For the last few days I’ve been messing around with the images I made on the weekend at the Cloverdale Rodeo and Country Fair. Sorry Mark K., no spurs or cow noses good enough to share. I wasn’t really happy with anything I photographed and in fact I am disappointed that the series of this roller coaster ride didn’t turn out better. But like my other blooper of the day post, it gives me a chance to think about what to do next time to improve my images.
This image has been cropped but I kept the same ratio as the original. I wanted to exclude a person that was standing in the lower left corner. In proportion to the rest of the image, she stood out and seemed to pull the eye away from what is the main subject matter, the kids on the roller coaster. As I’ve mentioned before, I don’t like to crop but I think in the interests of learning here, a crop is not a bad thing. It gives me an idea of what the composition could have been had I changed a few things. In the next image in this series, all the faces were in clear view and I almost posted that image instead. The problem with it was that post-crop, the roller coaster had no place to go, the fries sign in the top right was cut off in the original composition, and overall the image was well, awkward. Even the most redeeming aspect of that image–the expressions on the faces–was not enough to rescue it. Heck this is a post about bloopers so I’ll just post it and you can see what I mean.
The next time I have a chance to photograph this, I will hang around longer, study the results more closely, and shoot more frames.
A few words about the post-processing here. The decision to convert this to black and white was mainly because I felt the colours were distracting. And thanks to Chris, Ray and John’s comments on my earlier post, I used Nik’s Silver Efex Pro to do the conversion to black and white and played around with the sliders to get the right tones and constrast. Maybe there is a science to it but I didn’t apply any techniques. For me it came down to making the adjustments until it felt right, visually. As it happens I was re-reading one of Craft and Vision’s eBooks “Drawing the Eye” and realized I could use some of the techniques from there to improve my image. Oh by the way, today Craft and Vision released “The Magic of Black and White: Part 2 – Craft“. Check here for time limited discount codes. Andrew uses Photoshop to illustrate the fundamental concepts but smart cookies can apply them to LR too 
So there you have it; another blooper with a good opportunity to learn. If you have any suggestions for me, please feel free to leave a comment.
You could always use CS5′s content aware fill to remove her easily. But then we get into that whole discussion about what is a photograph
Mark
By the way, an “old school” way of isolating your subject would be by using depth of field.
I’ll say it once again Right is when it looks right to you not anyone else. I have used Nik Silver for a while now and have yet to try any of the presets other than the film ones.
I like the second image Sabrina, the joy and excitement of the kids is real and shows well. B&W and the way you processed gives it a timeless feel that goes well with small carnival rides.
Blooper? I don’t think so.
[...] This post was mentioned on Twitter by Ian Furniss. Ian Furniss said: RT @sabrinahenry: Blooper blog post is up http://tinyurl.com/32hvtmg –Natter away! [...]
Sabrina, I think you didn’t take the cropping far enough (in camera or not). What story are you telling? I think it’s about the joy—and the fear—of the children riding this bucking beast, as shown in their expressions.
So lose the rest of it. The “Fries” sign is unimportant, the woman in the lower left is also unimportant. You don’t need them to tell the story. The children and the roller coaster provide enough context to know exactly what’s going on. Perhaps like this?
I would have probably also taken a couple more steps to your right to clean up the background and show only the sky. Maybe even knelt down a little and shot upward to be sure (assuming you could move around).
I agree w/Ray that the B&W makes it rather iconic and I think that’s the perfect treatment here. Just don’t forget about what’s within the frame.
Wonderful post Sabrina, and great B&W conversion!!
Not bad for a blooper. Hey, we all shoot and learn. I tried something similar with Olivia last summer – definitely tricky with th ride moving and the faces. And while I like the B&W here, I also love the great colors at fairs and such. Might be neat to see this image with great bold colors too.
I love the way Nik and you made this image look. Not sure why cropping bothers you as much as it seems to from this post. The image is very powerful, and I agree with Ray, you are the only judge of your work worth listening to. I agree you can learn from feedback, don’t get me wrong, but you always have to be aware that sometimes with feedback people are telling you what photograph THEY would have taken.
[...] what we shoot, what we show. But Sabrina….she seems to take it to another level. Even her “bloopers” are pretty damn [...]