Luminous Landscape Forum
The Art of Photography => User Critiques => Topic started by: Jonathan Wienke on January 27, 2007, 09:01:14 am
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Here's another image I shot in Switzerland that just doesn't seem to want to come together. It feels like it's missing something, but it also has potential. Any thoughts?
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Yes, there is good potential here - I've fooled around a bit, here are some thoughts.
the limited range of tonality, as well as the contrast between the forground and the sky/background suggests BW to me.
the eye travels to the lightest part - the mountain in the distance (a bit centred compositionally for my taste), but the stong graphic lines of the road pull in a different direction.
[attachment=1661:attachment]
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B&W certainly solves some things, but one ot the reasons I was drawn to the scene in the first place was the juxtaposition of the warm light on the mountain in the background with the cold lighting of the foreground. I was kind of hoping to figure out some way of keeping that. The other was the misty ambience of the foreground.
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If that's what you're after, then maybe a more panoramic framing, cropping up considerably from the bottom. I think the problem that needs to be solved is that the sheer amount of cool foreground overwhelms the warm tones of the mid range. That would preserve the mist by the buildings - which is a nice touch.
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fter some more unsatisfactory futzing around, I revisited one of the other frames in the series and came up with this:
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In the first version, you might try a slight crop of the roadside on the left and perhaps some of the bottom. Can you bring out the clouds a bit more?
If you happened to bracket exposures, you might try an HDR variation; I suspect HDR could be fantastic with this lighting.
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fter some more unsatisfactory futzing around, I revisited one of the other frames in the series and came up with this:
[a href=\"index.php?act=findpost&pid=97795\"][{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a]
this one seems to work nicely
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fter some more unsatisfactory futzing around, I revisited one of the other frames in the series and came up with this:
[a href=\"index.php?act=findpost&pid=97795\"][{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a]
I like this one better than the first one you posted. I would try to darken a bit the sunlit mountain on the left to add warmth.
PS: I'm curious.. where was it taken?
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If you happened to bracket exposures, you might try an HDR variation; I suspect HDR could be fantastic with this lighting.
I'm not sure how that would help; the camera was able to capture the scene in a single exposure with only a few clipped pixels in the sunlit snow on the mountain in the background. At any rate, I was walking to breakfast with my camera, and didn't hapen to have my tripod with me.
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Here's another image I shot in Switzerland that just doesn't seem to want to come together. It feels like it's missing something, but it also has potential. Any thoughts?
[a href=\"index.php?act=findpost&pid=97760\"][{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a]
Hi,
Just a few crops and tones that i thought might work....hope it's of some use! [attachment=1664:attachment][attachment=1665:attachment][attachment=1666:attachm
ent][attachment=1667:attachment]
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Here's another image I shot in Switzerland that just doesn't seem to want to come together. It feels like it's missing something, but it also has potential. Any thoughts?
[a href=\"index.php?act=findpost&pid=97760\"][{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a]
The image is fine, except for the lack of interest in the road, lower left. I don't see what you can do about this, except transfer an interesting 'cut-out' into position.
You have hundreds of thousands of images in your data base, Jonathan. Why bother with the marginals?
Of course. I can think of some politically incorrect reasons why this shot is important to you. You shagged a Swiss girl between the third and fourth post, or in one of the cabins in view. The photo therefore has some 'hidden' emotional import for you.
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The image is fine, except for the lack of interest in the road, lower left. I don't see what you can do about this, except transfer an interesting 'cut-out' into position.
You have hundreds of thousands of images in your data base, Jonathan. Why bother with the marginals?
Of course. I can think of some politically incorrect reasons why this shot is important to you. You shagged a Swiss girl between the third and fourth post, or in one of the cabins in view. The photo therefore has some 'hidden' emotional import for you.
[a href=\"index.php?act=findpost&pid=97880\"][{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a]
I guess that part of the value is being able to clearly articulate what is the cause of the "marginality". The exercise is valuable, even if the end result isn't.
In any event, why post the "winners" for the ooos and ahhhhaas - better to post the marginals so you can improve.
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I guess that part of the value is being able to clearly articulate what is the cause of the "marginality". The exercise is valuable, even if the end result isn't.
In any event, why post the "winners" for the ooos and ahhhhaas - better to post the marginals so you can improve.
You took the words from my mouth. I've got a pretty good handle on the "how" of photography; once I know what I want to do, figuring out how to do it is not usually difficult. But the "why" is still troublesome. I can shoot and process a photograph in a manner that generally pleases and impresses my clients and those around me with its technical and artistic merits, but much of the process is kind of instinctive, and occasionally I have difficulty figuring out why I do what I do and articulating it in a way that someone else can understand. So what I've been trying to focus on personally is to better understand why I do what I do, and what makes a good photograph vs a ho-hum one from an artistic perspective.
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Johnathan,
I find the mist in your photograph to be the focal point for me. I really like the B&W treatments of your photograph. But if we are staying in color I would crop the image to elimintate more of the sunny mountain and raise the mist into the top third of the photo. I would also reduce the haze in the foreground over the road. I like the road as is. It leads my eye to the red roof which points to the mist.
Keep the post comming I enjoy your work.
Pat
PS. I have been lurking for some time. I just joined so there should be an attachment showing my edition but I am not sure.
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I tried a different interpretation, a road leading from the dark and cold mists of the valley to the warm and sunny mountain... Here I darkened and desaturated the half bottom of the image, and increased both contrast and saturation in the upper third.
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Jonathan in my opinion the road is not the "story". The story is the snow covered misty valley as it leads up to the far house.
Therefore in your first image I'd crop a lot of the road and bottom off as well as a bit of the top.
To me, the interest is the journey through the snow through the winding valley.
Michael
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I don't often give my two cents on photos, but for what it is worth, I agree that the road for some reason is a bit distracting. It (and the fence) leads my eyes directly away from the most interesting part of the photo. I think some cropping to reduce the impact of the road would improve it--at least for me.
Here's another image I shot in Switzerland that just doesn't seem to want to come together. It feels like it's missing something, but it also has potential. Any thoughts?
[a href=\"index.php?act=findpost&pid=97760\"][{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a]
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I know it is not the story you were necessarily looking to tell, but the black and white treatment, foccusing on the relationship between the building, road, and mist, really works for me. The color treatment leaves me feeling like I am looking into a lot of shade for a small amount of interest in the light, and focuses attention on the very blank sky. Were there more sunlit mountain, I think that there could be more playing with the juxtaposition between warm/cool light here, but trying to focus attention on the warm light draws the viewer to the edge of the frame right next to an expanse of blank sky, and ignores the interesting foreground you have set up, as my eye reads it.
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Your second version works far better than the first. In the first, nearly every plane looks, for lack of a beter word, dyslexic--and the shapes they form appear eager to flee the frame. Allowing in more road and field on the left serves to wrap gentle arms around the light you were drawn to.
However, to my eyes, it's over-cropped on top. As nearly every image on every critique forum anywhere is--lest the next guy do it first.
You were drawn to the atmosphere, the light, the air? So give it some.