The Globe Session

[Martyn]

I've not posted on TIPF for a while, not been well. I'm getting back up to speed and been down to the pub to photograph a new old time music session. The session leader asked me to take pics for a facebook page to help boost publicity, she says she has seen my pics and knows I will only publish what is best for the group.

 

The lighting in the room is very dim, hardly light enough to read a tune list on the table, but the walls and ceiling are scattered with a mixture of LED and halogen spotlights and florescent tubes. I shot in manual mode with the aperture wide open on my Nikon 18-105, 1/50 sec at iso 1600. The resulting RAW files were processed in Lightroom to increase exposure and tone down the background lights and reflections. The resultant images make the room look much lighter than it was.

 

I did also get to drink beer, play some fiddle and 5 string banjo; just too many hobbies all coming together in the same place!   

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Korky]

Some great potential there, Martyn, but a few of them are looking decidedly dark on my monitor.

 

Nos 1 & 3 are about right, but the others just seem to need a twiddle.

 

It'll be interesting to see what others have to say.

 

That looks very much like my kind of evening, btw.

 

Korky

[Heather]

great expressions of concentration and enjoyment but i have to agree with Korky regarding the darkness, any chance of lifting the others a little bit more ? 

[NannyFerret]

A bit of light and then contrast is what I would try, and maybe the temperature on a couple, but on the whole it must have been difficult to get the pics in such mixed light, so I think you did very well.

[JMRead]

Hello Martyn,

 

I liked this one a lot the quiet concentration of the musicians and the dynamic figure, looks as though he's stamping his feet in time, in the centre. It's got a very painterly atmosphere about it.

 

Hope you don't mind me doing this; I made a layer copy of the original, lightened it using curves, made a Hide All Layer Mask, and used the Brush tool to do a bit of combining to take down the burnt highlights, made a Stamp Visible (SHIFT/CTRL/ALT + E) desaturated it a bit and then used Brightness/Contrast to finish it off.

 

Cheers - Jem

[chaswes5]

Really like #1.

[Kobione]

Great set of subjects there, Martyn, and some really nice facial expressions, but agree with what's been said about the light/dark issue.

[annie]

Lovely set Martyn, love shot one..

[colinb]

nice set Martyn, love No.3 

 

did you have a lens hood on the camera? As others have said there does seem to be some 'dark' around the edges, unless that was done PP?

[Guest]

That looks like it was a really good evening. Having photographed a similar event / location I can appreciate what you say about the room being dark.

A good set of pics which, for me, set the mood of the night well.

[Martyn]

That looks like it was a really good evening. Having photographed a similar event / location I can appreciate what you say about the room being dark.

A good set of pics which, for me, set the mood of the night well.

 

 

Hello Martyn,

 

I liked this one a lot the quiet concentration of the musicians and the dynamic figure, looks as though he's stamping his feet in time, in the centre. It's got a very painterly atmosphere about it.

 

Hope you don't mind me doing this; I made a layer copy of the original, lightened it using curves, made a Hide All Layer Mask, and used the Brush tool to do a bit of combining to take down the burnt highlights, made a Stamp Visible (SHIFT/CTRL/ALT + E) desaturated it a bit and then used Brightness/Contrast to finish it off.

 

Cheers - Jem

 Hi Jem, Don't mind you editing my pics at all. In fact, I'm grateful for your efforts, I've got a lot to learn about this photography thing. You did a good job there so I 'm going to have another play and see if I can reproduce the same results.

 

 

nice set Martyn, love No.3 

 

did you have a lens hood on the camera? As others have said there does seem to be some 'dark' around the edges, unless that was done PP?

Thanks Colin. The darkness is the vignette I applied to tone down the spotlighted walls in the background. That's another reason I cropped the pics tightly in camera, to avoid the wall lights and bright reflections in the windows and picture glass.

[Martyn]

That looks like it was a really good evening. Having photographed a similar event / location I can appreciate what you say about the room being dark.

A good set of pics which, for me, set the mood of the night well.

 

Thanks Bill. The jury is still out for me on how to process these images for the best; for viewers such as yourselves on this forum these pics appear dark so I could boost the brightness to what you all would expect from a good photograph. For myself, these pictures do not represent the evening as I saw it. Maybe converting to b&w would go some way to capturing the mood and atmosphere of the evening.

[ChrisLumix]

Thanks Bill. The jury is still out for me on how to process these images for the best; for viewers such as yourselves on this forum these pics appear dark so I could boost the brightness to what you all would expect from a good photograph. For myself, these pictures do not represent the evening as I saw it. Maybe converting to b&w would go some way to capturing the mood and atmosphere of the evening.

 

Or it could be that you have your display set far too bright? Just as a guide, my iMac is usually set to 5 or 6 out of 15 which is plenty bright enough for me.

[NannyFerret]

You don't need to brighten them much, Martyn, or you will lose the atmosphere.