Cows on the street

[diablo]

Hello all,
I am new here and quite new to photography. Could you advise how I may improve the two images I shot from a car in India?
Although there was a street lamp, I forgot to get the white balance to tungsten, so the picture has an orange color. But IMHO it adds to the picture. But, hey, you are the experts!


I also have a couple more pictures added in different threads for your advise. Please do advise how I may improve.
Thanks a bunch.
Gautham Kasinath

http://www.flickr.com/photos/elbonita

[purplepixie]

There are probably several things you could do to improve these technically (will leave that the the experts), but I think they are fabulous and very creative - the colour adds to the grungy feel. I prefer the one without the pole in the middle - would have been better slightly off centre - maybe try cropping. Nice work

[diablo]

Hey purplepixie,
Thanks a bunch for replying. Thought I realized that I hadnt turned the tungsten WB on, when I viewed the pictures on my dSLR they looked good.
The picture with the pole in the center seemed with lot more things in focus, hence I like that. But the other one had just one cow in focus with minimum blur. I liked the expression of that cow.

How do you reckon I must crop the first picture for a better effect?

Thanks again for the comments. I really appreciate it.

Cheers
G

[hitkaiser]

If you want to fix the white balance open it up in photoshop (or similar), under the edit menu choose "auto colour", it often works

Although I think it looks good being orange, at first without reading the text i thought "indian cows!"

Considering it was from a car, its quite an achievement to get a good image... but due to this its not as sharp as it could be.

I think the cows on the left could be cropped down, since their blur isn't a blur that suggests movement... its just a blur

The second image won;t load up for me
But as a general tip, if you are in a car or other situation where you don't have much time nor control over what you are seeing then switch your camera to burstmode/continous mode and shoot away, pick the one which is in focus and throw the rest

The pros take hundreds to come out with just the one good image

[jiminyClickit]

diablo, Welcome

You might practice by shooting different moving objects while you stand still on a street corner; cars, cyclists, birds, runners. This will give you the needed skills and camera settings that you may use in a moving car where you are the moving object and the cow is standing on the corner.

The right half of your first photo and the center of the second would both be good after crop. The Parent/Child setup would be enough of a subject. Your Perth Skyline is really a good shot, too.

[diablo]

Hey everybody,

Thanks a bunch for the tips. I will try to crop the pics as per your advise and post the new ones on the forum for further comments.
Does anyone know about GIMP and filters (especially polarizer) for it?

Thanks
G