[elven]

August 17, 2006 at 9:07 pm

Now that’s my kind of subject… look at those colours!

The contrast between the moss, bark and fallen leaves here is fantastic. Unfortunately, I think that there’s just a bit too much going on in the background, and I find myself wanting to see more of the log at the front, so a shallower DoF and a viewpoint looking a bit more downwards would have been great. I also love the look of the fungi on the side of the tree, that could be a whole picture in itself – but i won’t impose my love of macro on your picture ;)

Anyway, since you have a wee message in your sig I had a quick bash at trying to isolate the foreground a bit more. Unfortunately I couldn’t find a standard crop that worked so I just stretched a square slightly, it might work well as 8×10 though. Please ignore the nastiness of the fake DoF and take it as a suggestion only!

Please tell me you took loads more of this scene, including more of those leaves…?

[elven]

August 11, 2006 at 12:01 pm

Those bubbles are great, and I like the composition with the lines of different colour. I see that the bubbles at the top look really sharp (although it’s difficult to tell without a larger image) so I’m thinking it’s your DoF from the top to the bottom, you must have not been parallel with the glass at the time.

It’s a shot I’d been thinking of trying, I had a play around with a lime on a light table a couple weeks ago too ;)

[elven]

July 25, 2006 at 8:09 am

*looks behind her*

Me? Hah!

I like the first one particularly. I think that the foreground interest makes it, as well as the nice inky shadows. Obviously the sky is the focal point, but that balances things up nicely, with the reflections on the sand and the shadows.

The second one is nice, but it is just that, if you know what I mean – I think it’s the band of cloud just above the horizon that stops any highlights from getting to the water that is the let down. Next to the other two, it doesn’t stand out so much.

The third one I also like, it’s different with the bright trail from the plane, and there’s lovely detail in the sea. Looks like it was taken from out at sea, rather than the shore – it gives a feeling of being out there with nobody around for hundreds of miles. Obviously apart from the plane that just passed overhead ;)

It could be the monitor on my laptop at work here, but the last one is a little bit washed out, the sea would look fabulous with a bit more contrast to bring out the texture of the surface, and it would also make the colours in the sky that bit more intense. But as I say that could be the monitor, it’s driving me nuts when I upload a pic and look at it next day to find out it’s nothing like what I thought when I was at home. Grrr.

[elven]

July 23, 2006 at 12:10 am

Beautiful stuff. Great to see something like that showing that it’s the person behind the camera that makes the difference, and not the gear :D

I especially like the third one, because you see those droplet pictures done to bits but it’s a different approach entirely…

Something to watch out for is the banding in the subtle change of tones like in the background of the beastie picture – I’ve been having a tough time with that one – using levels or sharpening at all will lose the nice soft transition from dark to light. It may be better to sharpen with a mask on of some kind, or by using the history brush on those bits afterwards.

Look forward to seeing more of the above!

[elven]

July 21, 2006 at 3:04 pm

I think you’re right about the sky, but stopping down the aperture in landscapes would be for the sake of greater depth of field rather than a darker exposure – if you’re not shooting in manual by setting a smaller aperture it will compensate with a longer shutter speed and you’ll end up with the same exposure, if you underexpose slightly it can help to bring out the colours a bit stronger. The problem with that here is that the castle is quite dark and another stop or two for the sake of bringing the tone of the sky down would make it difficult to make out the details in the wall. It’s also correctly exposed for the sea (to my untrained eye ;) ) so the only option here would be a graduated filter to bring the brightness of the sky down, or blending two exposures – one for the sky and one for the foreground. But that’s beyond the effort I’m prepared to go to, usually! I think with this shot, because it is a fairly bland sky, you’re better just to exclude it altogether and concentrate on the land and the ruin. I think this shot works if I move the sky off the screen to just about 2cm from the horizon.

I do like this picture though, mostly because the wee person gives you a sense of scale. On a hazy sunny day it’s pretty difficult to get anything more artistic… it might convert to bw well too, I think that always looks good on old ruins. If you do convert it to bw it would be worth burning in the foreground right at the front, because bright areas on the edge of the picture always seem to draw your eye and stop you exploring the whole scene so easily, I find. Just my humble opinion…

[elven]

July 20, 2006 at 7:30 pm

I like the sharpness too, but just as long as you only use it on the boys!!

I’m going to chip in with another vote for a square crop. First thing I thought when I saw it. I like the emphasis on the blues and greens here.

[elven]

July 20, 2006 at 7:28 pm

It’s not the cropping or the lack of something in the foreground, it’s balance, for me – I wish it was more bottom heavy, to concentrate on the expanse of sea with the lovely rock silhouettes inthe distance, and just a bit of sky. I love that blue tone though. Would even like to see it darker, make the rocks totally black with no detail and the blue really rich. But I’m going through a ‘dark’ phase just now!!

[elven]

July 20, 2006 at 1:01 pm

Mmmmmhm, I love it. I like it even better if I view it with about half the sky off the page, to concentrate more on the sand because I think that’s where the interest is.

[elven]

July 19, 2006 at 11:16 am

Maybe I’ll post it in the “Pictures That Include Creatures Although Not Necessarily Proper Wildlife Shots” forum ;)

[elven]

July 19, 2006 at 10:34 am

Mark wrote:

I like the composition of the photograph, its very pleasing to the eye.

As a ‘wildlife’ photograph though, I’m not sure about it. The colour cast albeit from the natural light doesn’t do anything for me.
The bird is too distant/small in the photograph.

Just my 2c worth :)

Mark

Cheers, I appreciate that – it was never meant as a real ‘wildlife’ shot though, more just for the overall scene and mood.

[elven]

July 18, 2006 at 4:34 pm

I liked the other one of the scorpion bloke too, this one is a different style entirely but they both work well.

I like the sharpening. I wouldn’t want to lose the gritty-ness of the wall. For me, the only thing I’d say is that the saturation is quite in-betweeny, I’d like it desaturated quite a bit more (maybe to complete bw or not even), or ramped right up as well as the contrast to give a different look again.

I think it’s a picture that you could re-work in a few ways to give almost completely different finished images.

[elven]

July 18, 2006 at 4:28 pm

LoGill wrote:

Very nice – A suggestion…. if you have time to edit it again and crop out the horizon( line of grey at the top), i think it would look cool if you see only water surrounding the bird… it might add a bit of mystery to the shot.. I like it though :)

Lorraine

Funny you should say that, when I was working on it I originally cropped out the horizon and quite liked it. But when I compared the two, it seemed more balanced when it still had it included, I think because it gave a sense of the infinite horizon behind the bird (hmm, that sounds a bit pretentious but I don’t mean it that way, honest)

As for the darkness of the shot… it’ll have to be put down to personal taste I think, if I lighten it, I lose all the atmosphere. When I think of how it actually looked in front of me IRL, it wasn’t brighter than this – in fact I’d possibly say that the bird was almost a silhouette. I think to brighten it up would kill the mood. But thanks for taking the time to leave a comment, people, it’s all stored away in the memory banks for next time I’m out there ;)

[elven]

July 18, 2006 at 3:29 pm

Fffft, not only is it lovely and sharp but you managed to leave space in front of the bird too, damn it’s good.

I think a border would be nice, just something very very subtle, as fajitas said, to take away the hard edge.

[elven]

July 14, 2006 at 9:18 pm

Trying for an early night so just a quick note – that first one really did it for me. It just captured the cheekiness perfectly I think. If it was my sprog I’d love a big print of that.

[elven]

July 14, 2006 at 9:00 pm

Ah, there’s no image data on a slide… :roll:

It would have been mid afternoon I expect, the sun not too high in the sky. That one with the reflection is probably about 4 years old, difficult to remember!!!