When I seen the sunset last night I had to grab the camera and head for somewhere local just to try and capture the beauty of it. Needless to say the actual sunset was directly behind me but I feel this still made for an awesome photo with the colours in the sky.
This is the 1st photo where I feel my photography has progressed (still a long way to go) towards the kind of images I am trying to achieve. I would welcome any constructive criticism or feedback.
Island Hill is a small island situated in County Down, it sits in Strangford lough and is accessed via a causeway at low tide.
It's a very painterly, calm image, Andrew. It reminds me of the Dutch "Golden Century" watery landscapes. I like you composition, with plenty of emphasis on that glorious sky, and the road leading us in towards the island.
It may depend on the brightness of your monitor, but on mine (quite bright itself) some of the interesting texture of the littoral zone is hard to see as it's dark, and that whole dark area at the bottom looks a little "heavy" to me. Perhaps you could crop a little off it, too. I think your image is also rotated about half a degree clockwise, unsettling with water horizons.
This edit addresses these issues, and I've added a mild vignette, to continue the "painterly" theme. I haven't cropped. Bear in mind that this is my own subjective taste, and others, including yourself, may prefer your rendering. I just can't resist tweaking to my taste! Hope to see more from you.
Thanks Chris! I have always struggled with horizons and straightening them, its something I'm looking to correct but I seem to have a crocked eye lol. The foreground really bothered me but I'm still learning LR and struggled to get the effect you have got on you edit which I really like!
Thanks for the feedback its things like this I am looking for and although subjective I do really think your render improves the over all image.
Thanks Andrew! Playing around with the software is a whole new element of creativity after you've pressed the shutter release. Great fun. So play around.
I use a grid to level horizons in post. It can be tricky when you don't get an edge-to-edge actual horizon, as in this case, but for me getting it right is part of what makes an image subjectively "right", while slight tilts can be quite unsettling. On re-examining the image, I think it's actually more like one degree out. People vary in their sensitivity to this. I'm a bit extreme!