Playing with Flare

[Richard Pearlman]

This shot is a little different than what I normally do. Let me know what you think.

[Jeremy Roussak]

This shot is a little different than what I normally do. Let me know what you think.

I think it has a lot of flare and not much flair. But that may just be me.

Jeremy

[stamper]

Some photographers seem to see flare as something worthwhile in an image? Personally, with the odd exception, I see it as a lens defect to be cloned out and if it can't then the image gets trashed. I don't mean to be rude about your image but it doesn't come into the "odd exception" category.

[Richard Pearlman]

Thank you for your comments. I agree that it probably would have been better without the flare.

[Christoph C. Feldhaim]

Flare occurs when we have too much light coming into the lens and getting reflected.
Usually we subconsciously know that, know its a flaw and good.
But:
You can, of course use this as a part of an overall image concept and composition.
In the presented case it sort-of works, but only sort-of.
Overall the composition is not overly interesting.
The light is great, blinding, but that's it.
Sky is an uninteresting mess.
So - if I had to draw a line and sum it all up, I'd not use that image,
but keep the beautiful backlight in memory and the flare as a stylistic tool in my head and re-shoot with a different basic scene.

Cheers
~Chris

[Richard Pearlman]

I do plan on experimenting with flare in the future, but I'm going to take the photo without flare and add it back in during post-processing so that I have greater control of it.