Late Night in the Shop

[BAF]

Wasn't sure quite where to post this. Subject may confuse some. This is a photo of my belt grinder after a late night of grinding steel into blades. Smoke still lingers in the air. It was just a spur of the moment thing. c&c welcome. Thanks , BRENT

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[BAF]

Show me some critique . You won't hurt my feelings. Maybe its so bad that you don't know where to start?

[TCampbell]

I like the subject, framing, and it makes a good B & W. Contrast, structure, patterns, texture, interplay of shadow and light all make for great B & W.

Two comments....

It looks a touch soft on focus.

The belt seems very bright (blown out) even while the shadows are clipped to blackness. I'm not on my regular computer, so I can't see if the exposure data was included. Most cameras can safely capture 3 stops up and 3 stops down from the target exposure. This looks like it's pressing beyond that and needed some lighting help. If you fill in the shadows with just a tiny bit of light then it'll let you reduce the exposure and prevent the highlights from being blown.

I do like that you isolated a nice defined subject, filled the frame with it, and presented it in nice bold contrasty B & W style.

[BAF]

Thanks very much Tim. Not my best and I myself see plenty of issues with it. I can recreate the same scene since its artificial light. I will play with it some more. I just wanted to get a critique. I'm really new to the whole digital thing. I find that I still think in film. I have photoshop but really don't know how to use it yet , but I assume it won't fix everything and I would rather have better camera skills than photoshop skills at this point.

Thanks again , Brent