I have gone back into the archives this week. I have always loved this picture, taken in 2002, of the chromed back wheel and swing arm of the Fat Boy, so I wanted to see how it looked with a bit of ‘fiddling’ in Photoshop.
As the desktop on the 23″ ACD it looks amazing – well to me anyway.
As ever I would really appreciate your comments and suggestions. This photograph, more than any, could be very subjective in that it is immensely personal to me. I had wanted a Harley for as long as could remember, and in September 2000 finally got round to taking my bike test. In May 2001 I had major surgery on my leg and while hobbling around on crutches went into the local Harley dealership with Sands to pass the time of day, and came out having bought the 2001 Fat Boy – having never ridden a Harley, or been able to sit on this one properly!
I haven’t regretted the purchase for a minute and love nothing more than to ride around with Sands ‘hopping’ from bar to bar.
I have ridden in England, Scotland, Wales, Ireland, France, Belgium, Italy, Switzerland, America and of course Spain.
How much do I love this baby – I have a Fat Boy tattoo on my right shoulder!
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Hi Chris
I’m afraid motorcycles leave me cold, so there’s not much to interest me in it, per se. But…
As a photograph, the composition seems fine. The image “reads” from left to right and also, to an extent, diagonally too.
I think my only real issue with the photo is that there’s very little in the way of shadow detail. I’m not saying that it’s necessarily underexposed, since there are highlights along the, er, shiny metal bits. 🙂 Looking at the histogram, it’s probably nothing you could deal with effectively in Photoshop. It would really need to have had some light reflected into it when you were actually shooting it. Either using a touch of fill-flash or some convenient, neutrally coloured, reflective surface.
Having said that, the resulting low-key image must work quite well as a desktop image since the icons should stand out reasonably well against it.
Tattoos – so, are you going to get your much lusted after Mac Pro tattooed onto your left shoulder (once you get it) ? 😉
@Gary,
What exactly are you looking at when you say you are looking at the histogram? I mean, I know the histogram and all that, but take for example this photo. By looking at it’s histogram, are you just checking to see that there is no dropping off on either side? Is it a matter of how high the graph goes, or how flat it is?
You’ve mentioned a couple of times how by looking at the histogram you could see how it could, say, need fill flash or something to that effect? I’m really curious, as all I know to do now with the histogram is make the lightest colors white and the darkest black. (At least, that’s what I think it’s doing when you move the line to the beginning curves?)
Thanks. 🙂
Chris,
I really like the picture and would love to have it as a desktop background. I like the touchup you did to the picture.
@John: what size do you want and I will email you one if you want. Maybe I should start including a download option in the future?
@Gary: can’t see me going down the ‘tats’ route with Apple, funny how the HD brand is one of the very few that people have ‘tats’ done of.
I will forgive you for not having an interest in bikes because as ever you make some great observations. I am not sure any form of flash would work or enhance the picture though as this baby just has so much chrome on it that any flash would just bounce around all over the place.
I really like the B&W version of the picture. Love the detail and chrome. Don’t want to sound sappy or anything, but to me the lack of shadow detail, just give the overall impression of mystery and beauty of the clean massive machinery. Seeing the tire more would ruin the picture for me. Then again, beauty is in the eye of the beholder. So Gary might not like it much, but I love it. There will be others who like it or hate it.
@Mac: praise indeed – thanks!
Chris
1680X1050 for my macbook pro 17inch. A download option would be great. All of your pictures you posted are keepers in my book.
Thanks for sharing.
@John: emailed, hope you enjoy it!!! I will include a download as often as I can 🙂