Photos from Islam Rally

[treyratcliff]

I took both of these in Paris at a pro-Hezbollah rally. It was quite a crowd...





If you want to see more detail, you can go to the set by clicking here.

[treyratcliff]

By the way, sorry if I posted these too big... kind of new to this group. Thx.

[Daniel Bates]

The size is fine with me; I'd rather see a little too large than a little too small.

The first one seems OOF; is it just my eyes?

[Stephen H]

Uh...was this Paris, TX, or Paris, France?

[Leba]

Nice pics.. but where are the bikes?
You said it was a rally and I don't see any bikes. :)

[Wes]

Originally Posted by Stephen H

Uh...was this Paris, TX, or Paris, France?

When's the last time there was a Hezbollah rally anywhere in Texas? lol

There's just something about the expression on the face of the guy in the second shot..... I dunno.... haunting? Sad?

[JPalmer]

there's really not enough in the photo to tell me what's going on other than some Arab close to the camera.

perhaps a wider angle with more depth of field to show what's going on in the background...it looks like maybe a flag and some guns, but I really don't know.

The first shot...you missed the focus by about three inches.

Both of them look really awesome on my dad's old CRT...badly uncalibrated. I'm sure the colors really pop on a better screen...over here, they're kind of muted colors, but the contrast is still there.

[David]

[QUOTE=xmenporsche]When's the last time there was a Hezbollah rally anywhere in Texas? lol
/QUOTE]

There was one in Dallas during the Israeli-Hezbollah war in Aug of this year.

[lancemoreland]

Tough crowd. I like the shots. It's all about the facial expressions. I also appreciate the post processing, it gives the subjects a painterly appearance, something up until now I have only seen out of a Canon 1Ds. This is the first time I’ve seen this out of a Nikon. Nice work.

BTW, regarding Daniels comment about the focus. It may be the very shallow DOF that you are seeing. It looks to me that although the DOF is very shallow but the mans right eye is sharp an in focus with only the nose being a bit soft.

[AndrewCCM]

Speaking of post processing.. Would you mind explaining the process used. Interesting.

[jbrem]

Yeah, I wanna know the process used as well. That looks great.

[lancemoreland]

Originally Posted by AndrewCCM

Speaking of post processing.. Would you mind explaining the process used. Interesting.

I can't speak for the original poster but there is a photographer named Ray Bayer that achieves the same look. You can find his work here:

http://www.pbase.com/jabomano

Some of the best examples of this "Painterly look" can be found in his portraits 2 gallery.

He has posted his method and I have saved it so I'll cut and paste it below:

Quote: Ray Bayer
Many people have emailed me or asked me directly on a various sites as to how I do this type processing. Many, many guesses (most bring a smile) and many hostile comments have graced my images. No actions, no Draganizing, no set steps are involved. It's done manually and below are the basic steps if anyone's interested. The images are far from perfect but I like what I do so there are never excuses from me on the way a photo turns out.
The 'secret' to these photo's is based on and really has to do with lighting. I use one White Lightning 1600 on a 48" Photoflex lightbox set as high as the room allows and to the side of the model aimed across and bounced off of a white reflector set very close to the face. Also one (sometimes 2) Alien Bee B 400's on an umbrella turned way down and this setup is aimed directly at the face. Also set this as high as your room allows. Experiment with the light output and adjust. I never use a light meter and I don't look at my camera's histogram. Ever.
I only use RawShooter Premium 2006 as my raw converter and Canon 1Ds and usually the 70-200 IS although at times I'll use the Canon 135. You'll probably also see some noise in some images especially were I brought that part of the image out of shadow as this is the nature of the 1Ds.
I post process in Photoshop CS2 and here is where most of the controversy is correct? My files are naturally 'painterly' because they're shot with the 1Ds and this is just the way the camera processes the file. Very smooth and saturated. At least my camera does. These images are not 'Draganized' as many, many seem to think (this stems from some questions I asked on the Dpreview site long ago) and no actions are used.
No burning or dodging is used either.

It starts with a manipulation of exposure with heavy emphasis using the gamma and offset sliders and level/ curve manipulation. Also on some of the more radical images I'll play with the blending modes.
For the skin I use the high pass filter. Make a duplicate layer and set the high pass anywhere from 6 to 30 pixels, invert and apply a soft blend. (I play with the blends also.) Use the brush set at 100 to brush the eyes, lips, some of the nose, clothes and anything else you want to deblur. I usually use smart sharpen in CS2 but lately I've been using Focus Magic with very good results.
Of course this skin technique should be done as one of the last processes before sharpening.
Exact steps: Duplicate the layer/ use the high pass filter. Go to Image/Adjustments and scroll down to Invert and click it. You now have to make a mask.
Go to your layers palette and change the blend to Soft Light. Go to the Layers tab on the top of the screen (under the words Adobe Photoshop) click it and scroll down to Layer Mask, click it and finally click on Reveal All for the mask.
Be sure the brush mode is on normal and play with the opacity to get the effect you want.
Click on the brush tool (make sure the foreground color is in black and not white), set it to the size you like and paint back in the sharpness around the predominate objects in the photo as the eyes, some of the nose (especially the nostrils), the lips, any facial nuances you may want to keep sharp, hair and clothes.
That's about all I can do to 'demystify' my so called technique and I really don't think what I do as too technical. The cornerstone is LIGHT. Simply practice. Anybody can do it. Really.
I think I touched on the entire process. Email me if you have any questions.
Ray Bayer

[TXhummer2]

Well done!!!

[thelegend1472]

You could do all those steps to get post processing like that or just get the lucis art plugin and play around with the settings/opacity. See my "the butcher" post for an example. I wanted that pic to look more cartoony so I set the settings a little higher and used a pretty high setting with the kodak airbrush plugin as well. As for the pics I really like number 2. I wouldn't change a thing about the DOF. By the looks of both these I don't think you were trying to tell a story so much about what was going so I'm not sure why that was made the main point of some of the other comments. Looks to me like you were photographing some interesting looking people that caught your eye. Excellent work.

[Stephen H]

"When's the last time there was a Hezbollah rally anywhere in Texas? lol"

Well, I assumed it was France, but then again, I don't recall hearing of any Hezbollah rallies there, either. A few weeks ago, there was a post on a Nazi rally, and I wasn't aware they had Nazi rallies in Texas, either.

In these photos, you can can make out about 4 or 5 people, so it's not obvious if this was 10 people in front of a courthouse or 10,000.