What are you talking about? Its a great shot. I love the pattern you composed (or had the luck to encounter), and the overall warmth of the scene. Congratulations.

what's the use of four phone booths all this close to each other? would they ever get filled all at the same time?

anyways, i am a big fan of your photoblog. this website has become for me what sam javanrouh's titled his blog: "daily dose of imagery." keep up the good work, and wish you a(nother) successful year.

i like the symmetry in this shot.

Faby: I like the symmetry, as tristan mentions, and I also like the composition and colours. What I wasn't pleased about was blowing out the highlights on the phone boxes and the windows. I should have taken two shots and combined them. So I guess my dissatisfaction is technical rather than aesthetic.

a-daily-fan: thanks. As for your question regarding why there are four of them. My wife has a theory about this, that she did tell me, but I've totally forgotten it at the moment. I'll ask her again in the morning.

The four phone boxes are there so that should an important event ever occur in the vicinity of the building, four members of the press will be able to simulataneously run into the boxes to phone in the story, much to the benefit of whichever 40's film crew happen to be in the area at that precise moment...

I have never shot in RAW so I don't know anything about it. However, I recently saw a comment on someones blog that mentioned processing the RAW file twice. Once for the highlights and once for the shadows. Then combine those two. It seems to me if this can be done, it would be a preferrable method than taking 2 shots because, no matter how careful you are, you may not get both shots to match pixel for pixel. I just thought I'd throw this in.

Also, I have used contrat masking in the past which is basically creating a dup layer, inverting, and with the use of gaussian blur combining the two to get the desired image. With this it is preferrable to expose the original shot for the highlights and doing the mask really brings out the shadow detail. If you want more info let me know.

Anyway, I always enjoy your images and good luck in the blog awards.

I also have to agree with your wife: I love the photo! Warm colours, interesting light-effects, pattern, symetrie. All the ingredients are there.

Happy 2005 Dave

I take your point about the highlights and blended exposures, although feel these are of a specualar nature and do not detract from the image overall. While I like the symmetry I feel ithink it needs something to break it up a little - a phone box with no light on? a passing vehicle (with suitable motion blur of course)? a guy on a mobile? etc.

Cheers

Hmmm, I do like the shot for the colors and so forth. However, the perspective correction makes it appear distorted in an odd way I can't quite describe. The right side seems to twist in relation to the rest of the photo. It's that darn 17mm lens goofin you up I think.

I love the symmmetry in this shot; it's excellent. The lighting is also vey interesting.

You know, I don't see the blown highlights as an issue at all here. I never would have noticed if you hadn't pointed them out. "Not all that good a shot" indeed. Bah. ;)

Suggustions? Well, I really like the symmetry, but as Darrell said, it would be interesting to see a version with something to break it up. I especially like the idea of one booth with the light off. Of course, that was beyond your control, but it's fun to imagine. It's a great shot anyway, though.

buggy: you're probably right about not getting the two shots aligned perfectly but the 'processing the RAW file twice' option wouldn't have worked in this instance as the highlights were blown out; i.e. there is no detail there to process. I'll probably email you about contrast masking at some point as it's a technique I'm not familiar with.

Darrell: I did have a couple of shots that included the light trails from some passing cars, but they didn't work too well so I went with this one instead.

quasi: yes, one booth with the lights off would look good. Either that or somebody in one of them.

Heh, the phone box with no light on was MY idea, LOL

Darrell: I was agreeing with quasi that your idea was an especially good one ;-)

Oh goody. Quasi obviously has great ability and so agrees with my idea. Just as long as I get the kudos for coming up with it (and others) in the first place, I can rest easy!

On a side note: Isn't it really hard trying to be tongue in cheek when communication is non-verbal. What do you call that from a pyschological perspective Dave?

Anyway, look forward to next Chromasia posting I can contribute to! (he, he).

Cheers

I'm with quasi; I looked right away for some asymmetrical element. Actually I didn't have to look. The first two things I noticed are the light in the upper right window, and the lack of the square architectural feature beneath the lower right window. To me this is what this picture is all about. There's also some variation in the lighting behind the lower windows. These things give the composition enough "flavor" to make it interesting, but if it were me I would've made a panorama of the lower half and discarded the upper altogether. :)

Sorry I didn't comment earlier! I like the composition of this shot very much! Interesting subject matter too. =) Great shot as always.

Love the Shot. Beautiful comp and color..BTW this is a tough crowd that comments on your shots.

I really like it, these boxes are rare. It's nice to see 4 of them together. :-)

i applaud the wisdom of the person in charge of placing phonebooths.
this image is all symmetry and warmth and harmony NOW, but imagine how it would have been with someone lacksadaisical in charge...:-)

Jerome: Quasi agreed with me about the symmetry. It was my idea first! stamps feet, sticks bottom lip out. It just isn't fair! sob, cry, wipe tears away. No one gives me the credit I'm due. wail, takes self off for sulk.....

I love the colors.

Thanks everyone.

ixtayul: do you really think they're tough? Compared to a number of blogs I visit I think I get off extremely lightly most of the time ;-)

I think this is fantastic -- I've always wondered what those red boxes look like on the inside. . .

Oh no, look what I've started! Sorry, Darrell!

Everyone else: it was all Darrell's idea! I was just agreeing with him. :)

About the tongue-in-cheek internet dialog: someone (pretty sure it was Bernard Shaw) suggested that a new typeface be created to convey humor/irony, in the form of backward-sloping italics. He called it "ironics". I think it's a great idea; unfortunatetely, it seems to have gone the way of the interrobang. :(

A terrific shot.
I always like it when the light source is coming from within the subject, like on the shot from December 30th, or if I was being a bit mushy, some of your child portraits.
Yeah, that's a bit mushy, isn't it?

Incidentally, I speak as someone who has used those phone boxes. Cool!

What a great photo!!
This is fantastic. I love this photo.