Quincy Mine Boiler House

[dcclark]

Hi all,

I have recently started to feel like I need some constructive criticism on my photography, so here I am! :)

This photo was taken yesterday during one of our rare sunny winter days, while snowshoeing around some nearby copper mine ruins.

I am particularly interested in comments on the composition and color. My intention was to use the wide(ish) angle to create a sense of depth, with the boiler stack rising above everything else. How do you feel about the cropping of the other buildings? The horizontal orientation? Any other comments about composition and colors are especially welcome.

http://www.mathlab.mtu.edu/~dcclark/DSC_1818.JPG

Technical details:
Aperture: f/7.1
Shutter: 1/200
ISO: 100
Mode: Program (shifted for greater depth of field)
Exposure comp: -1/3 stop
Color balance: sunlight setting, no other color adjustments
Camera: Nikon D40x
Lens: Nikon 18-55 II (kit lens) at 18 mm -- wish I had something wider
Filter: Polarizer

[jdepould]

The crop does bother me a little, and I think you're right about needing something wider. 18mm is pretty wide, but one of the 12-24 f/4s or the Sigma 10-22 would really shine here. Compositionally, I think you're mind is in the right place.

I probably would've gone even smaller with the aperture (f/16, even) to really max out the DoF and sharpness.

Color rendering and saturation both look good, were you shooting raw or jpeg?

[dcclark]

jdepould,

Thanks! The Sigma 10-22 is on my list, when I've saved up for it. 18mm is wide-ish, but not really what I would like for this sort of shot.

I was shooting jpeg, sunlight color balance, no other color tweaking.

[oriolhdz]

Hi dcclark:
I like the photo as it is. It has a nice composition and color are strong. What I think and I'm not particular into HDR but it could do a really stunning photo with it. Just play to see what you get.
Thanks for sharing it!

[dcclark]

oriolhdz,

Thank you also! I'm very leery of HDR, the images almost always look synthetic to me (because, well, they are). I plan on returning to the site to see what I can do, so perhaps I will give that a try then.

[Sela]

oriolhdz,

Thank you also! I'm very leery of HDR, the images almost always look synthetic to me (because, well, they are). I plan on returning to the site to see what I can do, so perhaps I will give that a try then.

Well a camera is a machine afterall so all pictures are synthetic...:-) But I know what you mean about HDR, it can look overly artificial.

I love the color and exposure in this picture, love the subject...my only suggestion is to try framing it differently (or cropping) without the smokestack right smack dab in the middle of the picture. I think centering can be good when symmetry is important but I'm not seeing symmetry here. As it is currently composed my eye just goes right up the smokestack and stays there without any other looking around the picture. I think if you had the smokestack more off center the eye would travel more in the frame and eventually go up the smokestack. I think it might make for a more dynamic image (that old rule of thirds!). Of course it's all a personal creative choice but it might be worth playing around with...

[netbymatt]

Great color in this photo. If you were trying to convey a sense of height, you may want to try out a more vertical crop, and if you get the chance a wider lens.

[dcclark]

Thank you all!

Yes, the arrangement of the three primary elements (the roof, the side wall, and the smokestack) is exactly what I'm interested in. I think that the wooden roof is visually very interesting as well, so I could perhaps reframe to include more of it.

Next sunny day we get (hmm, maybe in April?) I'll be out to try it again.

[ELAY]

I agree that colour, composition, exposure all look good. I do agree with the f/stop comment above -- you have tons of flex, so why not go up to at least f/11 here?

But looking this photo over, and reading your narrative, I have to say that the one thing this photo lacks is a sense of depth.

In trying to figure out why, I had two thoughts. First of all, although the smokestack is further into the frame than the foreground buildings, there are no visual or perspective clues to tell us that. So I don't think having the stack there gets you your depth, at least not the way you have framed it.

Second, I think shooting upwards also flattened the photo a bit, in the sense that you are sort of trading horizontal depth for vertical depth.

I think this works as an architectural shot, but I think you would need to capture some ground or a more clear foreground/middle/background arrangement to get the depth you ask about.

Last note -- I got a Sigma 10-20 for Christmas. Not being a snowshoer I haven't gotten outside with it much. Having said that, I have found that the kit is actually a pretty good wide angle lens at 18mm.

[dcclark]

Thanks for the comments, ELAY.

Two people have mentioned that I should stop down farther to max out the depth of field. This seems strange to me, for two reasons:

1. The depth of field already seems very good, and, at least without zooming in to a much larger size, everything seems to be in good focus.

2. Beyond f/11, and certainly at f/20, diffraction will come in to play and more than cancel out any sharpness / DOF gains which I would see.

As for the sense of depth in the photo, I'm not sure about it -- I'm going to go try some new things when I can get back up to the mine. However, the layered arrangement of roof-wall-smokestack is what I thought would give it depth, with exactly that fore-middle-background arrangement you mentioned. I think that including the ground itself in the shot would probably make it much less dramatic. Perhaps there's another way...

Thanks again!

[ELAY]

Re the stopping down, I agree that diffraction may come into play at f/16 and beyond (at least that is what they say -- never shot there myself). But in this kind of shot, stopping down will give you a larger DOF -- so why not if the light supports it? No down side whatsoever, and the upside is improved sharpness throughout.

As for the smokestack and the fore/middle/back thing, I understood that this was what you are doing. The problem I think is that there aren't enough cues in the photo -- whether receding ground, size cues, leading lines, haze, or whatever, you need something that allows us to connect the fore/mid/back objects in a way that conveys the depth.

[ScooberJake]

This shoot looks great and has a lot of potential!

My thought is that you might be trying to do too much. I see a couple different shots here. One is the foreground building, with that great crumbling roof line and the beautiful rust color that contrasts with the sky and/or snow. A second would be the tall building and smokestack, with the cool silouhette of the building skeleton shot through the window and maybe the smokestack as another interest. A third shot, which I think is the one that you took, would be the overall shot, showing the depth of the buildings. I think maybe the proximity and/or tight crop may be working against you here.

Pretty cool that you will likely have a chance to go back there. Where is this mine?

[Tafnap]

I like the color, what I don't like is all the lines keeps taking me away from the smoke stack or the smoke stack almost dead center. What if you did it more like a panoramic picture to include more right and left or which ever way has more intersting things to see?

I see why you like it maybe be even better as two pictures one more left and one more right making the stack either in the left side of one of the pictures and in the right hand side in the other.

[dcclark]

ScooberJake,

Thanks for the comment. I would like to take a shot through the building skeleton, which is pretty amazing. Also, yes a vertical crop will probably remove some distractions and emphasize the height of the stack.

The mine is literally a stone's throw away, up here in upper Michigan. It's like Eddie Izzard said about castles in Europe: "Tourists think they're so romantic. But sometimes you just want to go to the store -- there's always a frickin' MINE in the way!"