Ah, too bad they aren't the real rings. I was going to mention something deep-yet-dorky about how they're about to cross some irreversible line.

Anyway. Love the composition, too. Clean and elegant.

maybe these are thepossibly fake rings the ring bearers (if there are any) use?

Just curious, but what makes you choose to shoot in "shutter priority" over "aperture priority" on occasion? Time? Most of your shots seem to be taken in the latter mode.

Having raised this question, let me say that the photo seems a little "overdone" in Photoshop. On my monitor, the rings look to be floating in space ;-)

Seishiro

trudie: there weren't any ring bearers. These were on the arm of the chair while the manicurist was there, so they were either hers, one of the bridesmaids, or possibly the bride's.

Seishiro: I used shutter priority because I was using flash. If I'd set a minimum aperture the shutter speed would have dropped below a hand-holdable level. As for the 'overdone' aspect: I suspect this is because I use a Mac and would guess you're using a PC; i.e. they have different gamma settings - the Mac is brighter.

I'm a nerd. When trudie mentioned ring bearers I thought, "What's this got to do with LOTR?". There again......

I use a Mac also and the photo looks fine to me. In fact, I was impressed with your ability to keep the texture of the book (or whatever it is) that they are laying on, although the intrusion of the blur into the edges of the book itself bothers me somewhat. It is too bad that they aren't THE rings, but I look forward to seeing some of your other shots from the day. I'm sure your friends are thrilled. Having shot a few weddings myself, I can attest to the tremendous amount of work involved. At the last wedding I shot, my cheeks were actually sore from smiling too much, not to mention the wrists, shoulders, and back.

I am on a Mac too and at first didn't know what Seishiro was talking about cause I thought all the tones looked good. I will have to check this out on my PC at work tomorrow to see the difference. You know what, while it would matter to the bride and groom that this isn't their rings, it doesn't to me so I can pretend I don't know otherwise ;-)

Nancy

Absolutely stunning. I've done a lot of bridal web design work, and this makes me want to design an ad around it. Photographing jewelry is not easy - fantastic work David.
I'm on a mac as well. Funny how many mac users visit this site. Maybe all of your stuff looks much better on a mac than a pc, so your fan base developed with a disproportionate # of mac users. LOL it's possible, right? :-)

I'm on a PC, it looks fine here. The bottom right half of the image looks good, I'm not sure what's going on with that blur on the top.. If that's photoshopped, I agree, it's a bit overdone...

Awesome photograph!!!

On my home PC I have the same issue as Seishiro - the only thing that shows up are the rings, and four or five dots of white in the mid-left.

I'm going to look again at work - I use a CRT here, and a TFT screen at work, and there's normally a fair amount of difference in the gamma between those two, so I'll comment again later.

Anyway, even in the "PC Black" version, the rings themselves look fantastic. I can't comment about the rest of it, as I can't see it yet. **grin**

Increbible, this photo is a color photo but seems a black white photo. (i think :D)
Very important the two rings not in the middle but near a focal point.
I'm not a professionist photographer but this is a great shot as the other of djn1

The black point is maybe a tad on the dark side, but otherwise I like this shot, it's elegant.

Beautiful, stunning actually.
I love the reflection on the inside of the ring, the tooth of the leather, the strand of the stitch.


The sense of depth is really interesting, is it from the 300mm equivalent lens?


PS: as seen on an iBook with 1.8 gamma [mac standard} it has a very broad shadow tonal range eg. 70-90%, at 2.2 gamma [pc standard] it is equally as rich only about 10% darker overall, however the screen angle matters far more with the later setting.

I'm on a Mac. It looks fine to me. Nice shot.

Yeah, it looks fine on a TFT monitor. Maybe it's just the different optics in a CRT or something - I've noticed before that colours are significantly different between TFT and CRT.

And yes, it looks even better when you can see the leather etc.

It might also be to do with the browser you use (not too mention your screen calibration!).

It looks like the image has an sRGB profile embedded. I think I'm right in saying that Safari will use the embedded colour profile (just like Photoshop) while Firefox, for instance, will not.

Not sure about Internet Explorer on a PC, I would guess it does use the available profile.

Confused? Me too!

PS I reserve the right to be entirely wrong!
PPS Nice shot btw!

Simple and very beautiful. Excellent.

How beautifu!!!
i click"dark". i feel like just say "GREAT!!".

Great contrast and the two rings make a great suggestive image.

Thanks everyone.

As for the gamma issue: I don't think there's too much I can do about this other than create images that look ok to me, and more importantly, print ok.

wr7259: thanks, I'd forgot to check it out with the dark theme, it does look way better. Well, maybe not better, but certainly more dramatic.

One ring to rule them all.... er... Two! Yes... Two rigns to rule them all.



Great shot as always, David. One day I hope to be as accomplished a photographer as you.


P.S.
Viva la Mac! But...
Looks fine from my PC w\ LCD panel
Looks great on my Linux laptop
Still looks great on my SunBlade 150 Workstation.
:)

perfect! there is no other valid word for this picture.

i love this shot david. very minimal, looks great on the dark setting. nice job!

simple and beautiful photograph!
I link this!

I've been visiting awhile and I'm blown away by your innate sense of composition. This image, and the one of your sleeping children, inspire me to study the art.

Thanks for bringing a perfect ending to my day.

Will you enter into a mutually exclusive bilateral exchange of goods and services til death do us part?

My rings have never looked so good Dave.
A beautiful series of shots.