Visit to the Erie Beach

[dhancock]

It was a stormy day, and the beach was almost completely empty. Various items of interest were washed on the beach, but it was difficult keeping the compositions focused, without to many distractions. Both of these are HDR, due to the huge range of light. However, I tried to keep it reasonably realistic. Photomatix did a good job aligning and antighosting my hand-held shots. I like the colors better on HDR Darkroom Pro, but it functions poorly with antighosting. Let me know what you think, both negative and positive.

[Chris Calohan]

I think they're far too small to tell anything very definitive.

[dhancock]

If you click on them, they should open larger. Let me know if that is large enough. Thanks!

Daniel

[Chris Calohan]

Second one does open a little bigger and I'm immediately turned away because the horizon line is too off to work for me and it's too busy to define a solid focal point. I'd lose most of the background. The first one only opens marginally larger.

[Chris Calohan]

This is how far the second one is out of reasonable horizontal relativity. (At least to my eye and tastes.)

[dhancock]

Thanks! I guess it just goes back to: BRING A TRIPOD ALWAYS. Or just most of the time, like those exceptions of street photography etc...

[dhancock]

Let's try this one, rotated and cropped.

[brandtb]

Sometimes it's best to just start from the beginning with the basics...i.e. what is actually in the frame. You mentioned

Various items of interest were washed on the beach

...but looking at these photos there is nothing interesting about the subjects in the frames...just random beach detritus and views. I would concentrate much less on various processing workflows and software apps...and get something more substantial or compelling to look at first...then worry about tweaking this and that.

[dhancock]

Sorry, but I'm not quite getting what you are saying. Do you think the compositions could have been worked more?

[Chris Calohan]

There's no one purposeful focal point. Mostly it is a random collection of washed up beach debris. Next time, direct the viewer's eye to one object or a collection of like objects, leaving any other objects in the frame out of focus.

[bdosserman]

For what it's worth, I rather like the second one, as originally shot. I find the central driftwood to be enough to hold my interest, and I think that having the shot so askew gives it a certain dynamism that it otherwise lacks. I agree the first shot doesn't have much compelling in it, though.

Brian

[brandtb]

No, I just don't think there is much worth composing. In the first image, there a number of zones of visual information...left - breakers, middle - even sand, right - very generic beach junk and wood, far right - tree line, in distance - non-distinct building, above  - generic cloudy sky. None of these elements are "distinctive" or "special" enough to me...they're non-interesting. I can't really make out the building in bg, but it might've been worth exploring the building/sea/sky as a composition.

The second image, the color is somewhat interesting on the piece of driftwood - the things around it are not - it again winds up as just "generic stuff on the beach". You might've explored shooting different angles of the orange wood piece - I don't know if anything would come out of it though. Sometimes using concepts like "leading lines" in art etc. (though these have exceptions) can be very helpful in composition...this photo shows objects with lines of direction... leading to "anywhere and nowhere"...and not helpful.

As and aside, I would suggest you consider the use of the massive "advertising plate" you place under your images which takes up nearly a third of the final document - I don't think this is necessary and is really distracting.  Your watermark is already very very prominent  - so the viewer knows who you are.

[dhancock]

Thanks for your opinion, and I do see what you mean. On the first image, I meant for the large driftwood piece in the middle to lead the eye through the chaos to the lighthouse, as the centerpiece. However, I think everything is to small in the frame to fulfil that task. And yes, I was wondering about my frame too, so thanks for that!

@ Chris - Thanks!

@Brian - Thanks also! I do think that the angle on #2 does add, but it was accidental, and I probably should have put more of a tilt to make it more purposeful.