Survival Of The Fittest
by stephan

Comment by dsa157:
funny. good idea, but your tonal balance could have been better. The sky is blown out and the dashboard is way underexposed, hiding all details under the steering wheel.

Ruins
by stephan

Comment by stephan:
Oops, I just saw that I didn't leave my obligatory post-challenge comment to this photo... Well, to be honest I was a bit disappointed by the score. I thought it would do better in this challenge.

I put some effort into it. I did the shooting on two days test different lighting conditions by different positions of the sun. Postprocessing was difficult, because heavy changes to the contrast/levels etc. would increase the grain from the long exposure time.

Some people complained about the big border. That was inspired by Remie who sometimes uses big borders, too. First I didn't like bigger borders (or borders for that matter) but then I somehow thought it would fit. When you go to a exhibition, photos are often displayed in white mats/passepartout which give the photo a proper and clean surrounding. That's what I wanted to imitate here.


On to some direct responses:

@tyrkinn+vjoz: You're right, the contrast between the ruins and the sky is low but I wanted an overall dark theme. The challenge was "desolation" and the subject are ruins, I think it's clear why I didn't want a stark black&white contrast.

@amsmyth+tomc: That way the most helpful hint. The infrared light made the bushes and trees so white. I didn't see it when submitting but now I agree that this does not fit. I think it's distracting and lightens the image too much.

@'Pong+Fayech: It's not processed very much. The effect comes from the infrared filter and is not some digital effect.

@tarique: I admit that I used the infrared filter just for fun. I thought it would give the lighting a more ghostly/out-of-this-world feel. But it seems that didn't work out.

@ceovishy: No I can't share the non-negativised version of the photo because it isn't negativised (I think you mean "inverted").

Anyway. Thanks to everybody for your feedback. As always it was very helpful.

Abstract
by stephan

Comment by Spork99:
I think this is great. It is abstraction taken nearly to the extreme. I suppose the limit would be a 1x1 pixel image. Anyway, I would have given this a high score had I been voting, but I was not even aware of this site.

Ruins
by stephan

Comment by Imagineer:
Good composition and interesting lighting.

Ruins
by stephan

Comment by xhoss:
cool pic.

Ruins
by stephan

Comment by ceovishy:
i am guessing....this would look better in the original....can u share the (non-negativised) version (if u have?)

Ruins
by stephan

Comment by matts:
Very interesting lighting and composition angle.

Ruins
by stephan

Comment by Fayech:
nice idea, but the effect used (infrared?) does not add to the image.

Ruins
by stephan

Comment by vjoz:
good shot
though I think that the foreground is fadin pretty much to the background...
more lightning could have fixed this but as this is an outdoors shot you could use a lot of patience to get the light right...

Good luck in challenge
v.

Ruins
by stephan

Comment by tomc:
not sure about the colours in this, the bushes are too bright and the pillars too dark