<<< o >>>Mr Whippy meets the jester 15 comments + add yours
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I very nearly put this shot in my portfolio category, as I really like the contrast between a) the sharpness of the hat (?) and the background, and b) the vividness of the foreground as opposed to the gentle, almost washed out pastels of the background. But, I restrained myself, mostly I think because the composition could have been better. Anyway, I do like this one.

Oh, and it just occured to me, for those of you not familiar with British ice cream and ice cream vans (the vehicle on the beach): Mr Whippy is a brand name, not a character from a seedy S&M movie ;-)

camera
capture date
aperture
shutter speed
shooting mode
exposure bias
metering mode
ISO
focal length
image quality
white balance
cropped?
Canon G5
5.10pm on 4/8/04
f4.5
1/250
aperture priority
+0.0
evaluative
50
23.0mm
RAW
auto
minor
 
4x3 + fylde coast [scenic] + people
comment by Jessyel Ty Gonzalez at 10:07 AM (GMT) on 9 August, 2004

I agree with what you've said. Good contrast and depth of field. Interesting to poke at.

comment by Jason Davies at 10:22 AM (GMT) on 9 August, 2004

Brilliant again. The hat looks like some kind of alien monster gazing at the beach :)

comment by Ray at 10:25 AM (GMT) on 9 August, 2004

Good DOF here and the colours are good and contrasty, might have been better if we could have seen all of the ice cream van and there were less people around but you can't help ppl :) The thumbnail above seems to have more DOF though, possibly a side effect of resizing.

I always wondered how the europeans would appreciate an ice cream van parked on a local beach. It's sooo english.

comment by Mark at 01:39 PM (GMT) on 9 August, 2004

Lovely picture. We had an ice-cream truck in my town when I was small. I still remember the "ding, ding, ding", which always led to begging for money. Bet my Mom still dreads hearing a ding.

comment by matthew at 02:28 PM (GMT) on 9 August, 2004

Nice picture... but not great. I'm not a fan of the 7 last pictures for some reason. They look very random to me.

comment by djn1 at 02:35 PM (GMT) on 9 August, 2004

Thanks.

Ray: yes, it's the resizing that causes an apparent increase in DoF.

matthew: random? In what sense?

comment by Steve at 03:06 PM (GMT) on 9 August, 2004

Just looking through your photos. You have done some inspiring work. Is there a large difference between the highest resolution setting on superfine and using RAW mode?

comment by RainKing at 03:53 PM (GMT) on 9 August, 2004

I think the contrast of colors works really well. Maybe a different perspective of the "hat" could have improved the composition a bit, but I like it as it is.

comment by Hans at 04:54 PM (GMT) on 9 August, 2004

Very nice! :-)

comment by Tristan at 06:16 PM (GMT) on 9 August, 2004

Personally, I'm not a fan of this one. I don't know that I can really say much else. Just doesn't do anything for me.

-Tristan

comment by kendall at 06:16 PM (GMT) on 9 August, 2004

You've really got quite the 'through the looking glass' sort of environment over there - it's a non-stop festival of carnival attractions. I can't wait to see what's next. :)

comment by matthew at 10:57 PM (GMT) on 9 August, 2004

Well, the colours are nice, but I don't see any reason or feeling for this picture. It's difficult to explain...
I think a picture of the ice cream car with the sea in the background would have been better in "feeling". I'm just giving an example to illustrate what I mean.

comment by djn1 at 11:05 PM (GMT) on 9 August, 2004

matthew: I guess that I was trying to convey some of the atmosphere of Blackpool – ice cream vans on the beach, tacky hats for sale on the promenade, and so on – but maybe it doesn't come across. Actually, this is one of my shots that my wife doesn't like … she thought this one, despite my best arguments to the contrary, was boring ;-) Check back tomorrow, I have something better to put up.

comment by PhilB at 11:18 PM (GMT) on 9 August, 2004

I think that you have achieved what you set out to in this picture and it does it for me. ; )

Never having been to Blackpool, I'm getting a fascinating insight as to what it's like through your photos. Keep up the good work!

I'm looking forward to seeing your Big 250th Photo next week!

comment by djn1 at 11:27 PM (GMT) on 9 August, 2004

Thanks everyone.

Steve: sorry, I missed you question earlier. The big difference between RAW images and superfine jpeg's isn't particularly noticeable until you start to work with an image (in Photoshop); i.e. the former is 12bit (and can be worked on in 16bit mode) and the latter is 8bit. In my experience this makes an appreciable difference to the final image, particularly if you modify the image more than minimally.