Luminous Landscape Forum
The Art of Photography => User Critiques => Topic started by: marcocarmassi on January 30, 2011, 09:54:29 am
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Hi everybody again:-)
The Val D'Orcia is one of the most fascinating places in Tuscany.
I love to take shots of single trees and Val D'Orcia is a very good place to find many solitary trees.
I was lucky because the dramatic nature of clouds helped me to enhance the scene.
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Well, for what it's worth, my opinion:
#1: lovely, dramatic (I like b&w a lot generally, so it's very much my kind of thing); there seems to be a bit of a halo around the tree, though
#2: nice but rather vivid for my taste
#3: ghastly, with an ugly halo around the tree
#4: very pretty
Jeremy
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I share the views of Jeremy on this serie. I would tone down colors a bit in #2 and rework #3.
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I do not think you will find a lot of HDR fans on this forum. The #1 is nice, assuming the halo around the hill and tree is not an HDR artifact.
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Marco, I echo Jeremy's comments. Yes, the Tuscany colors may be vivid, but obviously not this vivid, nor can Tuscany be this contrasty. It is, after all, still on this planet. As Jeremy said, the halo in #3 needs to go.
But your composition is good. You do a good job of cropping reality in your viewfinder. It just needs a bit of toning down. How about showing us the middle frames from your HDR series for these.
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The halos around the trees in #'s 1, 2 and 3 look like a novice playing with Photoshop's dodging tool to me. The color shots are way too over-amplified for my taste, although I kind of like #4 anyway.
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Marco
As we can see from Cyn's post, some people actually like this approach to photography. And if you have an audience, and it sells, then fair enough. Personally, I find it a truly horrible thing to do to what is undoubtedly a beautiful landscape. These pictures do not seduce us, and persuade - they scream at us with a nightmarish intensity. Technology now allows us to do this sort of thing, but that is not a reason that we should.
John
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Sorry Marco- this is not for me either. The haloes make me cringe.
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Thanks for your comments, in my opinion some are excessively generous, others much less :-)
Results aren't the consequence of randomness or inexperience, as somebody suggested, but they are a precise style choice that could be appreciated or not. If i have to choose, i usually prefer intense, dramatic tones and vivid colors.
Anyway, every single thing you point out is, for me, a good reason to re-think about my shots and make them better.
Soon i'll post more pics to your challenging attention.
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Anyway, every single thing you point out is, for me, a good reason to re-think about my shots and make them better.
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Marco,
This is very important, try to take comments - good or bad - as a trampoline to improve your images. You won't be able to please 100% of the audience anyway.
I look forward to your next batch of photos!
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Results aren't the consequence of randomness or inexperience, as somebody suggested, but they are a precise style choice that could be appreciated or not. If i have to choose, i usually prefer intense, dramatic tones and vivid colors.
Anyway, every single thing you point out is, for me, a good reason to re-think about my shots and make them better.
Marco
I'm sure that you are a really nice chap and I can see some of your photos are indeed really lovely. But this frame, from your own website, illustrates part of what we are debating -
http://www.marcocarmassi.com/site/components/com_virtuemart/shop_image/product/Sardinia_009_4d064bb05289e.jpg (http://www.marcocarmassi.com/site/components/com_virtuemart/shop_image/product/Sardinia_009_4d064bb05289e.jpg)
What has happened here is that the sky has been darkened so much that the luminance values of the cliffs would no longer separate properly from it. But you really can't dodge in a big halo like that around the join in software to "fix" the problem. It just looks awful.
John
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Hi Marco,
It is not easy showing your work for criticism (constructive hopefully), so congratulations on doing so. It is also not easy given the modern set of tools we have at our disposal these days, not to push the enhancement sliders all the way to the right or left.
My advice would be to use moderation and aim for subtlety in tones and hues and a good way to do this, is ask your partner or a friend, to look at the before and after images on your screen and give you their (honest) opinion as you sit quietly and let them.
My wife does this for me and even though I did not want to admit it at first, as she is not the least but interested in the technicalities of photography, but invariably she is always right and I always take on board her advice - it looks to blue, it doesn't look real, you have been fiddling with the colours again haven't you etc etc. So when she says things like, Ooh now that is beautiful, or yes I like that one etc, etc, then I know I on the right track.
Only a tip that works for me, and I am in no way saying that you need to change what you do, but you will be amazed (once you get used to doing this without arguing) how useful and good the other person's advice will be to you, even if they have never picked up a camera in their life.
Photobloke. ;)
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Marco
As we can see from Cyn's post, some people actually like this approach to photography. And if you have an audience, and it sells, then fair enough. Personally, I find it a truly horrible thing to do to what is undoubtedly a beautiful landscape. These pictures do not seduce us, and persuade - they scream at us with a nightmarish intensity. Technology now allows us to do this sort of thing, but that is not a reason that we should.
John
Yup, what John said. The B&W in the first image shows some great potential for more.