Dusty Road

[2stroke]

What do you think of this in Composition and post process.
Is it too heavy on the "curves" or is it realistic.

I liked the dusty road tracking across the valley into the sunset.



Camera Sony DSLR-A300
Exposure 0.8
Aperture f/7.1
Focal Length 26 mm
ISO Speed 100
Exposure Bias 0 EV

[2stroke]

No response? must mean my image is perfect

OK, some more questions then...

What would YOU have done to make this image different or better in your eyes in either composition or post process?

Is the image pleasing?

Is there not enough subject matter? or is the subtle dusty road against the sky enough?

thanks for any input, including harsh critique welcomed.

[rpritch01]

I like the shot... I am newbe but IMHO maybe a little tighter shot remove some of the darkness around the bottom edge and the city lights along the left side of mountain range... this would maybe brink in the dust trail tighter and sunset along the range better...

[SwissJon]

Agreed. I find the photo pleasing for the colours, but my eye wanders looking for a purpose. You need some more foreground interest or a tighter shot..

[2stroke]

Thank you,

I think I also agree about the lack of something to hold the eye. I didnt have foreground light to work with, this was quite late in the sunset . Think I will try a tighter crop and pick up more of the dust trail and cutting out some of the foreground blackness and upper colorless sky.

It captured my mood at the time, which was post race tired yet enjoying a good IPA as the race crowd drove down the road and race pace faded with the light and I stayed out another evening to enjoy round the campfire.

[Krusty79]

I agree with the previous comments. If you hadn't mentioned the dusty road, I wouldn't have even realized it was there. Ideally, you would be able to compose the shot so the road leads the eye further into the image (not diagonally). You do have some nice colors and shot this at a good time of day, but I believe the composition has to feature the road more.

[Jonbar18]

Regarding the lack of subject; It is missing one, but I don't think It's lacking one. My eye did wander around a bit, but then settled on the lit mountains. The sky is beautiful, but I agree with Krusty.

[SwissJon]

Originally Posted by Jonbar18

Regarding the lack of subject; It is missing one, but I don't think It's lacking one. My eye did wander around a bit, but then settled on the lit mountains. The sky is beautiful, but I agree with Krusty.

Just to pick up on this..

A photograph is a piece of art, not more, no less just different from a painting, a sketch, a sculpture, a piece of music or a film.

You, the photographer, are the artist.

To appreciate art, the person viewing the picture needs to be taken on a journey. You need to lead the observer into the art work, they need to appreciate its raison d'etre initially, that then lead them on to the subtleties and intricacies, make them look harder and closer, and finally understand what the artist was trying to portray as a whole, and stand back and say"Wow".

If you just throw some pretty colours at someone with the vague hope that they're going to "get it" if they look long enough, they're going to get bored fairly quickly. They'll go "Oh I like those colours" and then move on. That may work on this site, because we're all looking closely, but in the real world, it's not going to.

You look at the truely great pieces of work, I'm not just talking about photographers like Ansel Adams, Robert Doisneau etc. I'm talking about, for example, Monet, look at his abstract work, "Sunrise" for example.. Notice how the surise is given meaning by the context.. The foreground boat grabs immediate attention, then the second boat lead you to the subtle trees, then the docks, and finally the sun with the reflection leading you back to the boat.. Finally the journey is over and you can stand back and appreciate the work as a whole. You'll find similar journeys in other things.. Films give you a fairly obvious example of a journey, if there isn't one, you fairly quickly get bored, but think about the Venus Di Milo.. The journey starts at the face, leads you down the neck and to the body.. It doesn't matter there are no arms, they would have been a distraction anyhow, but when you've surveyed the parts, your eye naturally takes a step back and you appreciate the sculpture as a whole, and "get it" that the sculpture was trying to represent their image of the perfect female form.

Now that's difficult to achieve, especially for a photographer, who is representing reality and can't move a boat because it's not where you want it. (Actually, with Photoshop, that's less and less true, but anyway..)

I don't suggest that I can actually achieve that in every picture I take, but you need to keep it in mind when you're taking photographs, it'll help you compose the shot better.

[danbaileyphoto]

I actually like this shot a whole lot. I think that it could be fine tuned with some exposure tweaks, just to bring out the dusty trail of the car, but for the most part, I think you've got a really interesting story that tracks nicely across the frame. It's got nice subject placement and good framing, and it has a couple of secondary subject elements to give it some added interest.

Really nice job!

[2stroke]

To all: thanks for the input, love to hear it all and it will I hope help in my next captures to get me thinking it through it less mechanically and more compositional.

Looking back, things I would have done differently:

In composition, move more to the north to get the road traveling more into the scene and less across it. This was of course limited by the terrain I was in, carrying my photo backpack, tripod, and all ready opened beer on my wife's motorcycle up to the ridge... spend some time to pre-scout an area with ultimate composition in mind

Mechanically, level the tripod. It is subtle but the valley (Lucerne dry lake) isnt level. Possibly try a ND grad filter to meter for the sky and allow a longer shutter to see if some light trails from the motorhomes help draw attention and add some light to the lower portion of the scene.

I would sure like to move from snapshot to art, even if it only speaks to me and my family, I would still like to achieve the art of it.