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Archive 2012 · Who's Right? Person A or Person B?

  
 
Timmeh
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p.1 #1 · p.1 #1 · Who's Right? Person A or Person B?


Good evening impartial Landscape Forum! I have a dispute with my wife about which photo is better, and I'm pretty sure I'm right. The photo is of Ames Lake near Redmond. I flipped a coin for the order of the photos to avoid my own bias. Please let me know which you prefer (and why if you feel like it). If you don't hear which photo I thought was better, it is because I was wrong, and I slunk off into a corner to weep. If you see a smug reply from me, it will be from a laptop on my current bed/couch.

Tim



Sep 24, 2012 at 11:14 PM
Timmeh
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p.1 #2 · p.1 #2 · Who's Right? Person A or Person B?


The photos:




#1






#2




Sep 24, 2012 at 11:15 PM
jeraldcook
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p.1 #3 · p.1 #3 · Who's Right? Person A or Person B?


#1 PollPollPoll 1 100%
#2 PollPollPoll 0 0%

If the photo you selected was #1, you should stop the poll now with a unanimous result. If you picked #2, keep going.



Sep 24, 2012 at 11:19 PM
Jim Bau
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p.1 #4 · p.1 #4 · Who's Right? Person A or Person B?


The silhouetted pine tree in #1 helps give the photo some depth. You also lose a good part of the beautiful sky in the tighter crop of #2. Just my .02 FWIW I hope I didn't assist in banishing you to the sofa!


Sep 25, 2012 at 01:10 AM
skibum5
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p.1 #5 · p.1 #5 · Who's Right? Person A or Person B?


easily A, composition seems weird and off kilter in #2
(sorry to whoever lost )



Sep 25, 2012 at 01:53 AM
Greg Campbell
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p.1 #6 · p.1 #6 · Who's Right? Person A or Person B?


Please define "better."

I do have a strong preference for one over the other. But my personal sense of aesthetic most certainly does not reflect an absolute measure of 'beauty,' much less some narrow, strangled definition of 'correctness' or comparative superiority.

The image that works for you is, for you alone, 'better.'
The same goes for your wife.
(Or is that somehow unacceptable to one or both of you?)



Sep 25, 2012 at 04:17 AM
pauldng
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p.1 #7 · p.1 #7 · Who's Right? Person A or Person B?


#1 for me for the same reasons Jim stated but with the same caveat mentioned by Greg

Paul.



Sep 25, 2012 at 05:35 AM
nburwell
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p.1 #8 · p.1 #8 · Who's Right? Person A or Person B?


Jim Bau wrote:
The silhouetted pine tree in #1 helps give the photo some depth. You also lose a good part of the beautiful sky in the tighter crop of #2. Just my .02 FWIW I hope I didn't assist in banishing you to the sofa!


I agree with Jim 100%. #1 is definitely the winner out of the two.

-Nick



Sep 25, 2012 at 08:27 AM
srcochrane
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p.1 #9 · p.1 #9 · Who's Right? Person A or Person B?


#1 without question


Sep 25, 2012 at 08:53 AM
BrianJ
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p.1 #10 · p.1 #10 · Who's Right? Person A or Person B?


"Better" relative to what? I prefer the first but that doesn't make it "better". The images emphasize different things.


Sep 25, 2012 at 09:11 AM
69charger
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p.1 #11 · p.1 #11 · Who's Right? Person A or Person B?


#1 is visually more balanced I find. #2's open water in the left and the cropping of the sky does not seem as inviting.
My apologies to the defeated.



Sep 25, 2012 at 09:20 AM
gdanmitchell
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p.1 #12 · p.1 #12 · Who's Right? Person A or Person B?


Since this seems like a sort of C&C request, I'm going to share a few observations rather than clicking the poll buttons. The sky is quite interesting, and I would be unable to resist photographing it, too! The lake surface provides an interesting potential for expanding the sky color into the reflections, and the juxtaposition with the dark forest on the far shore is interesting.

But beyond that I'm afraid that neither quite "does it" for me. Sorry...

My first reaction is to like #1 more than #2. I think there are two reasons. I like the inclusion of the tree silhouette at the lower left, and I find the slightly smoother water more appealing than the somewhat choppy water in #2. Also, in #2 the larger mass of very dark area doesn't add much that isn't already there in the thinner area of the same stuff in #1. In favor of #2, I do like the fact that the colorful section forms a larger portion of the sky than in #1, where there are more darker areas.

If I were shooting this scene, I might try to do something to bring up the detail in the very dark forest area - and this is perhaps more important in the second shot than in the first, since in the second it forms a much larger portion of the overall photograph. I don't necessarily think that I'd want to make it seem artificially light, but I would like to see at least a bit more detail there - enough so that it doesn't seem like a black or nearly black area. This might be done by exposure blending, though you might also be able to recover just enough detail by pushing shadows a bit in post.

The tree in the first shot is an interesting subject. I like the way that it creates a bit of contrast to the rest of the scene and, for me, seems to anchor things a bit. The tree, unlike the forest on the far shore, can remain very dark or even black - it works as a silhouette. There is a compositional question that comes to mind for me, though. The top of this tree, which might be its most important visual center, merges with that dark background of forest and, I think, reduces its effectiveness a bit. I have no idea if there was any way to deal with this on the scene, but a slightly higher position or moving forward a bit might lower it relative to the dark forest. If I did that, I might also consider pointing the camera just a bit higher to move the horizon lower in the frame and include more of the beautiful shapes and colors of that wonderful sky.

My two cents worth... ;-)

Dan



Sep 25, 2012 at 10:57 AM
kylebarendrick
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p.1 #13 · p.1 #13 · Who's Right? Person A or Person B?


I voted for #2. Overall I like the sky better in #1 and the way those colors reflect into the lake. However, the cut-off tree that merges into the far shore makes it look like it is intruding into the scene rather than being an intentional element in the composition. I couldn't get passed that so I voted for #2 - which I agree is the less interesting shot.


Sep 25, 2012 at 11:50 AM
denovo2k1
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p.1 #14 · p.1 #14 · Who's Right? Person A or Person B?


I'm with kyle, except I didn't vote cause there was too much pain in choosing. Its not that they are terrible, but that I can't get past the near miss composition with the small tree and mis-aligned rule of thirds in the first and in the second the huge dead zone of the trees when its such a big element of the picture and overall lack of composition....
Sorry,
I like the topic and everything else, but this was a hard one to choose. I think at first glance the first pops out more with better color, but to a trained eye there is too much wrong going on to enjoy.
Just my thoughts...



Sep 25, 2012 at 12:29 PM
Timmeh
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p.1 #15 · p.1 #15 · Who's Right? Person A or Person B?


This sunset was a series of compromises, and a lot of you picked up on that (yet, who am I to turn down a sale?). I like the foreground tree and hated it for being too tall. This was shot at dinner at my friend's girlfriend's dad's house. The tree would've worked well if I could have gotten on their roof, but that may have been asking too much considering I was meeting her dad for the first time.

The detail in the trees would've worked much better in #2 if it didn't have an ugly looking house in the middle of it, but that's what I get for shooting a human infested lake. My argument was that could-have-been tree and the lack of color on the left side of the frame was a worse outcome than more color filling the frame and too much black. The argument was between these two photos since they were the preferred by girlfriend making a purchase for her dad, and not my preferred portrait version of #2 (can I at least have that after losing so horribly?). I will weep silently in my cubicle as promised.

Tim



Sep 25, 2012 at 12:57 PM
roguecoolman
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p.1 #16 · p.1 #16 · Who's Right? Person A or Person B?


The real answer is if you don't want to sleep on the couch, you listen to your wife

The sky is beautiful, everything else in front, not so interesting. So I can see merit in the crop because the tree on the left is really distracting. Maybe try a pano crop with the silhouette tree line or something.


If I had to pick, then maybe #1.


Jason



Sep 25, 2012 at 01:30 PM
Chris Tylko
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p.1 #17 · p.1 #17 · Who's Right? Person A or Person B?


gdanmitchell wrote:
Since this seems like a sort of C&C request, I'm going to share a few observations rather than clicking the poll buttons. The sky is quite interesting, and I would be unable to resist photographing it, too! The lake surface provides an interesting potential for expanding the sky color into the reflections, and the juxtaposition with the dark forest on the far shore is interesting.

But beyond that I'm afraid that neither quite "does it" for me. Sorry...

My first reaction is to like #1 more than #2. I think there are two reasons. I like the inclusion of the tree silhouette
...Show more

+1 ...good constructive critique Dan, well done.



Sep 25, 2012 at 07:20 PM
Timmeh
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p.1 #18 · p.1 #18 · Who's Right? Person A or Person B?


Thanks for those who commented again (especially Dan for the in depth analysis). I guess the difference for me was spending too long looking at the lack of the top of the tree (and my wife didn't have to edit any of them).

Tim







Sep 25, 2012 at 08:53 PM
Mark Metternich
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p.1 #19 · p.1 #19 · Who's Right? Person A or Person B?


Who is your market, that is the real question? If you want to be POOR, shoot for photographers, is what I always say.

I'm for #1 if you would draw out a little more shadow detail and clone out the distracting light.



Sep 25, 2012 at 09:00 PM





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