Barber

[yrh0413]

004383-Y12 by daniel.y?, on Flickr

1. in what area is critique to be sought?
effectiveness of tone mapping (HDR) to portray a scene of traditional life

2. what one hopes to achieve with the piece of work?
to capture a scene that used to be familiar to us.

3. under what circumstance is the picture taken? (physical conditions/emotions)
Photo taken during my visit to Pulau Ketam, Malaysia. It was a hot afternoon and the air was damp... this "old-school" barber shop caught my eye and I know I have to get a photo.

4. what the critique seeker personally thinks of the picture
The unedited photo was gloomy and dark as the only light source was from the table lamp and the wide open door at the left of the scene. I ran the photo through HDR Efex Pro and toned down the saturation to give it a vintage look.

[thoongeng]

I like the processing... contrasty but still retains the 'old' feel

thanks for sharing! =)

[zaren]

nice subject and setting. prefer to crop away a bit of the right and to up contrast slightly.

[gunston]

Nice. I like the feel

[MGohzxc]

I think is a wonderful processing done here and I prefer TS version compare to Zaren version except to clone off those chairs at the bottom right frame.

[yrh0413]

Hmm... Zaren's version is the one I got when I ran the photo first pass in HDR... It is a little too contrasy thus I toned it down to retain the shadow details.

I do agree that Zaren's decision to remove the far right makes the photo more focused on the barber. Points taken, thanks all.