...OK I don't hate it that much. I think it looks pretty good, but the fire coloring was an accident so although I like the photo I have contempt for it looking this good on accident.
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Great colors and lighting. I like the white rim too. It almost looks like graphic image than a photograph. I feel there is to much black around it.
the heart is close to the bottom of the frame but a LOT more black above which throws the balance off. Bring those sides and top in and you would have a stunning shot.
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