Here's a sample from our final slideshow - the brief was simple: your three best shots from the trip. At least I think it was three. Several members from the tour submitted more than that, which was fine. Here are my thoughts...
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Ian Caldwell. Great shot of clay pots hanging 'somewhere' in Oman. Good, solid, black-and-white with a nice contrast and depth to it - a lot of greyscale images can come out flat and lacklustre. This isn't. |
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Ian Caldwell Hungry Bunny, Nizwa. A weird Omani fast food restaurant given the over-the-top, painterly treatment in HDR software. I'd fix the perspective using the Transform commands, other than that this is a really strong image. It's strong, weird and surreal and a totally suitable treatment for the subject matter. |
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Ian Caldwell I rather like this one too - literally oozing with atmosphere and texture... |
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Ian Caldwell Cool panorama from Sur in Oman. Good stitch, needs tilting to the left a bit and also the contrast might need a boost - it's that evening light that often reproduces as flat and boring - you see the same thing in JG's Muttrah harbour fort shot - both need the contrast ramping up to add impact... |
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Ian Caldwell Colour version of the monochrome below - I far prefer the BW version. Just a personal thing. Both, I think could have their contrast increased a bit - to lift the highlights. The colour version in particular looks a bit 'muddy'. |
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Ian Caldwell. Sultan Qaboos Mosque in Muscat - impressive looking mosque and quite the best photographic 'treatment' of it - black-and-white HDR. Needs straightening a bit and maybe some perspective correction? Otherwise nice job! |
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Glyn Patrick Muscat fish markets - great place for shooting and a great 'detail' shot. Actually it looks more like a hand-coloured black-and-white image which I rather like. |
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Glyn Patrick A tongue in cheek shot of the fish markets, no idea how Glyn got this shot but it works - it has a distinctly surreal aspect. |
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Glyn Patrick Not so sure about this one - I think this is government housing under construction?In the middle of the mountains? Anyway it does not say anything about the region or the country - so needs a caption. |
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Glyn Patrick Excellent 'still life' of a typical Omani water pot. Beautiful black-and-white is near-perfect. I suspect Nik Silver EFEX. Nice app and great black-and-white result. |
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Glyn Patrick Great picture Glyn, very direct and almost spooky-clear eye contact, so important in many portraits, great contextual background too. I also like the use of a vignette. |
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Fay Burdon Gotta give Fay credit for this one - I saw what happened to her shoes as she slowly sank into the mire while trying to line this one up! |
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Fay Burdon Fabulous seascape of Khasab in Oman. Perfect headlands receding into the mist. Nice job Fay - I'd possibly crop a tiny bit off of the bottom of the frame! |
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Fay Burdon Really interesting to see this one - compared to the 2 from Ian. This is straighter and more architecturally-accurate - which I think works nicely. |
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Fay Burdon Not a bad result considering the amount of haze on the day - good job on processing this one to bring out the detail in the various ridges off into the distance. |
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Fraser Burdon The tones and lighting regime almost make it look like an early Dutch Master (that's a painting!) |
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Fraser Burdon Hey Fraser this works really well - like the shot above, the tones and lighting make this look more like a painting than a digital image.. |
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Fraser Burdon I personally don;t like this one - I know you spent some time chasing the concept of the silhouette - and this example works well - as a silhouette - and maybe as a symbol of the Middle East, North Africa or whatever but I don't feel it's quite enough, if you get my drift... |
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Fraser Burdon This, on the other hand, DOES work - it's a cute ramshackle doorway, nicely composed and shot - I'm not 100% sure if the tones in the sunlight have held in this version - it looks OK so I'll give you the benefit of the doubt. I'd be tempted to tint this slightly, with red or yellow, or both. But that's a very personal thing... |
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Lucie Loane Another cute, very ramshackle doorway shot. I am not a big fan of total black-and-white selections in a colour shot mostly because they can seem quite extreme, tonally, and therefore a bit 'fake'. OK this also looks fake but there's the allegory of 'a door to another world' here that does work quite nicely. If I had shot this picture, I'd probably have desaturated the front part 30% or so, rather than 100%, just to make it a touch more believable? |
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Lucie Loane The village of Bilad Seit. Nice landscape shot - very hard to show in one shot its amazing position in reference to the mountains we drove over to get there! |
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| Lucie Loane Hi Lucie, I think there's a bit too much foreground interest in this one! And it would be nice to see the dome of the mosque here - but I guess that means you have to stand on the ramparts! |
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Lucie Loane Looks like a still from a film set. I would try to lighten the woman's face a bit - use a mask in Photoshop to do this |
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Lucie Loane Like Ian's version, this is a weird place. I think Ian's HDR treatment was better (sorry!)Because the wacky colour fitted the equally wacky restaurant nicely. |
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Janice Gursanscky A nice dark portrait. Looks a bit like an Omani Russell Crowe. |
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| Janice Gursanscky Classical Arabic architecture, very symbolic of the region. Excellent to see this in strong black-and-white |
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| Janice Gursanscky Not so sure about this one J. I took a shot very like this a couple of years ago and never really liked it - I realised it was because the light was wrong . Like this one, it's too flat - maybe try to boost it in Photoshop? |
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| Janice Gursanscky Not a bad study of Muttrah Harbour - the guy in right has his face in shadow - this makes his head look like a dark blob, maybe this could be lightened a bit? |
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| Janice Gursanscky Not so sure about this one either - if you have never been to the region you'd not know what this is, or why you took a snap of it. |
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| Sue Caldwell Nice and colourful study - boats and history. BIG forground interest works well I think. |
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Sue Caldwell Simple and effective Sue. It's a very 'Arabic' symbol and will work well in your upcoming book! |
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| Sue Caldwell We talked about this at the time - I don't like the white edge effect - but that's just my opinion. To me it looks like an old photo from the London Illustrated News. I can't get past the historical context this effect creates. If that's what you wanted to create, fine. |
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| Sue Caldwell A nice study of street life in an Arabic country. Men out having a natter in the square. Works for me. |
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Sue Caldwell Photo group in action on the road to Bilad Seit |
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| Oh Lordy Lord! What have we here? This is what happens when you drink too much Lebanese beer! |
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