Self portrait with big binoculars (15x70).
È importante saper guardare lontano. View On Black
Some people asked me how i did this shot... Ok, I'll tell you!
It was twilight and there was a really soft and cool light outside...
I put on a red t-shirt (yes, it was red...) and I've put my camera on
a tripod, at she same height of my eyes, ten or twelve meters away. I
zoomed, so I fill up the scene and flatten perspective, and played
with esposition time and aperture until I was happy with them (I
wanted a slight overexposed photo).
To take these shots I looked at the camera wth binoculars (I couldn't
see anything, since it was too close to focus through binoculars!) and
used a IR remote control to shot, you almost can see it on my right
hand.
After that, I fired up digiKam and threw away a lot of shots, keeping only three or four of them, with the right exposition and composition and with interesting reflections on the lenses.
Next, I opened the most promising image in digiKam editor and cleaned
up it using greycstoration to remove noise and unwanted details and
cropped it.
Using curves tool I applyed a sigmoid to set black and white point and
to increase constrast and saturation (the magic is here!).
I love vignetted images, dark and saturated colors on the borders, so
I opened with Gimp the edited image, duplicated the backuground layer,
selected using a lot of father and cut away the central part of the
image, changed layer mode to "multiply", and duplicated this
layer 3 times.
To add more vignette, I creaded a new, white layer on top, changed its
mode to multiply (this way you can see the layers under it), and did a
rectangular selection, smoothed and fethered it a lot, inverted and
filled of black.
That's all! Hope you like the result!
Let me know if you have any suggestion or if you made similar images!
hblowers, midmood, handyil, 31Volts, and 56 other people added this photo to their favorites.

View 9 more comments
wealthinformatics 35 months ago | reply
This is a very nice pic. I loved the colors. Thanks for uploading this under the CC license. I have used this in my blog.Hope that is ok. I have linked it to this page.
www.wealthinformatics.com/2010/06/14/are-charities-spying...
gerlos 35 months ago | reply
Thank you, I'm very happy that you appreciated my work and used this photo!
And I'm even more happy because all of you used it in respect of the license: yes, it's OK republishing it on you blog or website, as long you put a link to this page or give credit to me!
regards
cudau.botcanh 35 months ago | reply
Nice pic!!!!!!!!!
chio gonzalez [deleted] 33 months ago | reply
Great photo!
laurent_borgmann 26 months ago | reply
Thanks for uploading such a great photo and sharing it with us. In order to make you even more world-famous I have used it in my Podcast called Absolutely Intercultural at:
www.absolutely-intercultural.com/?p=1441
and linked it to this page to give you credit.
And here comes the quiz: who can spot the three modifications I made in the photo? If you contact us with a comment you could be our next interview partner on:
www.absolutely-intercultural.com/
so please leave a comment.
Greetings from the Rhine and mille grazie again for sharing your photos!
Elmar-Laurent Borgmann (podcast Absolutely Intercultural)
Karen Cruz1 17 months ago | reply
nice photo
rtubb99 15 months ago | reply
Thanks for allowing me to use this superb Photo under Creative Commons license! I appreciate it! I used the image in my blog post - People Watching and using DISC Profiles at tubb.co/wkmY0t
Rue89 10 months ago | reply
Hi,
We're a French news website called Rue89 (www.rue89.com) and are about to use this picture (with link and credit) to illustrate a story on our site, observing the Creative Commons conditions mentioned in this page.
If you do not want us to reproduce your work on our site, just email us webmaster[at]rue89.com.
Congratulations for this photo.
The Geek Professor 10 months ago | reply
Great picture! I used this for my search skills workshop page here: www.thegeekprofessor.com/workshops/
Thanks!
webweisend media company 10 months ago | reply
Thanks for sharing this photo via CreativeCommons! It was just perfect for our media company blog - blog.media-company.eu
claireprincesca 8 months ago | reply
Hi,
We would like to use your photo for our marketing collateral. Would like to get your consent if it is okay with you. I am working with Brand Channels, a marketing agency based in the Philippines. If you like we can send you a copy of the material that we will be producing, using your photo. Send me an email at claire@brand-channels.com.
Hope to hear from you real soon!
Thank you,
Claire
gerlos 8 months ago | reply
So please remember to add a caption writing something like "photo by gerlos" with (if possible) a link to the shot or to this page: flavors.me/gerlos
regards
gerlos
DigitalC4 7 months ago | reply
Great shot! I've used it here, www.digitalc4.com/seo/seo-insights-googles-search-quality..., with attribution (link back to this page). Thanks.
Mastering Business Blog 6 months ago | reply
Hi! I used your picture on my Mastering Business blog. It's a great shot! masteringbusiness.wordpress.com/2012/12/03/common-mistake...
sbabzy 4 months ago | reply
Lovely picture! I have use it here as featured image (
4 Steps to Finding Temporary Engineering Jobs) and given you credit at the bottom of the page
sbabzy.com/4-steps-to-finding-temporary-engineering-jobs/
gerlos 4 months ago | reply
Thanks to everyone! I'm glad you liked my shot and used it in your works! :-D
Automotivespace 4 months ago | reply
Salve,
stiamo usando la tua foto sul nostro blog
www.automotivespace.it/auto/il-risultato-del-primo-sondag...
Grazie
jpeters430 4 months ago | reply
Hello. Nice picture. I used it for a blog post I wrote and linked the image back to this page. Thanks for sharing!
changeforayear.com/2013/02/01/the-superbowl-undercover-ve...
Francesco Littmann - 42 4 months ago | reply
Bellissimo autoritratto, molto originale.
Ho seguito alcune metodiche descritte nel tuo sito e questo mi ha aiutato a risolvere molti problemi con il mio C8.
Grazie per l'aiuto!
About.com Birding / Wild Birds 4 months ago | reply
Great shot! Thanks for sharing it with the CC license.
birding.about.com/b/2013/02/04/mailbag-monday-binocular-c...