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Being a harpist myself, I find the first image beautiful. In my opinion, the man in the foreground is a bit distracting. Well done.
Thanks. The man is my son. And I actually placed him in the frame on purpose to create the sense of focused listening. I guess it didn’t play out that way.
I think the first image could be interpreted to mean what the photographer intended. Like @SarahLeePhoto said, it could also be seen as distracting. I agree though, that it is a nice photo. I like the leading lines drawing the attention of the viewer to the main subject: the harpists.
On taking a closer look though, it looks like the camera wasn’t focused correctly: see the attached 100% crop. To me it looks like the camera automatically selected the focus points, and focused on the back wall of the church instead of the harpists. Another possibility is that it was simply too dark for the camera to focus properly. Looking at the Exif data, considering the shutter speed of 1/6 seconds, you did well to get as sharp of a picture as you did! Of course it always helps to have a good camera and lens, as I can see you have! A Nikon D610 is quite a good camera from what I’ve heard!
But really, my favorite picture is the second one! I have seen very few long exposure “zooms” that I liked, but I do like this one. The subject is still easily recognizable, but it’s a different image from your “usual” picture of a church. Did you use a tripod for that shot? Part of the problem with most pictures like this is that the radiating lines are “jiggly” from camera movement while you zoom. But this photo looks pretty good in that regard.
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I was just in Williamsburg last week, and wish I could have had the amazing opportunities that you had! First, you have an event inside the church that provides something for the ornate interior of the church to complement, and second, you were there at a much more colorful time of day; dusk is a much better time to shoot than midday. Though I’m not sure if you were specifically commissioned to photograph the event, it’s always fun to try and capture artistic shots regardless of the purpose of your presence. For some reason, folks who tote around DSLRs seem to have knack for doing this.
My comment is on the second shot. This effect I absolutely love. I think that the center point should be on something of interest, like on the doorway or one of the windows. The center point is where the eye ends up so that’s where an important element should be. Changing the location of the center point might also help with removing some of the empty space above the church.
Yeah, I think that the first picture I ever saw that utilized the long-exposure zoom effect was one that James took. I don’t remember when that was, probably while he was in South Korea, but I was really impressed! I wanted to try it, but I didn’t have an SLR then, so I couldn’t. The Canon Powershot S3 doesn’t let you zoom during the exposure!
The first time I ever tried it was on top of a hotel building overlooking the Dallas skyline in 2008. As you can tell, its not the smoothest zoom in the world, but I was so excited to be transforming something quite uninteresting into something quite unique.
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You used a NIKON????? I don’t believe it! 🙂
Did you do something like that in Korea also? I seem to remember seeing one that you did there.
Believe it or not, I was using a Nikon. LOL. I don’t remember all the details, but I think I swapped with a friend for an evening or something . . .
I do like to try that effect when I’m in a city at night. However, I don’t remember any good pictures turning out with that effect in Korea so that’s probably why I don’t remember exactly what occasion it was.
My daughter is one of the harpist in the shot. It was a long exposure in low light with no cameras allowed in the church. ISO 6400!.
Therefore I quietly set up my camera on a small side table and supported it with hymnals in the back foyer and set it for quiet release. That is the best I could do.
For the outside shot I braced myself against a porch column across the street for the slow zoom exposure. I agree, the center of the zoom should be on a better subject.
attached is another one from inside.
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Nice. Way to make something happen in a “hostile” environment. 🙂
About the two vertical images you just attached, there’s too much out-of-focus foreground isle for there to be what I would consider to be a balanced image between empty and interesting space areas. The B&W version reduces what little contrast there was in the foreground that may have offered some way of adding contrast in the isle. Don’t there there’s enough contrast to make the B&W work.
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