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Two sides of the same story
2nd PlaceTwo sides of the same story
Alex_Petrini


Photograph Information Photographer's Comments
Challenge: Day and Night (Expert Editing*)
Collection: Artworks
Camera: Nikon D7000
Lens: Sigma 10-20mm f/4-5.6 EX DC HSM for Nikon
Location: Torre di Cerrano, Pineto (TE), Abruzzo, Italy
Date: Oct 13, 2011
Galleries: Emotive, Portraiture
Date Uploaded: Oct 13, 2011

 Oh my god, guys, I can't believe I got such a score, it's wonderful.

One whole day my score stayed far over 8 and reached 8.25... it's been really exciting. In any case it's never been under 7.77. I completed my ribbon set :)

Even though I hoped to win with such a score I'm happy with my PB and for having created my best image ever.

First of all I wanna tell you how this idea came to my mind: I've been thinking of this challenge for three weeks but I had no ideas at all. Then on Wednesday - 9 days before the end, I had a sparkle. Literature has always been an inspiration for me and one of my favourite books is Dostoevskij's Crime and Punishment. What I love of that book is the very thin line between good and evil, a sort of shade of grey much more similar to real life. After that I thought of The Picture of Dorian Gray and Doctor Jekill & Mr.Hyde, different aspects of similar concepts.

I explained the idea to my model, Mary, she's the singer of my band, Absently, and she loved it. Unfortunately we didn't have the chance to shoot on Friday, so we planned to do it on Tuesday. I knew that shooting on Tuesday and Wednesday would give me very few time to edit
the whole stuff. But at least I had to try.

Our assistent, Alessandro (Mary's boyfriend), helped us very much. I used 2 flashes, one more powerful in front of her and one as a fill light behind her. My triggers were broken so I asked Alessandro to push the button of the flash while the shutter was open. Using a pretty long shutter speed (1/3 sec.) we have been able to do it. The other flash was set to answer when it saw the light of the other one. All Mary's images were shot with Sigma 10-20 and the moon with a 55-200VR at 200mm. All of them where single images - I didn't duplicate any of them.

Late at night I made a fast edit of the image (well, using 13 images - 12 pictures of Mary and one of the moon, couldn't be so fast) in order to be able to print it to help me finding the correct positions of the camera and of the model the next morning. I woke up at 7 and we reached the place
(the same of my blue ribbon winner - Dawn of the Dead) at 8 when the sun was not too high to get good shots. This time I didn't use flashes but panels for the fill light. The sun had the same direction of the flash the night before, so flipping the image must create a good effect.

That morning I shot a couple of videos for you ;-)

//www.youtube.com/watch?v=1Zd0x3vqs_k
//www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ls65KmMBb8A

I spent several hours that night to edit the image. I tried to connect the two images as it was a calendar, but the impact was not as strong as with this 'water' connection. So the day after in the afternoon (it was on Thursday) I called Mr. Cat (a friend of mine - Edmondo - he's always in my best shots) and we went out to shoot the water area that was not in the original image. I shot from the water towards the sand. It was not the same place but a similar sandy beach near my house. I had very few time for editing because I started doing it at midnight (in Italy) - 6 hours before deadline and I finished after almost 4 hours. The whole editing took more or less 15-20 hours.

Well that's all folks, thank you so much!

Statistics
Place: 2 out of 38
Avg (all users): 7.8155
Avg (commenters): 8.1000
Avg (participants): 6.3913
Avg (non-participants): 8.0414
Views since voting: 7914
Views during voting: 572
Votes: 168
Comments: 47
Favorites: 20 (view)

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AuthorThread
 06/13/2012 12:19:20 AM
Originally posted by Devinder:
This is one of my favorite pics here so far.... Very nicely done


Thank you so much :)
 06/12/2012 06:43:39 PM
This is one of my favorite pics here so far.... Very nicely done
  Photographer found comment helpful.
 10/27/2011 09:23:46 PM
Amazing effort you put into this, congrats and we'll deserved.
  Photographer found comment helpful.
 10/26/2011 02:49:39 PM
this is awesome!! great work. Congrats!
  Photographer found comment helpful.
 10/23/2011 07:13:59 PM
Much deserved score and (as I predicted) ribbon! Congratulations, Alex!!! Thanks for sharing the story too...
  Photographer found comment helpful.
 10/22/2011 11:38:54 AM
Originally posted by gyaban:
Alessandro, it's a pleasure to look at your creations, I love how you are letting your creativity express itself


Christophe you made my day! The best words someone has used for me!

Thank you everybody (a special thank to my teamates, you're great!) for your very kind words.

Caba thank you and congrats for your blue.

Alessandro
 10/22/2011 08:28:59 AM
Excellent score for an excellent image, I must have flipped my iPad a dozen times viewing this.
  Photographer found comment helpful.
 10/21/2011 12:18:33 PM
Congrats on the ribbon and the new PB! Astonish image!
  Photographer found comment helpful.
 10/21/2011 06:29:40 AM
Fabulous shot, this scored a 10 from me, and very well deserved!
  Photographer found comment helpful.
 10/21/2011 05:12:08 AM
Wow -- that was some effort. Great work.
  Photographer found comment helpful.
 10/21/2011 05:09:51 AM
Awesome!
  Photographer found comment helpful.
 10/21/2011 04:48:10 AM
Hell of a job, Alessandro. Congrats!
  Photographer found comment helpful.
 10/21/2011 04:36:03 AM
Alessandro, it's a pleasure to look at your creations, I love how you are letting your creativity express itself :-) Very very nice photo, congratulations on the well deserved ribbon!
  Photographer found comment helpful.
 10/21/2011 03:15:23 AM
Congrats on the ribbon and awesome score on this great image Allesandro!!
  Photographer found comment helpful.
 10/21/2011 02:38:04 AM
wow, congrats alex. this was one of my 10s
great ending score!
  Photographer found comment helpful.
 10/20/2011 11:52:59 PM
Well deserved ribbon Alex, outstanding accomplishment!
  Photographer found comment helpful.
 10/20/2011 10:13:45 PM
great idea, and a very nice execution! hard work paid off! :)
  Photographer found comment helpful.
 10/20/2011 08:48:06 PM
Congrats Allesandro... :) Creative work and deserved high score. Keep it up!!
  Photographer found comment helpful.
 10/20/2011 08:42:18 PM
Thank you for not breaking the breaking point off cleanly and straight!

This is very well done!
Congrats!
  Photographer found comment helpful.
 10/20/2011 08:28:08 PM
Absolutely lovely, knew I'd be seeing this on the front page. Very nice image!
  Photographer found comment helpful.
 10/20/2011 08:12:51 PM
Congratulations on the ribbon Alessandro! Well deserved!!
  Photographer found comment helpful.
 Comments Made During the Challenge
10/20/2011 06:39:05 PM
neat
  Photographer found comment helpful.
 10/20/2011 02:42:37 PM
How creative! Nice JOB!!!
  Photographer found comment helpful.
 10/20/2011 10:44:48 AM
Definitely a winner here. This looks like a lot of planning and work, and it's very well executed.
  Photographer found comment helpful.
 10/20/2011 05:17:03 AM
spooky, great setup.
  Photographer found comment helpful.
 10/19/2011 09:24:04 PM
Sweeeeeet
  Photographer found comment helpful.
 10/19/2011 02:59:53 PM
love the interp 10
  Photographer found comment helpful.
 10/19/2011 02:51:37 AM
Very good
  Photographer found comment helpful.
 10/18/2011 09:26:21 PM
Wicked and Very Very well done!!!!
  Photographer found comment helpful.
 10/18/2011 02:49:44 PM
Magic! 10
  Photographer found comment helpful.
 10/18/2011 08:53:47 AM
My take for the ribbon contender! well done
  Photographer found comment helpful.
 10/18/2011 08:50:33 AM
Alex, this came out so Awesome! If I could vote I would give it a 10!!
I did give it a favorite though...I really like it.
  Photographer found comment helpful.
 10/18/2011 08:34:30 AM
Lovely shot. Make that lovely image crafted out of lord knows how many shots. Wow.
  Photographer found comment helpful.
 10/17/2011 12:19:13 PM
Magnificent image, carefully composed and pp to great details! The transition with the water line on the beach is perfect!! Certainly to ribbon.
  Photographer found comment helpful.
 10/16/2011 09:56:03 PM
The blues are beautiful
  Photographer found comment helpful.
 10/15/2011 08:48:07 AM
Nice
  Photographer found comment helpful.
 10/14/2011 10:50:28 AM
Extremely creative and well done.
  Photographer found comment helpful.
 10/14/2011 08:34:03 AM
SO cool! 10
  Photographer found comment helpful.
 10/14/2011 08:31:52 AM
VERY cool artistic shot but I don't like the ones with as much processing. Just not my style..... It is amazing though.... and your idea is SO creative!
  Photographer found comment helpful.
 10/14/2011 08:15:09 AM
Hope this goes well ,I like it.
  Photographer found comment helpful.
 10/14/2011 07:08:00 AM
Quite a production!! Perhaps because the darker part is upside down, it could have been lightened just a little to make it easier to see a more detail.
  Photographer found comment helpful.
 10/14/2011 05:52:51 AM
A least you didn't put too much effort into this! LOL. super well done, should I congratulate you now?
  Photographer found comment helpful.
 10/14/2011 04:52:38 AM
Freaky cool!!
  Photographer found comment helpful.
 10/14/2011 03:36:52 AM
Great work with the beach wave merging so naturally with the sandy background of the "day". Hope you do well.
  Photographer found comment helpful.
 10/13/2011 09:43:15 PM
Wow..awesome job with this! 10
  Photographer found comment helpful.
 10/13/2011 09:16:02 PM
WHOA! So cool!!! Fabulous job! 10!
  Photographer found comment helpful.
 10/13/2011 08:47:45 PM
Doh! :P
Sorry about that. I got the Expert rules confused with the Advanced ones where it says this...

"The intent of allowing multiple captures is to enable such techniques as high dynamic range (HDR), noise reduction, increased DOF, etc., but not to permit a subject from one scene to be inserted into a different scene, nor is it intended to allow a subject to appear in multiple places within a scene."

I actually really liked your image, and should ave just followed this point in the site FAQ...

"Please vote on the photo as if the entry is legal, and let the administrators do the rest. "

...because I would have given yours a vote of at least 8, because it really is spectacular.

Again, sorry about that.

:crawling under rock:



Message edited by author 2011-10-21 00:23:19.
  Photographer found comment helpful.


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