Damnoen Saduak Floating Market

[BigRed]

Here's a few snaps from the floating market. I've had to tweak them in Photoshop to brighten up the faces as those hats really don't help:

[BigRed]

and a few more:

[BigRed]

Standard photoshop was brightening the faces, boosting the saturation, cloning out bright footwear in the background, boosting the reflections in the water. Next I'll make them all look like Miss World contenders

[SEA Traveler]

Some of the women in the vendor boats are the same women from when I was there 12 years ago. If I had been there 20 years ago, I would imagine that some of them could still be recognized...

Nice Pics and photoshop work Big Red.

[bustak]

wow, these are beautiful pictures, esp this one:


what camera do you use? The above picture was some nice bokeh (background blur).

[BigRed]

what camera do you use? The above picture was some nice bokeh (background blur).

A Pentax *ist DL at 1/1000 [at] f5.6 on a focal length of 35 mm (52 mm equivalent for 35mm film camera). Done as aperture priority. I'm glad you like it.

[klongmaster]

Nice stuff BR: especially this one...great detail especially on the hands...

[hillbilly]

When I first looked at this thread, I thought what the hell? I did this market several years ago.

Boy, was I wrong.

How did you (BigRed) get these shots? These are superb!!

BTW, I am jealous!

[BigRed]

As Bustak comment on this one I thought it might be interesting to see the original and the latest version side by side:



So what's been done to it?
Levels, Curves, Saturation for starters
Straighten and crop
Clone out the diagonal rope
Burn in the top right corner to darken the distracting hilights
Clone out the plastic bag (Centre) and upturned bowl (R/H side) on the boat
Clone out the hose on the R/H side
Burn in his foot to reduce the highlight
Clone out the white bucket on his head - This has tidied his haircut and left a false hilight on his hair where the bucket shows through.

I will keep looking and decide if the blue pipe and red patch behind his head need cloning out, at the moment I'm thinking no, you can end up with nothing left if you are not careful.

I used to enter photos in a club competition at a very large sucessful club and attend the judging evening. You quickly learned that when faced with 50+ 16x12 inch prints mounted on card and displayed on one wall the judge would go with gut feel to eliminate around 30 of them. He would then be left with the job of working dow to 1-2-3 and a few commendeds while providing a running commentary.

What you learn from this is to give him nothing to pick on; a highlight away from the main subject - distracting, next photo; too much surounding detail - distracting, next photo; subject looking out of frame, next photo, nothing in the foreground - should be cropped, next photo, subject too central, next photo; and so it goes.

EDIT

Looking at them now, the most distracting thing is the hilight on the top of the seatback, towards the bottom of his back, could be cloned out next I think. It's an evolving process, you make a change, look at it for a few days , make another change, you have to start with something half decent in the first place of course Now that I've told you it is the remains of a bucket in his hair it looks obvious, but I bet you didn't notice anything wrong before!