This is a shot I took last weekend, intent on capturing the colors of a falling sun on the layer of crusty foreground snow.
While I was going through a sequence of stacked shots I noticed a person about to walk in the frame and quickly refocused to capture. I was lucky enough to capture the person mid-stride and it turned out to be a great silhouette of another photographer.
What are your thoughts on this image? The colors are pretty natural (no split toning etc) but I'm not sure about the snow. Does the silhouette make it look like a composite/unnatural?
All opinions, good or bad, would be appreciated - and/or if you could pop over to the image in my portfolio and give it an (anonymous) community grading that will help me understand where this lies.
I like a lot of your work, Alan, but the composition spoils this one for me.
The tree is beautiful, the snow glows beautifully, and the sky has an ethereal glow.
But the figure looks jammed in under the tree, is walking away as if not interested in being part of the scene (typical bloody photographer, looking at the LCD!), and the top half/bottom half composition just doesn't work for me.
I rarely post unless I basically like an image, but you always seek critique, and here the elements just don't gel for me. Sorry. :-)
Thanks for being so honest Chris, that is EXACTLY what I was looking for. TBH I think the photographer is what is bugging me too and I'm planning to redo without that frame in the set.
Can you clarify the top half/bottom half composition remark? If you don't like either of those there ain't much left!
I think I still have work to do on this - I feel it has some good bones but need to adjust further.
I actually do like the the figure, they offer some nice scale. Especially cause that tree looks bigger than it is. But maybe just a different, more interesting pose. Looking into the frame without the camera perhaps.
Photos with photographers in them are like books whose main characters are authors or movies about the film industry :)
Thanks for the input Xander.
No, no, Alan - I love each half (once you ditch photographer), but they're like halves of two different pictures! And the top (skyline/sky) and bottom (glistening snow) halves, with only a little of the tree trunk crossing, remind me of the usually unsatisfying effect of images with a horizon dead centre (Sugimoto got away with it).
I have a strong predilection for marked asymmetry, and balancing of e.g. large expanse of texture against small crisp or hard shape, rather than balancing two expanses of roughly equal size.
So I append two compositional edits. Neither really works, but either is closer to what I suspect I'd have looked for in this scene.
The only item I would say I do not like is the photographer. This piece, for me, looks like a test shot while waiting for that oblivious amateur to get out of frame, haha. In all seriousness, the photographer is taking me away from a zen moment as I view this image.
Without the photographer: I really like this shot, the soft detail of the sky is terrific. The reflected warmth on the ice/snow keeps the bottom of the image working enough with the top. The warm/cool elements of this image are excellent.
I'm gonna jump over to your portfolio to give you a solid 1 star simply because my coffee is cold, and you're going to pay for it ;)
Thanks Joe, I'll take that one star (although after freezing my butt for over an hour it certainly didn't feel like a snapshot :-)
I appreciate the sincerity.
No problem, as I said, I really like this image, I gave it three stars (mostly because of the photographer), I could easily give it four, I'd be interested to see if you do any more revisions to it. Any which way, I'd be happy having an image like this in my portfolio.
Cheers ~
This would have probably been a lot stronger shot if the photographer was in the left third of the frame. It's that 'Rule of Motion' thing that says there should be more room in front of the direction of travel than behind.
Yeah, I was kind of waiting for that. Truth is I couldn't get the camera set up quickly enough to capture coming in (had on a 2 second delayed shutter) - I'm surprised it came out as it did.
I could always move it but as others indicate I may just leave it out.
Thanks for the comment,
I like the photo. The photographer leaving the frame gives me the feeling they are looking for a spot to take their own photograph. I do wish the tree was a little bigger or the branch above their head wasn't there.
Thanks for the feedback Craig. The original intent was to capture just the tree.
There were other much larger close by that would likely have worked better with the photographer, it was just a matter of timing.
Just because I value the comments of the community so much (especially when I have an inkling they align with my inner conscience) here's the updated image sans photographer.