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[ 1 ] gabriel: Did you photoshop out the sky? If so, why? If not, then digital cameras (or JPEGs; why not PNG?) do nasties going from detail to flat. Right around here, the border between the struts and the distant sky looks intensely like it's been magic wanded out. Unrelated: how big is that microdrive you've got in your camera? (Raf and I couldn't remember...) [ 2 ] tom: No .png because the camera speaks mostly .jpg. Now, the effect you're describing may be due to the scaling of the picture (done here with imagemagick--no other modifications were made on this image), so check out the huge original. Assuming it isn't the scaling, though, there are two other things that you might be noticing: There's chromatic abberation from the zoom lens: on high zooms, the reds and blues seem to seperate at edges of high contrast because the lens bends the high frequency blues more than the low frequency reds. Some cameras are better about this than others; the Minolta tends to do pretty well. I don't think this effect is very pronounced here. There's another distortion that happens when high-contrast edges are shot out of focus--I don't know what it's called, but the light regions tend to blur into the dark ones. This is why the trusswork at the very top of the bridge looks like it's made of thin rods: in fact, the sky is leeching into the dark steel and making it look thinner. This may be what reminds you of the Photoshop magic wand tool "biting into" the darker regions. One thing that's intrigued me lately is pinhole photography. Pinhole cameras have near infinite depth of field, so excepting atmospheric distortions every last structural member of this bridge would be in crisp focus. That and the linear "lens" model of most pinholes (straight lines in the scene are never distorted) lead to interesting geometric effects. Fun fact: OpenGL's view of the world is like through a pinhole camera, which is why true >= 180 degree fisheye in OpenGL is really hard. This intro page may help you guess why, and this page should make it intuitively clear. how big is that microdrive you've got in your camera? One ever-lovin' gigabyte! sprice: Tom, I really like this image. I'm not sure what to say beyond that... I think that it does evoke the feeling of a cathedral. I think that the way that the distant parts of the bridge fade give this an incredible sense of space for a 'flat' image. With the three people in it, this reminds me of one of those pictures that are offered as the inspiration for a story. cfanjul: what's interesting to me are the people in the foreground - are they posed friends, or three folks who happen to all be in black and arranged in a triangle? this could almost be a movie scene... there's almost a story in it. and what would it be like without them? (which model minolta are you using? i didn't know they could use microdrives instead of solid-state compact flash cards.) tom: The camera is a Minolta DiMAGE 7i, a 5 megapixel "prosumer" camera. It has a great zoom lens and a few other nice features but is cra-a-appy with fast exposures. The people (from left) are my uncle Greg, my uncle Lin, and Lin's SO Kris. The shot was spontaneous: Greg and Kris were strolling down the bridge, while Lin was hanging back to take a picture of his own. Without them inside, the scene looks a lot like a cropped version of this picture (PICT0051). My sister and I also thought this would make a good album cover... cgroom: It's funny that you mention an album cover, becuase that's exactly what I thought when I saw this. It's cool that it goes from completely abstract to representational from top-to-bottom. One fun bit of photoshopery/gimpery to play with is desaturating the top of the image so the vague greens are quashed, which would have the effect of magnifying the intense blue at the bottom. cgroom: ...it's a pity none off you are wearing really colorful clothing. anne: I love the image, Tom. It's really fantastic. As a point of info for those not in the know, this photo was taken while Tom's sister was having her wisdom teeth removed. Knowing that back story somehow makes the beams seem that much more metallic and cold to me. sprice: I agree, Anne. Perhaps because wisdom-teeth extraction is in my not-too-distant future... lizzy: ^Just had 'em out. DOn't worry too much, Scott. I like the way the shape of the people mirrors the shape of the bridge. They seem so tiny. Add comment