Hi Sam,

I think the portrait is really great.

I'm not sure what you mean by 'no photoshop' and am unsure how to respond to this.

It seems like you have used photoshop from what you say. Perhaps you meant nothing in PS beyond contrast and sharpening, as it does appear to be photoshopped from what you say. Not that there is anything wrong with that of course. I personally love and adore photoshop. Some do detest it and any form of processing, preferring what some would refer to as the so called 'au natural' look, which of course we know doesnt exist except through the first view of one's own eye. All images are processed, including what happens between when you press the shutter and what you see on the back screen. It's a question of degree and personal taste after that.

I am a little confused by this picture if minimalist photoshop has been used. This so because of what seems to me to be blur on the edges, like a motion blur, but yet his face, his eye, is not blurred, so I wonder if this is some form of PS induced blur? It just doesn't look right to me.

The background is excellent and suits your subject. I think I would much prefer the image if the outline of your subject was not blurred.

Just my getting a little bit older two cents worth .....

haha

 exactly the response i was after. i too adore phootshop but have learned a few new cool  tricks of late. i used a panning technique, combined with slow shutter sync flash to achieve the blur, no photosjop at all there, the color was caused by using a flash off camera with a tungsten colored gel filter, the white balance was set to tungsten so the flash portion comes out correctly balanced by the ambient comes out the blue tone you see. glad you took the time to comment. it seems funny these days the world is almost split up into purists and photoshopist. i like to think im smack in the middle.

cheers

Thanks for your reply Sam. I admire your flash technique - this is an area I know very little about. Well done. Yes, the 'middle' has a lot to be said for it!

Great experiment Sam, I like this. Is it a self portrait?

the thumb nail looks great Sam; Unfortunately I cannot view the photo on my monitor! perhaps you can check with Alan & Mario as to why it will not open.

Ditto me on viewing the image. There isn't even a placeholder for a broken link. Weird!

Regards, Chris

very nice technique. i thought the BG was blurred using PS ... what a way to pan ! congrats! ;-))

thanks for the haeds up on he display problems, ive email alan and mario to see if there is a simple solution, which browser do you use, as some handle color managment well and some dont but im pretty sure the image only has sRGB which should be fine.. oh well we shall see.

cheers

Using Internet Explorer v7.0.6000.16512 (or something like that). Still can't see a thing. Go figure! :-(

Regards, Chris

Sam's response to Eugene has some funny characters in it not allowing for carriage control and break thus pushing the image way to the right; you can only see it on a wide screen ; Chris , time for you to upgrade your laptop to a 16:9 format LCD ...cheers ;-))

having read the html source i saw the use of tag which will preserve the contents as typed without the page breaks... you can ask Mario to edit and remove the tags easily ...cheers ;-))