This shot was taken at roughly the same time as the one I posted on Monday, but takes a rather different approach. My previous shot focused on the piano itself, and with that shot I was aiming for detailed elegance – for want of a better way of putting it. This one, on the other hand, focuses on the reflected sky and has a much less detailed feel. On the whole I think I definitely prefer the other shot, but I do quite like this one too.
I should also add, perhaps, that this is a relatively straight shot. I upped the contrast and saturation a little, but other than that I didn’t do too much else to it. Oh, and unusually, this is a crop – it’s the bottom left 75% of the original. I normally try to avoid posting cropped images, but the original version really didn’t work at all well so I thought I’d put this one up.
camera capture date aperture shutter speed shooting mode exposure bias metering mode ISO focal length image quality white balance
Canon G5
6.26pm on 11/4/04
f2.5
1/50
program AE
+0.0
evaluative
50
7.2mm
RAW
auto
comment byRainKing at 01:53 PM (GMT) on 16 April, 2004
Lovely image. I really like the perspective and the reflections. Excellent.
comment by Elsa Salsa at 02:07 PM (GMT) on 16 April, 2004
Hello,
In my opinion, this photograph is far more superior to the monday one. The other one is JUST a piano, like thousands we have seen before. It is well photographed but there's nothing else to it. This one speaks to me. The reflection is like a melody the piano might be singing... or something like that.
Elsa Salsa
comment byHouser at 03:15 PM (GMT) on 16 April, 2004
Myself, I'm still partial to Monday's shot. I liked the crispness of it and it did for me what I hope photography does - takes a person to a place or memory.
That said, I'm pickin' up what you're puttin' down on this shot. It's still a great shot, I just prefer the other... you know, if I had to choose, and stuff... which I don't.
comment byJoseph Holmes at 03:51 PM (GMT) on 16 April, 2004
I'm surprised to hear you say you never crop -- more power to you! Of course I grew up using a film SLR and even though my father had a darkroom in the house, I almost never cropped photos. I think probably it's much easier to frame a shot with a real SLR. With my Nikon 4500, I always pull back a bit on the wide angle and then crop the final shot.
comment byStephen at 05:26 PM (GMT) on 16 April, 2004
I was suprised as well to hear that you avoid cropping. I can understand as I generally try not to as well, I always feel a like I'm being deceptive when I heavily crop a photo. On the other hand, David copperfield wouldn't sell many tickets if he didn't hide things from the audience.
comment byMatt at 07:37 PM (GMT) on 16 April, 2004
Wow this image is really interesting! I thought it was a stair case untill I read the description. The reflections look like windows on the piano.. looking out, they are beautifull as well.
comment bypixpop at 10:32 PM (GMT) on 16 April, 2004
Ooh, lovely photo, Dave. It's morning, the sun is barely up, and it's cold. I'm in the living room, destroying the Hanon exercises. My mother is in the kitchen, preparing breakfast. My fingers are so cold that I can barely bend them, and I'm still groggy from sleep. I play an E, and my mother corrects me, singing "F, F, F". I'm 9 years old.
And oh, can somebody explain to me.. why is cropping bad, exactly?
comment bydeceptive at 12:40 AM (GMT) on 17 April, 2004
Love this Dave, the reflections are almost like pictures in pictures. Very atmospheric.
comment bymilo at 12:51 AM (GMT) on 17 April, 2004
this is the most interesting piano I have ever seen, great timing on your catch!!
comment bymilo at 12:53 AM (GMT) on 17 April, 2004
I never crop either, good to hear others feel the same way. I feel it defeats the original photo when you crop. I might have 2 cropped photos for every 500 but I typically think if it needs to be cropped it should've been a better composition.
comment byTudy at 02:29 AM (GMT) on 17 April, 2004
This is gorgeous and very creative. I love the reflection of the outside and the contrast of the keys. WOnderful shot. Yep.. I can see this on a wall.
comment byKjetil at 09:25 AM (GMT) on 17 April, 2004
Very good. I will look at pianos in a different way from now on. I think.
comment by djn1 at 10:47 AM (GMT) on 17 April, 2004
Thanks everyone.
As for the cropping issue: I suppose, for me, that it's something that I'd rather avoid as it indicates that I didn't get the shot right in the first place. With a 5MP image there are numerous web-sized images that could be extracted from an original, but as milo mentioned, this (somehow) 'defeats the original photo'. I'm not a purist about this - i.e. if I knew an image was a crop it wouldn't make any difference to whether I thought it was a good shot or not - it's just something that I try to avoid.
comment byrich at 06:32 PM (GMT) on 18 April, 2004
very cool shot. this could be a product shot, and i mean that in a complimentary way.
comment byokapi at 08:38 PM (GMT) on 22 April, 2004
fantastic picture! great composition!
i agree with you for the cropping issue, it's just the way how i take pictures. but there are also other ways to do the framing...
you also can do it in your mind, not just via the viewfinder, and later just crop the frame as you had in mind while you took the picture. actually i see this as a challange for me for the future.
there are many way to do art.
in fact there is no "original" or "pure" or "unaltered" way to discover magic.
creativity IS manipulation.
art is never natural.
art is artificial.
art is manipulation. and thank goodness, there is no god watching about WHEN you did the manipulation: in your mind, before you decided to go out and take pictures, or while seeing something that touched you, or while looking through the finder, or while pressing the shutter release, or while cropping and enhancing the image in photoshop or in the darkroom, or while writing the description text...
the piano takes on such an ethereal quality in this shot... pianos are usually such solid objects. i prefer this one to the previous piano. (maybe it's because i'm obsessed with skies and reflective surfaces, but there's so much more here to hold the viewer, me.)
i rarely crop... generally marked as a detail, with the original image. i guess in an effort to improve my skills, makes me think about what i'm fitting in the frame, but it's often such an intuitive process... the image is in my visual cortex and i suddenly have a moment of clarity, an 'oooo...' moment. not as much as i'd like, though.
as for comments, i don't let a lack of them concern me... too much. maybe it is a signal of popularity... but the masses don't always know quality. and some days we can't be totally brilliant, and some photos have more sentimental meaning on a personal level... great if others share it! either way, you've got some brilliant images on this site. thanks for sharing!
This shot was taken at roughly the same time as the one I posted on Monday, but takes a rather different approach. My previous shot focused on the piano itself, and with that shot I was aiming for detailed elegance – for want of a better way of putting it. This one, on the other hand, focuses on the reflected sky and has a much less detailed feel. On the whole I think I definitely prefer the other shot, but I do quite like this one too.
I should also add, perhaps, that this is a relatively straight shot. I upped the contrast and saturation a little, but other than that I didn’t do too much else to it. Oh, and unusually, this is a crop – it’s the bottom left 75% of the original. I normally try to avoid posting cropped images, but the original version really didn’t work at all well so I thought I’d put this one up.
capture date
aperture
shutter speed
shooting mode
exposure bias
metering mode
ISO
focal length
image quality
white balance
6.26pm on 11/4/04
f2.5
1/50
program AE
+0.0
evaluative
50
7.2mm
RAW
auto
Lovely image. I really like the perspective and the reflections. Excellent.
Hello,
In my opinion, this photograph is far more superior to the monday one. The other one is JUST a piano, like thousands we have seen before. It is well photographed but there's nothing else to it. This one speaks to me. The reflection is like a melody the piano might be singing... or something like that.
Elsa Salsa
Myself, I'm still partial to Monday's shot. I liked the crispness of it and it did for me what I hope photography does - takes a person to a place or memory.
That said, I'm pickin' up what you're puttin' down on this shot. It's still a great shot, I just prefer the other... you know, if I had to choose, and stuff... which I don't.
I'm surprised to hear you say you never crop -- more power to you! Of course I grew up using a film SLR and even though my father had a darkroom in the house, I almost never cropped photos. I think probably it's much easier to frame a shot with a real SLR. With my Nikon 4500, I always pull back a bit on the wide angle and then crop the final shot.
I was suprised as well to hear that you avoid cropping. I can understand as I generally try not to as well, I always feel a like I'm being deceptive when I heavily crop a photo. On the other hand, David copperfield wouldn't sell many tickets if he didn't hide things from the audience.
Wow this image is really interesting! I thought it was a stair case untill I read the description. The reflections look like windows on the piano.. looking out, they are beautifull as well.
Ooh, lovely photo, Dave. It's morning, the sun is barely up, and it's cold. I'm in the living room, destroying the Hanon exercises. My mother is in the kitchen, preparing breakfast. My fingers are so cold that I can barely bend them, and I'm still groggy from sleep. I play an E, and my mother corrects me, singing "F, F, F". I'm 9 years old.
And oh, can somebody explain to me.. why is cropping bad, exactly?
Love this Dave, the reflections are almost like pictures in pictures. Very atmospheric.
this is the most interesting piano I have ever seen, great timing on your catch!!
I never crop either, good to hear others feel the same way. I feel it defeats the original photo when you crop. I might have 2 cropped photos for every 500 but I typically think if it needs to be cropped it should've been a better composition.
This is gorgeous and very creative. I love the reflection of the outside and the contrast of the keys. WOnderful shot. Yep.. I can see this on a wall.
Very good. I will look at pianos in a different way from now on. I think.
Thanks everyone.
As for the cropping issue: I suppose, for me, that it's something that I'd rather avoid as it indicates that I didn't get the shot right in the first place. With a 5MP image there are numerous web-sized images that could be extracted from an original, but as milo mentioned, this (somehow) 'defeats the original photo'. I'm not a purist about this - i.e. if I knew an image was a crop it wouldn't make any difference to whether I thought it was a good shot or not - it's just something that I try to avoid.
very cool shot. this could be a product shot, and i mean that in a complimentary way.
fantastic picture! great composition!
i agree with you for the cropping issue, it's just the way how i take pictures. but there are also other ways to do the framing...
you also can do it in your mind, not just via the viewfinder, and later just crop the frame as you had in mind while you took the picture. actually i see this as a challange for me for the future.
there are many way to do art.
in fact there is no "original" or "pure" or "unaltered" way to discover magic.
creativity IS manipulation.
art is never natural.
art is artificial.
art is manipulation. and thank goodness, there is no god watching about WHEN you did the manipulation: in your mind, before you decided to go out and take pictures, or while seeing something that touched you, or while looking through the finder, or while pressing the shutter release, or while cropping and enhancing the image in photoshop or in the darkroom, or while writing the description text...
:)
i love your images.
cheers
michael
the piano takes on such an ethereal quality in this shot... pianos are usually such solid objects. i prefer this one to the previous piano. (maybe it's because i'm obsessed with skies and reflective surfaces, but there's so much more here to hold the viewer, me.)
i rarely crop... generally marked as a detail, with the original image. i guess in an effort to improve my skills, makes me think about what i'm fitting in the frame, but it's often such an intuitive process... the image is in my visual cortex and i suddenly have a moment of clarity, an 'oooo...' moment. not as much as i'd like, though.
as for comments, i don't let a lack of them concern me... too much. maybe it is a signal of popularity... but the masses don't always know quality. and some days we can't be totally brilliant, and some photos have more sentimental meaning on a personal level... great if others share it! either way, you've got some brilliant images on this site. thanks for sharing!