Luminous Landscape Forum
The Art of Photography => User Critiques => Topic started by: Hans Kruse on April 20, 2009, 08:48:41 am
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Here is a photo from Tuscany taken in the early morning.
(http://hanskrusephotography.com/photos/488698808_sikD8-X2.jpg)
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Lovely location and one that's on my to do list.
My only critique is I'd have probably used a longer lens and added more contrast in the shot.
Simon
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Lovely image of a beautiful place, I love Tuscany. I don't mind the wide angle but would lighten the sky a bit.
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I'm going to disagree a bit and say that you shouldn't change a thing. The image really is stunning! I can only imagine how it would look as a large print mounted on a wall. Nicely done.
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Lovely location and one that's on my to do list.
My only critique is I'd have probably used a longer lens and added more contrast in the shot.
Simon
A longer lens? What would you have cropped out of this picture? Also more contrast. I'm surprised as it already has quite a bit of contrast. Are you viewing this on a calibrated screen?
The lens used is my favorite landscape lens Canon 70-200 f/4L IS at 70mm. I often crop out smaller portions of a landscape.
I'm running a workshop there in November, if you are interested see http://hanskrusephotography.com/gallery/70...451859431_bh4nJ (http://hanskrusephotography.com/gallery/7059097_rRF6q#451859431_bh4nJ)
Thanks for commenting.
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Lovely image of a beautiful place, I love Tuscany. I don't mind the wide angle but would lighten the sky a bit.
It's not really wide angle. It us 70mm on my Canon 70-200 f/4L IS.
Thanks for commenting.
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I'm going to disagree a bit and say that you shouldn't change a thing. The image really is stunning! I can only imagine how it would look as a large print mounted on a wall. Nicely done.
I have printed this image in A3+ and it does indeed look quite nice.
Thanks for commenting.
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sickkk
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Great image, unfortunate choice for a thread title. From another thread:
Photographers in the first half of the century struggled long and hard to free itself from the perception that it was just the poor stepchild of painting and develop a uniquely photographic aesthetic. Remember F64? Suggesting that imitating painting contains some higher aesthetic purpose for photographers is a very antiquated and long ago discarded idea.
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Great image, unfortunate choice for a thread title. From another thread:
Thanks, but I have no problem with the thread title despite the quote I don't find that a photo is superior if it looks like a painting, but I did feel that this image resembled the feeling from some old Italian paintings (for good or bad ....)
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Matter of fact, it does look like a painting, which is fine. Were there any special techniques that rendered it that way?
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Matter of fact, it does look like a painting, which is fine. Were there any special techniques that rendered it that way?
I guess the feeling comes from several sources. 1) The scene and composition calls upon memory of old paintings from Italy. 2) Adding contrast and vibrance to enhance colors like in a painting and in addition using a graduated filter on the sky to enhance the structure in the clouds.
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Lovely image. What wonderful light! The only critique I have would be the foliage in the lower right corner. To me, that corner just seems too bright and was distracting from the rest of the image. And yes, it does have the feeling of an old Italian painting. So what! I think it adds to the charm of the image. Print it large and proudly display it!
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Lovely image. What wonderful light! The only critique I have would be the foliage in the lower right corner. To me, that corner just seems too bright and was distracting from the rest of the image. And yes, it does have the feeling of an old Italian painting. So what! I think it adds to the charm of the image. Print it large and proudly display it!
Uhm, didn't think of that I'll consider retouching a bit. Thanks for your comment.
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It is amusing to read the disparate views in what is obviously a great image that does indeed resemble a painting. Fantastic!
JMR
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It is amusing to read the disparate views in what is obviously a great image that does indeed resemble a painting. Fantastic!
JMR
Thanks and so far nobody complained about the electric wires
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Yes, it's like a painting, and a very fine one at that. I don't think I'd change a thing - not even the power lines. The patchy light and vibrant colors make this a wonderful image!
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Yes, it's like a painting, and a very fine one at that. I don't think I'd change a thing - not even the power lines. The patchy light and vibrant colors make this a wonderful image!
I agree that the power lines should not be removed. I think they are part of the composition and even enhance that.
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Here is a photo from Tuscany taken in the early morning.
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Ok, that does it. I'm moving.
Don´t be silly, they´ll never find you there and as you know, tourists vanish at the end of the season; live for when they have gone home again.
Rob C
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I agree that the power lines should not be removed. I think they are part of the composition and even enhance that.
My first thought was "Lovely!"
My second thought was "Clone out the wires"
JMHO
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My first thought was "Lovely!"
My second thought was "Clone out the wires"
JMHO
Haha, finally someone came with this suggestion
But thanks for your comment.
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Great work!
What was the shutter speed?
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Great work!
What was the shutter speed?
Thanks and it was taken at 1/125s, f/5.6, ISO 400, 70mm 08:09:33 November 24, 2008 with a 1Ds mk3 and Canon 70-200 f/4L IS. I believe it was taken handheld.
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Thanks and so far nobody complained about the electric wires
Why would anyone complain about them? They're one of several artifacts created by the hand of man that makes the photograph interesting. Without the lines and the scattered buildings the picture would be a picture about vegetables, dirt, and weather conditions. As it stands it's a stunning shot.
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Why would anyone complain about them? They're one of several artifacts created by the hand of man that makes the photograph interesting. Without the lines and the scattered buildings the picture would be a picture about vegetables, dirt, and weather conditions. As it stands it's a stunning shot.
Many thanks and I liked the wires also and didn't even think of removing them. If you look carefully there is even another artifact of man: half a car. But I didn't think of removing that one either. Thanks for the feedback. It is always good to know how other feel about the work you do.
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I like this image. The composition is nicely balanced, lot of layers created by the hills and the way the light falls on them. While I prefer not to see power lines in an image of an otherwise pristine wilderness, I have no problem with them showing in a rural landscape such as this, where there are numerous signs of civilization. I do feel the sky is a tad dark for this image in color given the warm light on the landscape.
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I like this image. The composition is nicely balanced, lot of layers created by the hills and the way the light falls on them. While I prefer not to see power lines in an image of an otherwise pristine wilderness, I have no problem with them showing in a rural landscape such as this, where there are numerous signs of civilization. I do feel the sky is a tad dark for this image in color given the warm light on the landscape.
Hi Jeff,
Many thanks for your comments. I used a graduated filter in Lighroom to darken the sky a bit and give it more structure. I also felt that it "closed" the picture and made it more harmonic. I could have used a physical filter to make the same effect, of course.
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Hey All,
I really like this image. Nicely composed and processed. The only little annoyance that jumped out at me was the white pickup in the orchard. I might have tried cloning that out. But even it isn't that distracting.
This whole idea of making a photo look like a painting is fascinating. Do many Photographers do that? I quite like it.
One of my alltime favorite painters is Olaf Carl Wieghorst. The pics are from the following site and show his prints for sale. I've no financial interest. I just want to give credit where credit is due before I go on.
http://www.4westernart.com/OlafWieghorst.html (http://www.4westernart.com/OlafWieghorst.html)
I also simply wanted to show what I think would be a wonderful effect for processing a photo into. I've seen one photo processed so that the background ended up looking like a Wieghorst painting and that was by accident I think as I don't think that was the intent.
Were you aiming for an art style with this Tuscany photo or did it just happen?
-Ed-
PS Hmm Seems the file won't upload Oh well you can look at the prints at the site and see what I mean. Note there are several pages and 5 and 6 - I think - a couple mountain scenes.
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painterly, contrast, this that.....leave it the way it is, it looks super. dont touch the wires.
Ok...one thing I would do is add to the left right and bottom the equal amount of black as the top...maybe a touch more to the bottom.
This would likely help resolve someones comment about the sky looking too dark.
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Hey All,
I really like this image. Nicely composed and processed. The only little annoyance that jumped out at me was the white pickup in the orchard. I might have tried cloning that out. But even it isn't that distracting.
This whole idea of making a photo look like a painting is fascinating. Do many Photographers do that? I quite like it.
One of my alltime favorite painters is Olaf Carl Wieghorst. The pics are from the following site and show his prints for sale. I've no financial interest. I just want to give credit where credit is due before I go on.
http://www.4westernart.com/OlafWieghorst.html (http://www.4westernart.com/OlafWieghorst.html)
I also simply wanted to show what I think would be a wonderful effect for processing a photo into. I've seen one photo processed so that the background ended up looking like a Wieghorst painting and that was by accident I think as I don't think that was the intent.
Were you aiming for an art style with this Tuscany photo or did it just happen?
-Ed-
PS Hmm Seems the file won't upload Oh well you can look at the prints at the site and see what I mean. Note there are several pages and 5 and 6 - I think - a couple mountain scenes.
Hi Ed,
I wasn't aiming for a given painterly art style as such. I was shooting landscapes in the mornings and evenings in the single valley (Val D'Orcia) worth while photographing in the entire Tuscany. When I saw the image on my computer screen it was better than I had imagined when I saw it in the view finder. That's some of the joy of going out shooting that you the second experience of what you actually shot when you see it as the camera saw it on your computer screen.
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painterly, contrast, this that.....leave it the way it is, it looks super. dont touch the wires.
Ok...one thing I would do is add to the left right and bottom the equal amount of black as the top...maybe a touch more to the bottom.
This would likely help resolve someones comment about the sky looking too dark.
Hi Phil,
Many thanks for your comments. I have toned the bottom right corner down a bit and reloaded the image, so it should show up slightly darkened now.
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This whole idea of making a photo look like a painting is fascinating. Do many Photographers do that? I quite like it.
They used to. It was called "pictorialism" and it was incredibly smarmy. When people like Paul Strand began to demonstrate that photography is an art form very different from painting, pictorialism for the most part died. Unfortunately there still are a lot of "artists" who haven't gotten the message and think you can judge photographs on the basis of what they learned in academic "art" classes.
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They used to. It was called "pictorialism" and it was incredibly smarmy. When people like Paul Strand began to demonstrate that photography is an art form very different from painting, pictorialism for the most part died. Unfortunately there still are a lot of "artists" who haven't gotten the message and think you can judge photographs on the basis of what they learned in academic "art" classes.
I agree and my aim and intent with the title was not to refer to this older photographic style. The photograph should be able to stand on it's own and I have never gone to academic "art" classes, so I'm not bogged down by that
But today there is a whole art and trade built up around doing "paintings", design within Visual Communication done on computers (Mac's!) and in Photoshop. My oldest daughter is doing this for a living. See her homepage here http://www.hvasshannibal.dk/work.html (http://www.hvasshannibal.dk/work.html) and she is the Hannibal of the two partners of the company). Sometimes part of a photograph may be part of such creations.
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I agree and my aim and intent with the title was not to refer to this older photographic style. The photograph should be able to stand on it's own and I have never gone to academic "art" classes, so I'm not bogged down by that
But today there is a whole art and trade built up around doing "paintings", design within Visual Communication done on computers (Mac's!) and in Photoshop. My oldest daughter is doing this for a living. See her homepage here http://www.hvasshannibal.dk/work.html (http://www.hvasshannibal.dk/work.html) and she is the Hannibal of the two partners of the company). Sometimes part of a photograph may be part of such creations.
Hans,
I didn't think you were referring to pictorialism. The photograph clearly isn't a pictorialist production (unless it's intended to imitate the kind of painting done by Charles Sheeler, whose paintings imitated the kind of detail you find in photographs.) I think the photograph does stand on its own.
Yes. There are people out there doing very interesting graphic work with computers. You're daughter's stuff is very good.