Nkaseni Aloes

[William Walker]

This is a slight change from what I normally do. Please let me know what you think.

Thanks
William

[David Eckels]

I don't know William. I see a lot of cactus here in Arizona now and find it very interesting visually, of course I don't have the breaking surf behind it. There is always this detritus around the bottom of the plan when I point the lens towards the ground and, for me, it tends to spoil the shot. Compositionally, framing the surf with the two trees is a good idea although I would have been tempted the turn the camera slightly left and take a short step to the right; the cactus that touches the left side of the frame bothers me. I see the moon rising in the sky that might have warranted a telephoto of it and the surf. Maybe that's a cliche, but it is one I would have wanted to explore. Finally, it's awfully busy and I don't know quite what I am supposed to be looking at. Rendering looks good to me.
Thinking about it some more, if the intent was to frame the surf (probably not, based on the title) then I think it does not work. If your intention was to make a "portrait" of the aloes, the I personally think there is too much other stuff going on. I know lot's of folks like that. Whatever happened to Harald? He's done some of these with a certain degree of success. We'll see what the others think. Thanks for posting.

[David Eckels]

Forgive me, but to me, this is more the shot. Apologies to Russ

[RSL]

No apologies needed, David. There are times when you simply have to crop. I took a little off the top and a little off the bottom of "The Game." I had the equivalent of a 50mm lens on the E-P1 and I walked in close enough that the subjects were filling the frame laterally, but the aspect ratio on the E-P1's four-thirds sensor included too much vertically, so I had to chop it. I think you always should compose on the camera, but sometimes the composition you're after isn't exactly what's in the finder.

But in this case I do prefer William's original, nicely balanced framing.

[Slobodan Blagojevic]

Busy. I like the idea behind Dave's suggested crop, but I think it would have been more successful if the crop was applied at the moment of capture (i.e., by changing a viewpoint and thus the compositional relationship between the single cactus and the two trees).

[Jeremy Roussak]

There are times when you simply have to crop.

I'm going to print that and frame it. After cropping appropriately, of course.

Jeremy

[rogerxnz]

I think David's crop misses the point of the photo—the aloes. IMO, the shot is not a landscape with an aloe in the front for interest. It is a shot of the aloes which are wonderfully lit in the early morning sun (my guess).

There are two groups of aloes and I would exclude the right-hand one because it is unnecessary, sits separately from the main group and has an ugly dead branch sitting on it.

Here is my crop. I would probably boost the vibrancy and clone out the unattractive branch owing in from the left!
Roger

[muntanela]

Perhaps the last possible crop: the photograph is a bit less busy, less cropped, and the most relevant aloes are safe. (But I prefer the original photograph).

P.S. I think that on the background there isn't a surf, there is a plain with mist.

[William Walker]

Whew! That was interesting...Thanks for all the suggestions, I will leave it for a while and have another look later.

Bye the way, that is South Africa'a third largest river - the Tugela - in the background (serious Zulu territory!).

William

[luxborealis]

Too much going on, so it's in the "fuzzy concept" zone. Not sure if any amount of cropping would allow it to work.