Hi all... I'm a hobby photographer from London, focusing on getting better in fine art landscape (especially with water in some form). My opening offering, the top 3 images from the past couple of months.
Hi all... I'm a hobby photographer from London, focusing on getting better in fine art landscape (especially with water in some form). My opening offering, the top 3 images from the past couple of months.
on the second i would do this just cleans up the composition a bit, on the first i would desaturate to almost B&W and warm a tad just very blue, 3rd make sure the white of the snow is absolute white not off white
Thank you so much for the input.
1. Sometimes I think it's too blue, other times I remember it was a 30 sec exposure in very, very blue hour heavily overcast!
2. Great recomp, if I was shooting that comp I would be lower so the foreground fills more of the image, 25% of the image becomes bad negative space in my eyes. I like pretty full/complex comps
3. Yeah, snow is a tough one! Still tweaking this, but the subjective impression is so screen/device dependent.
Image #3 is really beautiful in it's own way, so simple and so subtle.In terms of the 2nd image I actually prefer it without the crop present.
Thank you! Not my usual style but I liked the extremely simplicity/complexity
Quite an opening salvo, Julian! I don't think I could cope with a broadside. Welcome to Fstoppers! It looks as if you're new, not just in this Group. I hope you'll find it a friendly and stimulating forum.
I'm very impressed with these images, and in fact your portfolio. I think all three of these images are fine as they are, and show a diversity of approach. We all have our tastes, and I can't fault these images at all, to be honest.
My personal preference would be to tone down the blue in the first, and I'd be tempted to put the rocky promontory off-centre. But many (especially non-photographers) would really like your cold blue, and not all share my predilection for asymmetry.
While Joseph is a fine artist with a great sense of composition, like others here I prefer your original crop - in fact much prefer it. I love sparse composition, but a full rich canves, such as you have here, packed with beautiful subtle pastels, crisp textures and the soft tonal gradations in the water can be a visual feast. Your version keeps my eye wandering happily around the frame. My only quibble is that at first glance, it looks a little over-processed, but I find it very hard to pin down why. Perhaps that band of vegetation above the water is a bit pale in tone? Not sure.
I'd probably whiten the snow in the third, but the pattern of grasses is beautiful. Again, purely on a personal level, I don't like the square format (THAT's why I never bought that Hasselblad - yeah, right) so I'd like to see the frame extended to the right, and the grasses maybe dropped down a bit.
But this is all subjective preference, not fault-finding. Post more!
Your third image would be welcomed in the "Minimalism, Abstract, Experimental" Group, as could your portfolio snowy grass..
Thanks so much for the thoughtful comments. I very much welcome the helpful critique, as I can't improve if I don't receive - and then pay attention to - the feedback. If I'm regularly producing images that receive suggestions for tweaks, instead of wholesale reshooting, I count it as winning frankly. Not least as the quality of this forum's output is so high, it's taken more quite some time for me to be comfortable signing up.
Well, Julian, your standard is WELL above average. I've really enjoyed your images. More please!
the second one is amazing. great colours and framing.
however I do like the verticle crop which joseph showed
Your second photo has me begging not for you to crop in tighter, but for more of this scene. I'm wishing it was a panorama instead! Just such a beautiful scene, and you've captured it so well. The pinks and purples have really accented each other well with the off-hue of the snow and mist far off. The only (personal) gripe I have is that the snow mound at the front doesn't really lend itself to the scene in my eyes. I don't find it to be much of a leading line (though I suppose it is a little). But I do love where you've caught the river to lead your eye straight to the back of the frame. Then my eyes hit the mountains and mist and carry across to the other side, catching the end or beginning of the sunset/sunrise, and then bends down with the trees, coming back to the river. Making my eyes want to wander around, again and again! Beautiful!
I love the blue hour shot. I'm typically a golden hour guy, but this heavy blue hour is beautiful. It gives a great sense of mood and timing. Like I'm just waking up. For once, I'm enjoying the wake up, as I slowly wake up to the mist lifting, super early in the morning. I imagine having my coffee in my hands, sitting on a small stool or even on the ground, and staring out. Slowly drinking my coffee and taking it all in. Damn man, I can almost taste the coffee and feel a slight chill in my arms looking at this!!
Thanks so much for showing how you view the images, that's immensely valuable. I'm so pleased you thought they were worth spending time on.
Image 1 - I'd love there to be more subject, to become a panorama. The view to the right and left is messy :) so didn't work as well for me. The snowy mound was placed there to do three things - provide a slight leading line, repeat the shape of the receding river (fitting shapes into each other like this is a trick I look for to connect the fore-to-background), and to provide a defined foreground without which the river become a huge amount of boring negative space.
Image 2 - LOVE the evocation of mood in your writing! Do you do that professionally? To enhance your mood, imagine it's negative four celsius with a gloomy wind nipping at your fingers, the ground beneath you is frozen sand with the ridges of yesterday's boot prints, and there is only one porch light visible behind you to lift away the blues...
Quite an entrance Julian! Welcome to fStoppers!
I love that you are getting different opinions here. It gives you food for thought! In that vein...
1) I would love to see this one much more desaturated. But, that is personal preference. These suggestions are for the lucky event that this place is able to be revisited not so much about this image. I would love to see a different perspective if you ever get back here. Unless you can get pretty uniform symmetry, centered linear subjects look off - like you just missed it - instead of helping the overall effect. You don't want the viewer thinking "just two steps to the right would be spot on" instead of just enjoying the view. (I don't know if it is the gap in the rocks on the right side or if, indeed, you are off center but I feel the centering is off.) Therefore, I think an off center composition would work better here. Another thought would be to get lower when shooting something long and linear. It would stretch out the scene and I think add a really cool dimension to this subject. Again - future thoughts!
2). Love this! Beautiful!!
3). All snow shots look dingy on fStoppers because of the bright white page. You have to open them which puts them in a black page to get a better idea of how they look. This gets a big two thumbs up from me!! Like Chris mentioned, this type of image would find a happy home in the Minimalist, Abstract and Experimental group.
Again - welcome! Keep the posts coming!
;)
Thanks! Beauty is in the eye of the beholder and all that, so I'm delighted to get various tweaks or thoughts on recomposition.
1) The lead rock is indeed off centre. I looked to balance the overall weight of the spearhead left/right, and to have roughly on the same level the leading lines in from left/right. But your impression suggests that isn't convincing enough in this case. Generally for landscapes, I try to avoid having one side of the subject/main features enter the image materially higher than the other, so as to encourage the viewer to look inwards not slide out.
I hope to see more soon!