In the country

[Todd]

I took these today on the way to a funeral. I am hopeing someone can tell me if I can do anything with the covered bridge shot, the other was just for fun my kids thought it looked neat. Thanks. By the way I was in a car in motion, I hope to go back there someday when I can stop and take some not in motion. Oh well thanks

[Farkled]

It's now taken over 5 minutes (on 8mb broadband) to NOT be able to see your photos. All I get is connection reset, database error, can't find server, timed out, etc. I'm sorry, I''ll try again in the AM. I think if I had any Yahoo stock I'd be selling about now

[michellepotter]

I love the sepia tree - just awesome. I think I'd like the first covered bridge shot better with less sky.

[uvsub]

hi, I like the barn shot. It does look neat, but I'd lose the partial tree on the right. It serves no purpose there since the lovely tree and barn shot can hold their own.

As for the bridge shot, the last one where the countryside is washed out...there's alot of potential there. I love the beautifully exposed floor boards...to really enhance this shot, the countryside needs to be reeled in and properly exposed either by using the shadow/highlight feature in photoshop to tone down the landscape or going back and reshooting the shot by using a tripod and making two exposures. One exposed for the landscape and the other for the floor boards and combining both in photoshop.

The bridge is a beautiful frame for the landscape but I would crop in more on the sides and top.

Of course there are many other options for shooting covered bridges. It's the exposure that is tricky given the sharp contrast between the interior and the sunlit landscape.

[Nicole]

I like the sepia tone on the first picture. I think that it suits it quite well.

With the pictures of the covered bridge, have you tried to combine the two pictures that you have? As uvsub said , the shot with the countryside being really washed out has a lot of potential. I think that it's too overblown to actually salvage using the highlights / shadow adjustment because the sky is totally white and the grass / trees are almost in the same situation. However, I tried combining your two shots, and I think that could really make a huge difference. If you're interested, I can post what I've done and the steps I used.

For future attempts, you may be able to use a flash inside the bridge and that would give you a faster shutter speed to get the outdoors exposed correctly. Or you might try using a filter, such as a polarizer. It's definitely a hard situation to get everything correctly exposed though, so it may take some experimenting Good luck!

[jiminyClickit]

Todd,

The barn shot is worth a comment, as it illustrates a point to consider when photographing buildings: the front entrance is much like a face in a portrait. You would not have a person in left side of frame face left. Most objects can be thought of this way; think 'portrait/face' while framing a shot.

[angeleyes216]

My friend had a similar picture painted on his living room wall.