Pentax MX, lensbaby wide open, Ektachrome, about 19:00.
From Lower than the angels. First drafts and outtakes here.
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Critique Welcomed Chinatown, 10th February 2020, on the cusp of covid
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Pentax MX, lensbaby wide open, Ektachrome, about 19:00.
From Lower than the angels. First drafts and outtakes here.
Beth Anthony
Well-Known Member
interesting image. the bright red, the window frame splitting the image and window reflections give off a feeling of confusion for the girl behind the glass.
Rob MacKillop
Edinburgh Correspondent
Ohhh, I like this. Great colour and ‘action’ - the girl, the movement, the moment. Congrats, Tim.
Brian Moore
Moderator
Beautiful shot. An unorthodox composition, especially given that window frame that splits the frame,...but it works very well indeed.
Peter Roberts
Well-Known Member
Great shot.
It's funny how with the benefit of hindsight images can acquire a significance. You can almost read apprehension in this. The poignancy is that I rather think red is the Chinese colour of good luck.
It's funny how with the benefit of hindsight images can acquire a significance. You can almost read apprehension in this. The poignancy is that I rather think red is the Chinese colour of good luck.
Gianluca Drago
Well-Known Member
@Tim Bradshaw, nice to meet you since I'm new here. I browsed through you album "Lower than the angels: first drafts & ..." in Flikr. An interesting gallery of photos there, and that lensbaby has a strong character. The title you chose for this post returns a new meaning to that image, and all that red color becomes threatening. Thank you for sharing.
Julian Tanase
Well-Known Member
Interesting image, I do like this. The vertical red and black element gives an impression of the girl looking in a different room. Getting a peak into the other side, as it were. Thank you !
Thank you. In fact when I took this first lot of pictures in 2020 it was because it was pretty obvious something nasty was coming. There was an absurd thing where people were avoiding Chinatown because people's parents or grandparents had come from China. So I went to use up the film I had. I did it again in 2023 in a more organised way.
Rob MacKillop
Edinburgh Correspondent
Please share some more, Tim, if you don't mind.
Thank you. The final selection for the exhibition is here. Too late to say I picked the wrong ones as they've gone to the printer now!
Gianluca Drago
Well-Known Member
Extraordinary selection, @Tim Bradshaw ! The lens distortion and saturation are very strong (perhaps too much for me), but seeing them all grouped together makes sense. Also, you had the patience and eye to capture meaningful moments, actions and expressions.
Rob MacKillop
Edinburgh Correspondent
I love them, the whole set. I like the saturation - it reminds me how rich we were, in the non-monetary sense. Congratulations on a project well done.
There are two albums on flickr:
Lower than the angels is the final selection for the show, and Lower than the angels: first drafts and outtakes is pretty much everything that came out of the scanner, mostly unedited. (I've added the links to the post now.)
Something interesting, I think, is that the only editing I did to any of the final versions is to pad the borders so that they will all fit on the same size paper and usually bump up the midtones a little to make them brighter as they were pretty dark. There's been no souping-up of colour (I'm not really competent to do anything with colour in fact), not even correcting for daylight film, and the scanner was set to its most neutral setting. Ektachrome really is that saturated when it's rather underexposed. I think the lensbaby also tends to make colours more saturated than they are, but I've had similar results with a proper lens. Also of course Chinatown kind of is like that at night.
[I can see this has crossed with another comment of yours: thank you for being nice abut them.]
Gianluca Drago
Well-Known Member
Oh, I'm sorry! They are indeed very saturated and you would absolutely be forgiven for thinking that I'd hyped the colour! I 'm still surprised that, given how much over-saturated digital stuff we see, a straight film workflow can do this. (To be fair, I don't know what the scanner does, but it's a nice Nikon one so I think it should be neutral, and comparing the images with the slides I think it is.) I wasn't aiming my previous comment at you at all.
Peter Roberts
Well-Known Member
Absolutely superb images, all of them.
There's such an ethereal dream-like quality to them. If it were possible to download our mind's eye I can quite imagine that the results would be something like this.
There's such an ethereal dream-like quality to them. If it were possible to download our mind's eye I can quite imagine that the results would be something like this.
Thank you
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