[PlayRaw] The Sad Optimist

For years when driving to work I am observing this old truck. For several months there was a sign there “for sale” - but no success. I never thought of taking a photo, but some day I saw a guy with a tripod and realized what a nice subject this is. I myself stopped a few days ago (tripod forgotten - as usual) and took some shots. I found the truck directly looking in my direction most convincing. The sing at the fence (“Einfahrt freihalten”) says translated: “Keep driveway free”. This leads to a (for sure purely accidental) little drama, a rusty old truck keeping heads up and posting “keep driveway free” on his road to freedom.
I did a fast try on this but am sure there is plenty room for imagination and creating stories. Enjoy!

Here is the raw:
DSC01122.ARW (24.3 MB)

Here my xmp (maybe to strong vignetting):
DSC01122.ARW.xmp (6.1 KB)

Here my output:

License CC-BY-SA

Cheers!

4 Likes

DT DSC01122.ARW.xmp (8.0 KB)

2 Likes

DSC01122-1.jpg.out.pp3 (11.5 KB)

@yteaot: I did not see yours, but I had nearly the same idea :-).


DSC01122.ARW.xmp (6.7 KB)

I’ve gone with the more optimist side, and made things more vibrant:

DSC00989.ARW.xmp (22.7 KB)

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DSC01122.ARW.xmp (7.4 KB)

Yellow is for optimism!

4 Likes

like this a lot - it emphasizes nicely the run-down and weared state of the truck.

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@seume What is behind the truck? Is it a hill, cliff or wall?

I kept it super simple. This is what I did:

  1. PhotoFlow
    a) Hot pixel and lens corrections [Nothing to correct :blush:], linear Rec.2020 with negative clipping

  2. gmic
    a) Curve to remove linearity, slightly increased chroma, slight guided sharpening
    b) Prep for sharing (contrast, resize, frame, fp to jpg).

Enjoy!

2 Likes

I have the tendency to be super subtle. Here is a bolder alt version. Changes:

  1. PhotoFlow
    a) Area WB on fence.

  2. gmic
    a) Less linearity (brighter), add s-curve (more contrast), more chroma.
    b) Less resize (sharper).

Enjoy!

1 Like

Background is steep slope of soil - above there is a forest. Whole area quite desolate and overgrown. I have heard that in WW2 somewhere there has been entry to a tunnel/underground shelter.

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like your BW - strong vignetting?! good idea to get the top bar of the gate level - didn’t observe that myself. Also like the crop!

Thanks to all for your ideas! (a little bit wondering nobody took a go on good old solarisation or andy warhol style - maybe I give it a go myself).

Thanks!

Interesting. I always like to know the background of the location and shot.

Can’t wait for you to do another take or two :slight_smile:. I didn’t have much of an imagination this time around :stuck_out_tongue:.


darktable: DSC01122.ARW.xmp (5.6 KB)

1 Like

Sad Optimist… Sadness due to rusty old body with empty eye socket and being fenced in from front and back, Optimism is in the glowingly bright wheel arches and the message in a strange foreign language :wink:
DSC01122.jpg.out.pp3 (11.0 KB)

1 Like

Fast try of posterization:

  • did a crop and then jpg export
    My fast posterization method (GIMP):
  • gaussian blur (50px)
  • reduce to 16 colors (quantization)
  • change background color and some foreground color
  • increase saturation
    → 10 minutes gone, do export

enjoy…

1 Like

DSC01122_03.ARW.xmp (20.3 KB)

1 Like