I love the clouds and the reflection but the big shadow area (rock) in the foregound doesn't quite work for me. I wish there was a bit more detail. I would be tempted to crop most of it off.
Ute
ScaryFox wrote:
I love the clouds and the reflection but the big shadow area (rock) in the foregound doesn't quite work for me. I wish there was a bit more detail. I would be tempted to crop most of it off.
Ute
Or move a few feet to the left to open up more of the great shine off the beach. The exposure and processing work well, but as it sits, the rock---literally and figuratively---outweighs the rest of the image. Dave
Hi,
This is a very nice shoot.
The rock at the foreground bother me. With a crop in square format (to remove the part at the bottom), it is excellent !!!
I am going to take a middle ground here.
First, the clouds are really nice and appear almost as in a painting.
The reflections of them are equally appealing.
While I would suggest a crop to minimize the dark rock,
I would not eliminate it.
I think leaving the top third of the rock/foreground and perhaps some PP for additional detail, perhaps cutting the bright parts intensity a bit
The use of the rock and other elements (log?) in the foreground anchors the image for me.
The sun's light on the LLC I think provides a continuity to the image.
Just my xx cents.
Thank you everyone for the comments and criticisms! I knew this would be a difficult one to get across given all the different monitor setups to be viewed on, with the darkness of the foreground rock (and far treed shoreline too probably, there is slight fall colour detail there, too). I know my monitor is setup a little brighter than it could be, just a matter of preference, but I edited this to the histogram and checked it after on 2 laptops as well, granted though all three our systems are running Firefox 3 with colour management enabled. I will be sure there is detail there if it comes to printing this, you can be sure.
That all said, I agree with the square crop suggestions, and almost did for presentation but didn't so as not to lose the reflected light on the sand in the lower left. I also have a similar but different scene with no sand or rocks, just water in the foreground anyway. I wish I could have moved for more sand and no rocks, but it was just more rocks to my right, and to the left the sand bar in the middleground blocked the reflection of the sun in the water there. Dan's good suggested crop I may investigate further though, losing about half the rock and keeping the reflective sand near the water's edge.
What the heck, I might as well add these other two variations, since I don't know if they're strong enough to be posted individually anyway, and I've already mentioned the one in my last reply...
I thought at the the time this was interesting as the squarish gray rock seemed out of place amongst the rounder river rocks, sort of like a tourist spectator of the sunset. Minor tech issues with this one too, some flare/ghosting from light the sunlight bouncing around in between the lens and grad nd filter. I've since started hand holding the gnd in such circumstances, to adjust it's angle and reduce the flare. http://www.pris.bc.ca/dajavu/content/081102/080915-CRW_2385-pine-set-b.jpg
And the aforementioned no sandy or rocky foreground version... I like this because of the ripples in the water as the wind picked up a little, and the change from blue/gray to golden in the reflections. The sand bar bummed me out though, as I ran out of land to set up on and try to eliminate it. http://www.pris.bc.ca/dajavu/content/081102/080915-CRW_2391-pine-set-b.jpg
Minor tech issues with this one too, some flare/ghosting from light the sunlight bouncing around in between the lens and grad nd filter. I've since started hand holding the gnd in such circumstances, to adjust it's angle and reduce the flare.