Trying to convey a bit of local culture with this. I couldn't bear to do fruit, flowers or wine glasses.
My dad bought the boots in the Fort Worth Stockyards when he visited a few years ago. He never wore them and eventually gave them to me. They're a size too big, but I do wear them on occasion.
My wife's hat.
The vest belonged to my late father in law, who loved western culture. He had his law office decorated with all sorts of western themed items.
The rusted steel bull is an item that I picked up at Deridder Antiques during a Flicker meetup about a year ago. One of the horns had broken off and been replaced with a wood screw. That unique imperfection is what appealed to me about it. My wife says this bull is the kind of thing that would have appealed to her dad as well.
Anticipated critiques:
-Multiple shadows on front brim of hat. (Agreed, I'm a lighting newb.)
-Boring black background, could have added some more interest in that area.
-Button between the boots should have been tilted toward the camera. (Boy, I'm really getting nitpicky about my own stuff!)
-The "prosthetic horn" may get a comment or two.
-I also expect someone to not care for the modest tonemapped appearance.
Post-challenge notes:
I'm very pleased at how well this was received for a genre I don't consider myself good at. As I anticipated, several members mentioned the screw that is serving as a prosthetic horn. This was intentionally composed to display the screw/horn. Something that is an appealing quirk to one person can be a major flaw to others.
In spite of how well this did, one thing is clear (which I already knew), I need to figure out how to do more interesting, but appropriate backgrounds.
Lighting info:
I wanted the primary lighting to be coming from the right, but still needed a bit of fill on the left, otherwise the shadows would be too deep and not show any detail at all. Initially, I tried it with just the strobes on the right and reflector on the left, but had to add another strobe for some more fill. Here's what I ended up with:
-2 Vivitar 2800's to the right, behind a shoot-through umbrella.
-Handheld Vivitar 2800, with a small softbox on it, pointing at a 32" reflector on the left.
-Optical peanut triggers on all the 2800's.
-Canon 430ex on the hotshoe, snooted, pointed to the right, and set to the lowest power. Just enough to trigger the optical slaves, but not enough to affect the image.
-Manual mode exposure, since optical slaves are not exactly TTL-aware devices. It usually takes me a handful of test shots to get the exposure correct.
Statistics
Place: 24 out of 151 Avg (all users): 6.0840 Avg (commenters): 6.0000 Avg (participants): 5.9231 Avg (non-participants): 6.2778 Views since voting: 1494 Views during voting: 234 Votes: 119 Comments: 7 Favorites: 0
didn't notice the prostetic horn until I read the description - i like it a lot and i think it gives the whole composition a humorous twist. I would like it to be more visible! very nice details in the photo, but I miss the background - this way it looks suspended in the thin air of the night.
Add photograph to your favorites
Add photographer to your favorites
Photographer found comment helpful.
