Hi Stefan,

My opinion on this is as follows:-

We (ie me) dont make art, we record moments. Now we may record a moment that goes on to become art.

Art in my mind is defined by our peers and for something to become art we need other people to like/hate it. But most of all we need people to define it as art. I would imagine all artists start of as amatures performing or creating for pleasure until they are discovered and called "Artists". This seems to be true across all types of art from singing and the performing arts to painting sculptures and architects. If you gave a good director a CCTV camera I am sure art could be created.

Now why do I take pictures, there are several reasons.
I like to record moments of our family life, in the hope that my kids will look through them (not just format c
I like to capture moments of breathtaking beauty, of general things that catch my eye as well as bugs.

I also like the personal challenge of looking potential environments and situations (eg a macro image) and thinking "keep the focus on the eyes, use a big DoF, Lets try 1/125 @ f22 with the pentax 50mm1.7 and the two small macro extention tubes"

The technicalities and thought process I go through to capture a moment either results in an a brief period of satisfaction (probably an endophine high)or dissapointment and re-calculation / adjustment of all the variables ready for the next attempt.

In fact I would probably enjoy Golf (if I ever tried) for exactly the same reasons.

Regards
PaulM

Good captures Mike,

no2 is my personal favorite, I like the wood (decking) background.

What lens did you use for those?

Regards
PaulM

Matt,

The Millenium bridge is my favorite of them all, I do like the eye pic though, a small criticism (very small) is it could've done with a little bit more room at the bottom.

The more I look at pictures taken on a wide angle lens, the more I want one.

Regards
PaulM

Thanks all

Thanks for the heads-up on that, might explain why some of my pics are a bit blurry!

Glad to be of some assistance

Hi Garath, Yes, it was a bit of Guassian blur.

Regards
PaulM

Thats a cracking shot,

Love the clarity and detail of the moons surface.

LOL I could have done with it for the people competition, I could have sat im my front room and still got a picture from the next town!

Regards
PaulM

My son climbing on a bookcase, me laying on the floor trying to get him to look at me, camera pushed up to ISO 1600 auto focus hunting a bit because the light is quite low, so I switch to manual.

All of a sudden he stops and looks directly at me, the red focus confirmation square appears, the camera beeps and I "Click"

So not instanly a great shot admittedly but I loved the focus on his eyes and I hoped with a bit of PS work I could get it to work.

So heres the original
[IMG]http://i206.photobucket.com/albums/bb113/pnjmcc/thumb_IMGP7947.jpg[/IMG]

first I tried to just lighten it using curves in PS

The lightend version
[IMG]http://i206.photobucket.com/albums/bb113/pnjmcc/IMGP7947-copy.jpg[/IMG]

This still didn't have it for me due to the noise so I thought I would try an B&W version. I removed the blue channel as it had the most noise on then converted to a black and white

The Black and white version
[IMG]http://i206.photobucket.com/albums/bb113/pnjmcc/IMGP7947BW-copy.jpg[/IMG]

And as I love the way the Orten style effect renders skin tones I tried one like that to, but with some extra dodging on his eyes to lift them

Orten Style
[IMG]http://i206.photobucket.com/albums/bb113/pnjmcc/Noah-stare-orton.jpg[/IMG]

So is it a good picture (as I am blinded cause its my kid) and which version works best in your opinions.

Regards
PaulM

A very emotive picture Pauly, great capture

Regards
PaulM

I tried it this way

[IMG]http://i206.photobucket.com/albums/bb113/pnjmcc/test2copy.jpg[/IMG]

Two graduation layers, one black/ grey coloured at -90 to hold the sky back a bit and the second a purple ish one at -108 to hold back the burnt out area and highlight the magenta reflections in the water.

Regards
PaulM

Good judging Glyn, thanks for the detailed comments and well done to TOZZA, Nathan and Gartmore.

I apologise about the exif info, I thought it was all in the pic (Doh! :blush I will remember to add in future.

I made it black and white because there is two very strong colours competing against each other in the shot, The bloke with the trolly has a yellow tee shirt on and the Gloria Jeans fence thing on the R/H side is red. I found they kept drawing my eye to them and didn't let me look round the photo to see all the other goings on!

Anyway original image is below so you can see it in colour and hopefully confirm the exif.

[IMG]http://i206.photobucket.com/albums/bb113/pnjmcc/cafe-culture1.jpg[/IMG]

Whats next Tony?

Regards
PaulM

Cafe Culture

[IMG]http://i206.photobucket.com/albums/bb113/pnjmcc/cafe-culture2-web.jpg[/IMG]

Exif
K200D
1/60, f5.6 ISO100
18-55 kit lens @ 33mm
Hand held with SR on

Regards
PaulM
(edited because I forgot to add camera details)