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I think you need abit ore in there , but it also looks over exposed. Why f20? No need for thatat all. f8 would be enough and you are just going to get a slowshutter speed and shake. You still seem to be missing the functions of shutter speed and aperture?
Paul
Paul
Yep, watch all your settings. You'll get the best quality in the middle of the aperture range, F8 to F11 would have been quite small enough here. A faster shutter speed would be safer. You didn't necessarily need to go up to ISO 400...
That's the techie bit. You managed a decent quality shot, the important thing now for me is the composition. This is an intriguing subject, I can see why it appealed to you. It conveys loneliness, isolation. It almost works. I think that composition-wise the problem is that the right-hand buoy is very close to the 50/50 divide, the space above and the space below somehow cancel each other out.
I have uploaded a modification. I cropped to nearer to letter box, to place the buoys higher. I made a Levels adjustment to strengthen them, but that loses some of the mistiness. I also burned in the reflections a bit.
It's tricky to work with an even number of items, three would work very nicely together here. Somehow one is too small on its own, two seems unsatisfactory.
So I see this as a very thoughtful not-quite-right image...
Moira
That's the techie bit. You managed a decent quality shot, the important thing now for me is the composition. This is an intriguing subject, I can see why it appealed to you. It conveys loneliness, isolation. It almost works. I think that composition-wise the problem is that the right-hand buoy is very close to the 50/50 divide, the space above and the space below somehow cancel each other out.
I have uploaded a modification. I cropped to nearer to letter box, to place the buoys higher. I made a Levels adjustment to strengthen them, but that loses some of the mistiness. I also burned in the reflections a bit.
It's tricky to work with an even number of items, three would work very nicely together here. Somehow one is too small on its own, two seems unsatisfactory.
So I see this as a very thoughtful not-quite-right image...
Moira
It's minimalism almost to an extreme degree, which some people will really like and others won't; I sort of fall somewhere between the two. So other than a bit of contrast and perhaps a crop, which Moira's done already, there's not a lot else I can suggest.
If I'm being honest, I don't really know what to do with it in a 'normal' sense!
So ... I thought I'd give you a creative alternative instead as a mod. Cropped to virtually square, one of the buoys cloned, flipped and moved downwards to create a trio (which is more pleasing for me); I toned it using a Colour Lookup adjustment layer (FoggyNight, which did some interesting things to the tonal values ...) and then just applied a standard Photoshop filter from the Gallery (Ink Outlines in the Brush Strokes sub-gallery, I believe) and played with the settings until I got something interesting.
No, it doesn't look like your original any more and yes, it's possibly not helpful in terms of improving the SOOC version above, but if you're at a loss with an image it doesn't hurt sometimes to go down the creative route instead of the 'normal' one
Tanya
If I'm being honest, I don't really know what to do with it in a 'normal' sense!
So ... I thought I'd give you a creative alternative instead as a mod. Cropped to virtually square, one of the buoys cloned, flipped and moved downwards to create a trio (which is more pleasing for me); I toned it using a Colour Lookup adjustment layer (FoggyNight, which did some interesting things to the tonal values ...) and then just applied a standard Photoshop filter from the Gallery (Ink Outlines in the Brush Strokes sub-gallery, I believe) and played with the settings until I got something interesting.
No, it doesn't look like your original any more and yes, it's possibly not helpful in terms of improving the SOOC version above, but if you're at a loss with an image it doesn't hurt sometimes to go down the creative route instead of the 'normal' one
Tanya
Jayar-Thank you, the 'mystery' feel is one of the targets as was isolation, loneliness, stillness.
Moira-I like the crop but 'mourn' the loss of mist. There was a small lighthouse on the far left but I wasn't able to get it without a whack of brush and the tail end of a sailboat, the whole would have cluttered the left side up to much and the goose on the far right was not in a cooperative mood. I have taken your crop and left the mist, it is mod 3.
Tanya-minimal is what I wanted as I haven't tried that before but I also wanted to convey the isolation and stillness. I think you may be onto something with being creative, I should try it on one of my many 'blah' images
Everyone-I really appreciate your time and thought put into your critiques. My only regret is that I always feel rushed in that I rarely get to take photo's deliberately and thus haven't yet been able to provide evidence that your tutoring is having a positive impact. Perhaps the day will come....
Moira-I like the crop but 'mourn' the loss of mist. There was a small lighthouse on the far left but I wasn't able to get it without a whack of brush and the tail end of a sailboat, the whole would have cluttered the left side up to much and the goose on the far right was not in a cooperative mood. I have taken your crop and left the mist, it is mod 3.
Tanya-minimal is what I wanted as I haven't tried that before but I also wanted to convey the isolation and stillness. I think you may be onto something with being creative, I should try it on one of my many 'blah' images
Everyone-I really appreciate your time and thought put into your critiques. My only regret is that I always feel rushed in that I rarely get to take photo's deliberately and thus haven't yet been able to provide evidence that your tutoring is having a positive impact. Perhaps the day will come....
