Self Promotional Close-Up

[Bill D]

I have been working on a self promo idea that features my close-up photography. What do you think? Printed on 4x6 or 5x7 glossies.

[Carl_Constantine]

I like the image. It conveys to me "timeless photography"

[rjlittlefield]

Nice concept, composition, and sharpness!

This particular image looks a bit dark (with my monitor set to standard gamma=2.2). The bright reflections are definitely blown (RGB=255 over large contiguous regions), and there's a whole bunch of pure black in the main image area (6.5% of pixels with level=0 or 1). Whether this works for marketing purposes depends on your audience. I'm a technical guy, so to sell me personally it would work better to have visible detail in both highlight and shadow areas. If you're targeting "glamour", you should ignore that comment.

Is that the sort of feedback you're looking for?

--Rik

[Mike B in OKlahoma]

To me the image also looks dark. That puts me off a bit, though it might not if I wasn't so conscious of it as a photographer.

I don't know if the orientation of the clock hands is something you deliberately chose or not, if you haven't, you might think about what pleases you. I believe there is something of a convention in advertising to put the hands at 8:22 or thereabouts, supposedly because it is aesthetically pleasing, and (I suspect) leaves room for writing advertising on the clock face. That may make you want to "defy convention" to distinguish yourself, or you may choose to put the hands at 8:22 to show that you know the "standard". Or any orientation that you find pleasing would work of course, the 8:22 isn't a law....

[MacroLuv]

Maybe you should consider a color variant also. Colors could give dynamics in overall dark impression? Black and white composition is not a bad idea but it works better when you have more gray tonal transitions in my opinion.

[Bill D]

Thanks for all of the feedback! Everything in this photo was deliberate. The tonal range was ment to look similar to an old photograph. I changed it in curves. I chose B&W again to look old, but, I also really like B&W photographs. I don't know about the "8:22" standard, but again, I placed the hands where they have a pleasing diagonal line to them, from top left to bottom right.

[Bill D]

I'm at work, and I've looked at this thing a few times... I work with AutoCad all day long, and I've got the brightness turned down on this monitor. Yes, I could switch to black screen, but I don't like that. This photo does not look good on this monitor! Printed out, and on my home monitor, it looks fine. Does have tonal range. But, with the brightness down below normal, it is to dark and orthographic.

[beetleman]

It is moody looking for sure. I would try it a few different ways and than decide what you like the best. I`m sure someone spent millions of dollars to figure out the 8:20 Time Thing.

[puzzledpaul]

<< I`m sure someone spent millions of dollars to figure out the 8:20 Time Thing. >>

Betcha right, Doug - can just imagine a roomful of 'suits' slaving over such a task

Don't know whether it's a 'different side of the pond' thing - but I tend to remember a different configuration ... 10:10 / 1:50 (approx).

Checking to see if I was having a larger 'senior moment' than usual, I entered Rolex into Ebay (uk) and that's what the (pro) sellers I saw were using.

Personally, I think I'd also try some shallow dof stuff as well, to highlight / emphasise whatever aspect of the overall image you want to?

pp

[Mike B in OKlahoma]

Google to the rescue, here's a discussion of the 8:20 thing....

http://www.straightdope.com/classics/a2_330.html

[Bill D]

That is an interesting link Mike. Thanks for taking the time (pun intended) to find it! I'm almost picky enough to re-shoot the picture, but, for my purposes it should be fine as is. That is good to know for the future. You never know when Jaeger-LeCoultre will want me to shoot their next ad campaign!

[crocoite]

Don't know whether it's a 'different side of the pond' thing - but I tend to remember a different configuration ... 10:10 / 1:50 (approx).

Hi Paul

The 10:10 could be a Brit thing. Its what I remember from growing up over there and is the same one used here in Australia.

[Mike B in OKlahoma]

10:10 has some of the same advantages as 8:20 (aesthetics, room for labeling), and (I believe this was mentioned in the "straight dope" article I linked) has the advantage of making a smiley rather than a frowny!