Good evening everyone! I am brand new on the site and am hoping some of you would be kind enough to help me improve as a photographer. I have mostly developed what skills I have over the last year or so mainly by flying by the seat of my pants. Between work and family I don't get much time to get out but try to make the most out of any opportunities I do have. All that being said I don't have a huge portfolio but am including a few of my favorites.
Any and all opinions are welcomed and thank you in advance!
Beautiful images! I would love to see the colors pop some more and some unique angles, try shooting with your camera in the dirt and see what haopens! Keep it up!
Thank you for your input, I greatly appreciate it!
Shot #1
I think this is your strongest image of this set. It's a solid composition, you've got a nice even exposure, and you've got some great colors and detail throughout the image. The foreground is probably just personal preference. I think I might have tried moving the camera closer to the water simply to make more of the reflection. :)
Shot #2
I would have cropped a little tighter. The element in the bottom left corner is a different color and texture than the rest of your foreground and it feels a little distracting. I can't quite tell, but there looks like there's a fringe glow on your horizon line that looks like the remnants of a little bit too much of a Clarity Adjustment. But, that might just be my eyes playing tricks on me.
Shot #3
I would definitely recommend a much tighter crop as well as moving closer to the water. The scant inclusion of ground in the bottom right corner is distracting, I'd remove it all together. There's also a lot of unused space in the sky, if you had more clouds in the upper part of the sky it might work better, but since it's more of that solid color blue, I'd crop it tighter to place more emphasis on your subject matter.
Shot #4
I did double check the shot with a ruler, the horizon line is off enough that it bugged my eyes, so I'd check and straighten that. I would also have cropped a little tighter, just to maximize the awesomeness of that that lightning!!
Overall, you've got some great shots here. Just don't be afraid to crop, either in camera, or post production! Sometimes it turns a good shot in to a great one! ;)
Thanks for the advice! I will most definitely look at them and see how I can crop to create better composition. It is nice that you think the top shot is the best since it is my most recent of the bunch.
Hi Mason,
First of all, thanks for posting these pics and asking for feedback. FStoppers is a great community and I'm sure you'll learn a lot here.
When I go on a trip or even a local shoot, I usually come away with half or a third of the number of shots that my fellow photographers end up taking. I guess it's because I plan and visualise my shots more before I shoot, and then execute in camera. I spend a lot of time 'composing' the shot in my mind, thinking about how I want it to look, and what I want to portray. Then I shoot. Of course, this doesn't work all the time because one doesn't always have all the time. In street photography, for instance, or for your lightning shot, where you need to be ready with your finger on the shutter so you don't miss an opportunity. But for most landscape shoots, this is how I do it.
So for your shot # 1, I would get closer to the water. I'd spend some time finding foreground elements that enhance the composition. In this shot, you have a path on the bottom right leading to the water, and random rocks scattered in the grass that somehow 'disturb' the tranquility of the scene. I would have gotten lower to the ground, had a single foreground element up close and included more of the sky in the picture. You have a great sky here that, in my opinion, you didn't do enough justice to. Also - and I might be wrong here - but it looks like you've pushed the post-processing of the sky a notch too far. Somehow it doesn't seem to go with the tone of the rest of the image. And maybe some of that post-processing has bled into the tops of the hills causing a bit of a fringe effect.
In shot # 2, you have a 50:50 split on the horizon. I would have kept it to about 70 (sky) and 30 (ground). Also I'd move forward a bit, past that distracting dark area on the bottom left of the pic.
For shot # 3, I'd get closer to the water. The sliver of foreground at the bottom is actually distracting from the rest of the image, you've got half a lamp peeping in from the right, and the reflection of the bridge looks truncated. I would get closer and try and get the whole of the reflection in. And I think you've got the shot tilted a wee bit right to left, but I might be wrong.
Shot # 4 is great. Congratulations on getting a really striking bolt of lightning. I like that you kept the horizon to the bottom third of the picture. If you have a graduated ND filter, you should use it on nights like this, but upside down, so you darken the street lighting in the foreground and allow for a clearer sky.
These are my thoughts. The important thing is to go out there and keep shooting.
Sid
I appreciate the super detailed response. Similar to what Rex mentioned I think some cropping could be beneficial to the composition. On the third picture I had somehow never noticed the lamp on the right. Also there are a lot of goofy angles with the bridge and how it interacts with the statue.