2010 - Week 22, Print Big

Our Neighborhood
May 31, 2010 7:55 pm
Nikon D90, 50mm 1.8 - shot in RAW
Manual, No Flash, ISO 320, SS 1/250, f/2.8
Pattern Metering, AF-S, WB adjusted to A4



This photo did not turn out artistically like I wanted it too. I should have taken the photo in the wee early morning so I could get catch lights in their eyes, and had the light on their face, not their shoulders. I should have put them in a different neighbors yard so that I could get low and get blur more of the house in the background, and have more grass and not so much street, oh and maybe I should have gone with a wider angle lens as well. I may have to do a redo when I get the enlargements of them individually.

But technically, the color was ok, the focus was fine and the photo does capture the main point that this 20x24 print of them is over half the size that they are (and that they are a lot tanner than they were just seven weeks ago).

Taking a picture of them once each week for a for Project 52 after thinking up a theme has proved harder than I thought. So in this case they were clean and their hair was combed and they were agreeable for all of 30 seconds to having a picture taken. Most amazing was how hard it was for them to hold up this very lightweight print. The morning would have been a disaster because they would have dropped it in the wet grass several times.

But my point for this week is don't be afraid to print BIG. I didn't take the photo that was enlarged, but I LOVE having this large print in our home.

Printing large doesn't have to be that expensive (finding a frame can be though). Costco will print a 20x30 for under $10, but it should be mounted on foamboard or matboard so that it can be framed more easily. I like Costco because their print quality is really good (if you turn off auto-correct) and if you don't have access to a professional print lab. MPix (mpix.com) is a consumer sister of a professional lab, I haven't tried it yet, but have heard pretty good things about them.

So, in the future, I'm going to print BIG more often and encourage my friends and family to do the same.

post-processing
In ACR warmed the color balance even more than the adjustment in camera and then used the yellow & green hue sliders to push the grass to green and the green luminance sliders to fine tune the color a bit more.