The Blacksmith at Work

I took this photo at one of the farmers' markets I do for the farm I work at. This blacksmith would come and do demonstrations at the market. A most fascinating process to watch. Here he's cranking the bellows to build up the fire.

I used one of my own textures and a Shadowhouse texture on this after converting to B&W. I also added a little motion blur because the original image was too sharp for an antique. I thought about cropping the image a bit, but I'm not sure. Your opinions please?

Christopher, lovely "old photo" look. I think I like the crop as is - I like leaving extra room up top for the smoke to rise. I don't think I'd change a thing:S3:

This is a fantastic "old photo"! Thinking about your question of cropping, I see the smoke going backward and the man looking forward. And I think you have a great balance between the two just as it is. I also like the darker corners at the base of the image, grounding the man, even though his feet are faded.

You're certainly a master at creating old photos. Although it isn't at all obvious to me that you applied the motion blur, doing that makes a lot of sense.

It's a subjective thing, of course, but my inclination would be to crop a bit from the left. However, it's just great the way it is.

Thanks a lot for commenting, Cheryl, Nancy, and Dennis. My leaning on the cropping was to leave it as is because of not wanting to cut off the smoke, but I wanted to see if others felt the same way. Thanks!

You did an outstanding job in making this look like an old photo. Perfect subject, perfect processing. The textures do a fabulous job of eliminating the bg, while allowing the smoke to be a major element in the image. I don't think it needs cropping, but I would suggest a CC rotation. It is likely that the image is straight, but, it looks like the man and his equipment are falling forward to the right. I rotated it, and by necessity cropped some, but you could rotate it before applying textures and avoid the crop. My version lost some of that vignetting that is so effective in your OP.

Nice image and application, Christopher

I would agree with Anita on the rotation, but it is a great image. I thought about the crop, but while it could be cropped on the left, I think it is fine as is. In addition to what the others said about the smoke, I also think the more central subject is more like the old photos, they didn't worry as much about the open space concept, etc. They just got the image and often put the subject dead center.

Hi Christopher! My first inclination was CC rotation as well, but on second look I don't think so. It seems as if he's on a bit of an incline (decline) and looks realistic to me. I might take a sliver from the left, though. Love your processing!

Anita took the words right out of my mouth, CC rotation...Very nice image and composition

Thanks a lot, everyone. Looking at the original image, I think it is just that he was on a bit of an incline because the surroundings(covered up by the textures) look relatively straight. I might play with rotating it a little though because yeah at first glance it does look tilted.

Christopher - very effective toning and image. I agree with the ccw rotation.

TFS,
Rachel