The image that made it:
The one that didn't:
OOPS! (or sometimes, EWW!)
Welcome to the Cutting Room, home of
the images that didn't make the cut. Found here are examples of improper exposure,
bad composition, too much contrast, and in some cases, using the wrong film
for the job. Why did I make this page? So that others can learn from my mistakes,
as I have done.
Cut #1: Basillica of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception, Washington, D.C.
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Given the stark contrast in quality, its hard to believe that these two shots were taken on the same roll of film just minutes apart. Why does the shot on the right look so bad? Several reasons. First, there's just way too much contrast in the scene to capture properly, so the tones come out horribly unbalanced. The area on the right behind the apse and the top of the rotunda is washed out, where the area just to the left of the rotunda is very dark and the roof dissapears into the night. In addition, the sodium vapor lamps that light the foreground give a sickening yellow cast to the walkway and lawn. Though the building looks nice from this angle in person, its just not a very good photograph. The image taken from behind the church (left) is much nicer. The tonalities are more even, you can see detail and color in the stained glass, make out the color of the roofing tiles, and the garden makes a nice foreground. Also, most of the interesting parts of the church's architecture were able to be compressed into one scene.
Cut #2: Central Square Baptist
Church, Stevens Ave, Portland, Maine.
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The problem here is not one of composition, but one of chosing the right film for the job. The frame on the right was the very last frame on a roll of Fujichrome Velvia 50 - the same roll that took the cemetery sunset photographs located in the Vacationland gallery. The shot on the left was the first frame on the roll I reloaded my camera with after the Velvia rewound - Fujichrome Astia 100. Astia has a more neutral color balance than Velvia, is less saturated, and has better reciprocity characteristics. Velvia, while excellent for landscapes and close-ups of flowers, is terrible for night photography - something I knew before taking these pictures but wanted to see for myself. Why is the frame shot with Velvia so yellow? Because after just a couple of seconds, the magenta channel starts to fall off and everything shifts to yellow/green. Then, in true Velvia fashion, that yellow/green biased channel gets saturated.
As a side note, the image on the left won a local photo contest and was published in the Casco Bay Weekly on June 12th, 2003.
Cut #3: Monument Square
at night, Portland, Maine.
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Ever seen really nasty lens flare? Well look no further. If you ever wondered what the purpose of that lens shade that may have come with your zoom lens was, this is it. Oh yeah - it helps not to include bright lights that are at a sharp angle above the lens in the photograph. For the frame on the left, I zoomed in a bit to get the light off the frame, which also made for a more striking composition, although I actually prefer the colors in the frame on the right. In any case, even with the light off the frame and shaded, it still caused some flare, but given the composition that I desired I was unable to totally prevent this. Oh well.
Cut #4: Michelangelo's Dome,
St. Peter's Basillica, Vatican City.
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When I was visiting the Basillica in 1999, I noticed an awful
lot of tourists taking snapshots of the inside of the dome with their P&S
cameras, complete with under-powered flash discharges. Given how little light
there actually is in there, I knew that their pictures would not come out, but
I was curious to know just how bad it would be, so I set my Nikon N50 to program
mode, popped up the flash, and fired one away just for kicks. Then I took a
second exposure using proper metering. Lacking a tripod, I just set my camera
on its back on the floor, set the self-timer, and stood back. Unfortunately
my friend Hamilton from Brazil ended up in the lower right corner of the frame,
and my shoulder in the lower left. In any case, this should demonstrate the
importance of using a good camera and practicing good technique.
Cut #5: La Pieta, by Michelangelo. Inside St. Peter's Basillica, Vatican City.
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This image, like the picture of the dome above, was too dark to capture using a P&S camera. That didn't stop people from trying, of course, and countless people today undoubtedly have nice dark, grainy prints of their flash reflecting in the glass. For these images I set my camera on a post and metered the scene, which at f/16 required me to use a 3 second exposure. During the first attempt (right), two people fired off the flash on their P&S cameras, necessitating a second attempt (left), which was tourist-flash free. Notice however the different color temperature that the flashes gave the picture on the right. The flash-less exposure on the left is considerably warmer. The two flashes going off during my pre-metered exposure also resulted in a brighter image, as one would expect, but not much brighter, which should demonstrate just how lackluster their flashes must have been. Remember, this was a 3 second exposure, and even with 2 flashes going off its not that bright. Imagine what the people who shot it with one flash discharge at 1/60 second got back. Dark gray, anyone?
More to come....