Staircase

[Mike Farley]

This is the first of the images which entered into the last print competition of the current season on 16 March. As I have described elsewhere, there was nothing at stake in the overall competition and I deliberately submitted shots which did not conform to camera club judges' norms. Whilst I do like this and think it looks better as a print rather than a low resolutiion JPEG, I have no emotional attachment and people are free to say what they like without causing offence. You can even be complimentary if you wish.

I have my own views and I'll add these in a later post once there has been opportunity for others to give their feedback.

This is the original post in which I set out my intentions for the competition - viewtopic.php?f=2&t=2060.

Staircase

Staircase.jpg (132.38 KiB) Viewed 5683 times

Camera: Canon EOS 400D
Lens: Canon EF 24-105 @ 105 mm
Aperture: f/8
Shutter speed: 1/3200
ISO: 400

I took this eight years ago and this far on I have no idea in what were obviously bright conditions why I set the ISO to 400, rather than the camera's base ISO of 100. All I can think is that I needed to raise it for an earlier shot and forgot to reset it afterwards.

[Mike Farley]

I really was not expecting too much of this shot, so I was a bit surprised when the judge spoke about it only in positive terms, pointing out the shapes, tones and textures. He critiqued everything blind and did not have the benefit of a preview, so he awarded the marks on a second pass when it received 7. He actually had it in his hand when he gave some 5s and 6s, so I was expecting it to go even lower.

Is it a great shot? Not really, I like it well enough but there is not enough there to hold the attention for long. The print came out a bit darker than I anticipated, although it closely matched the tones I could see on my monitor. It was one of those occasions when it is not possible to tell how a print will look until you have it in your hand, which is not that unusual even for top flight photographers who might make three or four prints before they are happy with the result. Being able to turn a print around quickly is one of the benefits of home printing, but I opted not to on this occasion reasoning that it was never going to do that well and the effort would be wasted.

[davidc]

Maybe the ISO 400 contributed to the "texture", the image noise must have printed out nicely

I can totally understand why you shot it and technically I don't think there's anything I'd change that would make the image better and your processing has probably "peaked" what is possible from the image too. It's definitely a photographer's image though and like you I don't think it holds the attention long. That said, photographer's images tend to do well in club judging terms (or they used to!).

The geometry & patterns it creates feel more like an exercise in composition. I wondered if adding a person would improve it - normally I think the human element typical gives a relatable touch that improves pattern shots but I'm not so sure here. Reason being, if those handrails are a reliable indicator of scale then any person in the frame would dominate the scene and perhaps draw too much attention.

I'd probably score it a 7 or 8 too - there's nothing wrong with it but as you've said it doesn't have as much longevity as some of your others.