Recent pictures from Vermont

[benInMA]

1st one - early morning, very clear.   A dramatic fog bank came over Grand Isle (Lake Champlain)

I didn't have a lens longer then 100mm, otherwise I would have tried to run down the beach and arrange things so that the edge of the fog bank & the boat could be arranged into a better composition.  Still I thought this was a neat effect.  I shot this from about 60ft above the surface of the water.



The second one was from a walk along the Winooski river.   Most of the time I was there the light was horrible, but towards the very end it started getting nice.  I'm not sure if this one is my favorite but it came out nice and clean.  I used a circular polarizer for this image.



Any ideas welcome.  I processed these in Aperture, they are the first 2 pictures I've shared that I've worked on.   This software ignores Canon's picture styles.  I didn't do much to the first one at all, just cleaned up some dust.  The second one I boosted contrast & saturation a little bit, but probably less then Canon's "Landscape" picture style.

Thanks,
Ben

[jule]

Thanks for posting your image Ben.
I'm afraid your first image doesn't grab me at all. I just find it really boring. Compositionally - elements don't support each other.There are not enough elements to create an interesting narrative either.

I'm not sure what to do with this one - but I did a really severe crop to see if something interesting could come out of it.  

Julie

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[benInMA]

Thanks Julie.

I'm not sure I like the crop since you lose the sense of the weirdness of the fog layer.

I guess what I was trying to get at with that shot was the feeling you get when you see something like that wall of weather coming at you while you're on a boat.  Kind of hard to explain if you don't go boating, and I didn't necessarily capture it very well here.  I just thought it was an interesting photo to share.

That fog came over the top of the island and enveloped the water very quickly.. a video would have captured it better.  It would have stunk to get stuck in it in a boat.

[howiesmith]

The first shot is very ordinary and uninteresting to me.  The horizon about divides the image into equal parts, giving the blank blue sky about equal importance as the fairly blank blue water.  The boat is about where I would expect a subject to be, but it isn't a very interesting shot of a boat.  I keep wandering all over looking for something to look at, and nothing appears.  The fog bank may have been interesting and even rare, but not enough to carry this image.  If it were mine, I would throw it away.

The second shot is more to my liking, but still not extrordindary.  Just some trees reflected in water.  A nice "I was there" image.  I would likely keep it for some reason. but not put it into a portfolio.

[howiesmith]

1st one - early morning, very clear.   A dramatic fog bank came over Grand Isle (Lake Champlain)

I didn't have a lens longer then 100mm, otherwise I would have tried to run down the beach and arrange things so that the edge of the fog bank & the boat could be arranged into a better composition.  Still I thought this was a neat effect. 

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Maybe otherwise you might have gotten an good image.  Not having the right equipment for the job may be the reason for failure but not a good excuse.  Sometimes it may be better to skip the shots that you can't take.

There is a good song by the Tractors.  "I could have been a winner, but I never got the cards."

[jule]

Thanks Julie.

I'm not sure I like the crop since you lose the sense of the weirdness of the fog layer.

I guess what I was trying to get at with that shot was the feeling you get when you see something like that wall of weather coming at you while you're on a boat.  Kind of hard to explain if you don't go boating, and I didn't necessarily capture it very well here.  I just thought it was an interesting photo to share.

That fog came over the top of the island and enveloped the water very quickly.. a video would have captured it better.  It would have stunk to get stuck in it in a boat.
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Thanks Ben. I'm not actually sure whether I am that fussed on my crop either, but I was just experimenting with creating more interest by adding the element of the unknown. ..some concepts which came to mind after the crop - is it cloud??, lull before a storm??, fog??, ocean??, river?..bay???... isolation?..calmness?? abandonment??? etc.

I think what you have highlighted is the difficulty to detach oneself from the memory of an event or image, and the actual image itself.

You remember the amazing rolling effect of the fog ecapsulating the island...and if you just look at the image without having experienced the event, it is just a bit of fog or cloud on the horizon and a moored boat. - so what? Land is near, cloud is near, water is calm....ho hum... Nowhere is there any indication or suggestion of the movement which you witnessed.

I am a boatie from childhood, so I do understand the feeling when a weather system approaches - and have been on the sea in some pretty horrendous conditions. That impending uncertainty and anxiousness was not triggered by your image - perhaps again because of the lack of dimensionality and movement evident in the fog.
Thanks again
Julie

[jani]

While I agree with most of the criticism here, I think that it's possible to make the first of the two at least marginally interesting.

You have some nice textures in the clouds that simply are lost because of the low contrast. Also, the mixed areas of waves and calm water show some promise. On the negative side, the horizon isn't even straight ...

Here's my shot at it, exaggerated for effect (maybe you want to go this far, maybe not ...):



Okay, so it's still not something that goes "WHAM! I want to buy this!", but now there's at least a bit of drama and story to the picture.

What I did, after cropping and straightening the water line a bit:

Curves adjustment:



Smart sharpen for exaggerated local contrast: