Sunset silhoutte

[poonamagarwals]

Hi everyone:

I am new to this forum as well as to the world of photography.

Over the past few weeks, I have basically been experimenting with composition rules & different techniques.

Below is a shot I took in Mumbai of some people walking down a heap of wave-breakers to get closer to the sea. The careful-yet-casual nature of this act interested me.

Want to invite your criticism on any aspect.

Is there far too much sky?
Is the sun too centered?
Should I have exposed it less?

Anything else!



Thanks a lot everyone. Looking forward to learning a lot from here!

[MTO4Life]

The biggest thing for me is the horizon is not level.

[poonamagarwals]

Thanks for that.

Extremely basic point that I missed.

Any other comments?

[S_Sanyal]

Great first post.I like the shot a lot. Nariman Point?? The horizon certainly needs to be straight as noted above.

Apart from that, first the good:
great composition; sun being centred is not an issue in this case. the sky (given the current amount of space it is seen occupying) would have been better with some drama . clouds etc. but well, thats not in your control.

Now, things that can / could have / improved. Submitting for your future consideration:
1. Since you have a silhouette in any case, I think underexposing by a stop or two would give you a better feel of water, which in this case, has blended too much with the sky and is not distinct, its a bit nondescript...which brings me to my next point.

2. The water blending seems to be a white balance issue, the image on the whole seems a bit unrealistically yellow! (if you were to show us your exposure info viz. camera, lens, focal length, exposure time, aperture, ISO, temperature etc. we can advise better)

3. This is a drastic alternative, I'm guessing I am familiar with this place as I mentioned above; suppose you were to pan down to have the horizon run through the upper third of the frame to get more sea, since the sky is flat-ish, you may have got some interesting texture in 2/3rd of the picture , and have the silhouettes standing against the water rather than sky...

All in all, a nice image; what makes it for me is the dynamic postures of the people, which adds a dimension to the other wise "just sitting pretty" sunset!

Thanks for reading the long story.. Cheers.

[poonamagarwals]

Hey Saptarshi

Thanks for the detailed comments! Lot of good advice there.

This is not Nariman Point .. Similar for all practical purposes though - another beach closer to beach candy.

Below are the image specs:

Model: NIKON D90
ISO: 250
Exposure: 1/750 sec
Aperture: 9.5
Focal Length: 24mm
Flash Used: No

Do these explain the blending of the water and the sky?

Also, tried what you said - cropped the image a bit. And straightened the horizon. What do you think?

[Krusty79]

I like the cropped version, but that may be just because the horizon is level. There is a feeling from the first image that is lost though, IMO. In the first shot, I get the feeling of how small the people are in relation to the vast sea and sky. In the cropped version, that feeling is lost for me. I don't know if that is the feeling you wanted to convey, so you may like the cropped version more. I would like to compare the cropped version with a level version of the first shot.

[Michael_2010]

This is a tough crowd! lol

I really like both crops of the shot. The crooked horizon jumps out at me in the first version, but that is because I like to shoot landscapes and look at a whole bunch of them with an analytical eye. Most viewers probably wouldn't even notice. They would just think something was a little off.

[poonamagarwals]

Thanks Krusty & Michael for your inputs.

I agree that the sense of balancing oneself against the odds is lost in the cropped image. Below is the original image with a straighter horizon.



How can I get this better next time?
How do i get the water / sky divide distinctly?
Should the sun be more defined?

Thanks a ton for the inputs!

[S_Sanyal]

This last one is the best IMO. Significant improvement done in sky, water, sun.

I just had a crazy thought: the fact that your people are balancing (which is the essence of this image and makes it dynamic) somehow lends validity to a crooked horizon. Suppose you intend to portray “balance” in a weird way (which I doubt you do, my brain tends to think in a skewed manner sometimes ), a bold and intentional un-even horizon could lend it a funky feel, much unlike our original interpretation of a pretty sunset and silhouettes.

Poonam, I hope you don’t mind, but I did some keeda (sorry others, that’s urban Indian lingo which means “fooled around”) with the small image, attached here for illustration of the points i've made. Just having fun and thinking weird. Also corrected some of the colours to bring it closer to what the eye sees; as I mentioned earlier,the yellows in your image are only created in a camera’s sensor and hence, unrealistic..this colour correction is crucial to the water/sea divide... If you object, I’ll take down my edit.

I'll maintain that I like what you posted . We all love sunsets, my earliest posts in DPS were sunsets; this time 'round I’m just trying to make what would be another sunset, a little more edgy!

[poonamagarwals]

Hi Saptarshi

Thanks for taking the time out for this. Really appreciate your effort and input!

This image does look good. I am gonna try it myself. Just wondering how to get the colour right. I tried reducing the colour temperature; but it looks un-natural that way. What else can I do?

Also, do you think this is because I'd set the white balance to shade when I took the picture?

Thanks a mil!

- P