Woman Herding Cattle Near Huanuco Peru

[mpower]

I just joined this website. I would like to take a chance and see what people think of this image. Canon T90 with a 28mm f2.8 and Kodak Ektar 100. Thank you.

[francois]

I like the colors and the sense of motion. My only minor issue is the large portion of uninteresting foreground (about 1/3 from the bottom of the frame). That said, your options were either get the foreground in the frame or the blue sky... A few clouds would have helped, though.

By the way, welcome on the forum!

[Tony Jay]

My impression of this image is that two different goals were strived for here:
Firstly this image has pretensions at being a landscape image that happens to have cattle in the composition but doesn't quite succeed with this as the metric.
The other is a storytelling image with the story really being about the cattle being herded - again IMHO it doesn't quite succeed here either.

Perhaps it would be better to try and think about what the goal of the image is, or should be.
BTW this is always much easier to talk and write about and much more difficult to execute well in the field.
Nonetheless, one's photography will improve a lot just by thinking about particular goals for that image and then immediately evaluating whether that goal has been achieved. Some compositions admittedly may require a nice big monitor to properly evaluate them but most of the time one can get a pretty good idea from the LCD on the back of the camera.

Your subject matter would probably have benefited from several different compositions from different angles, perhaps with different goals in mind or even with one goal, say the storytelling angle, in mind. Again, isolating the essential elements that would make a good storytelling image or a good landscape image for that matter is always a dynamic one, particularly in this case where many  of the compositional elements are actually moving through the potential shot.

The best images seldom come from a quick shoot from the hip approach. Even those that do apparently succeed in shooting like this deeper digging will unearth a lot of previsualisation and a lot of situational awareness.

I think I get where you were coming from in shooting this image.
The fact that you may not have completely succeeded is not a problem.
I have lots of these type of close-but-no-cigar sort of images and shooting them is an essential part of the process in really hitting the jackpot.
The very best shooters out there are probably only satisfied with a very few precent of everything they shoot.

Keep shooting, a lot, and keep on submitting images for opinions - there are a lot of good judges of an image that frequent this forum.

Good luck and happy shooting!

Tony Jay

[BobDavid]

We are a friendly lot. We are interested in looking at pictures. We've all posted good, bad, and indifferent photos. I have learned a lot by hearing what others think say about my work. So, welcome.

[brandtb]

I think at the base level there is the issue of half the frame being rather bland/monochromatic grass with the same going for the sky in the other half. Are these elements interesting in and of themselves?...not per se. In the middle are potential elements of interest but they are put out of balance by the previously mentioned. What might have been potentially interesting to me is to focus on the "silhouettes" of the driver and herd...and their shapes against the sky background...make that more of the story than sky/ground. This might create an interesting rhythmic component. This would have meant most likely getting in a little closer (28mm) and perhaps lower...half the distance maybe.

[mpower]

I thank all who responded... It makes me think and it makes me learn. I will post some more photos because I like this place... Tony Jay, I couldn't believe it when you mentioned "shooting from the hip"... I had no idea it was so obvious :-) Brandtb, can you explain how to shoot silhouettes? I can shoot in manual, I can shoot in aperture and shutter too... That idea is amazing but where would I meter? Wait, would that be exposure compensation? I've never really understood why that existed... Thank you everyone, Matt.Oh, I gotta say.. the verification steps I have to perform just to reply are quite silly. I've already paid. Just venting. I see they are the same questions as the first time but come on...

[Slobodan Blagojevic]

...Oh, I gotta say.. the verification steps I have to perform just to reply are quite silly. I've already paid. Just venting. I see they are the same questions as the first time but come on...

They will disappear after the first few times.

[luxborealis]

Welcome to the forum! It's great to see a different cultural perspective in photos presented here.

The contrasting colours and subject matter are what make this photograph. To improve it from here, I would suggest a crop to, for example, 16:9, keeping the top edge and removing foreground as has been suggested.

Also, it you are working in Lightroom or similar app, try raising the exposure slightly and raising the shadows slightly to reveal more detail. I say slightly, as it would be easy to overdo it - only a small change is needed.

I'm not into trendy changes in colour palette, but this photo just might benefit from reduced saturation.

To add some "shape", consider adding a slight vignette. I see there is some vignetting already. With cropping it may need to be removed then added as post-crop vignetting.

Lastly, again if you are working with a Lightroom-style app, consider using Horizontal in the Lens Correction panel to skew the image, putting the right side "further away" and bringing the left side with the woman "closer".