Cityscape from the Park

[Joe A]

I'm just starting out with photography, and this is my first post on the critique forums (or any forum here, for that matter). This shot was taken at Big Spring Park in downtown Huntsville, Alabama, with a Canon Rebel XS and 18-55mm kit lens. I used aperture priority mode with an aperture of f/22, and shutter speed 1/25. My main concern in this (and most of my pictures) is lighting. I shot it in RAW format, and I spent what seemed like hours playing with the settings in Lightroom, trying to make it perfect. I guess I'm a perfectionist like that, but the problem is that in my mind, it's never good enough. So how is the lighting in this picture? Any tips on lighting, either while shooting or in post processing, or general advice on what could be improved in this picture? Thank you so much for any advice or criticism!

[Japaslavian]

It's hard to say anything specifically about "lighting" in a scene that is lit naturally because it's not like you have that much control over the scene. From the looks of it, you went at a good time of day, but (to me) it looks as if you brightened the main building to the left without equally balancing the rest of the scene. The main building seems to stick out because of an irregularity in the processing more than just 'popping out.'
Though much more subtle, your processing seems to have darkened the buildings to the far right, while leaving reflections brighter, which is backwards. This seems to be a result from trying to darken the sky, and mistakenly darkening the buildings as well. The trees are seeing a similar reaction.
If you spent hours trying to fix your exposure, chances are you would have been much more successful just re-shooting. If the light outside is giving you difficulty in evenly balancing your exposure, take multiple shots at different shutter speeds and pick and pull from each shot with masks rather than trying to adjust 1 image multiple times. This will preserve quality as well as give you a much more natural looking scene.

As far as composition goes, you have split your image exactly in half, placing equal emphasis on the scene and the reflection. I would encourage you to put more emphasis on one or the other. For instance, you could get a little creative and focus almost entirely on the reflection, and flip the image
e.g.
Untitled | Flickr - Photo Sharing!

It also might help if you gave the main building a little breathing room from the edge of the crop. That will emphasize it more, especially since it's being shown at a nice angle.

Hope that helps...

[Joe A]

Sorry, I guess exposure was the word I was looking for... not lighting. I see what you mean now that you mention it, how I've darkened the other buildings and trees too much, and you're right, I'm sure it was when I was trying to darken the sky. So I need to try to make the lighting more even, and work on cropping the image to put more emphasis on the big building. And I really like the idea of focusing on the reflection... that picture you linked looks pretty darn cool.

Thanks for the advice!