Cave Point Iced

[wsbII]

Based on feedback received this subject was presented with a different shot that was taken and included below. Please read through to see both images and the feedback to see if the image improved.
Hello,
Was out this past weekend in Door County WI. Was intending to shoot some lighthouses, but ended up shooting more at Cave Point. My intention with this shot was to use the front lighting that was present to contrast the dark sky that was off to the side of the main object. I was also trying to focus on hyperfocal to achieve crisp focus throughout the depth.

Compositionally I was trying to pull the viewer eye in toward the foreground and back out to the water. The angle created and depth was the driving force behind how I hoped to draw the eye.

Would appreciate any and all feedback.
Thanks!
Bill



Cave Point looking SE | Flickr - Photo Sharing!

Exif Info:
0.013 sec (1/80)
Aperture f/16.0
Focal Length 24 mm
ISO Speed 100

[BCampbell]

The largest I can view is 1024px wide, so it's hard to say but it looks very soft. Softness isn't always a bad thing, but with this subject I'd think you really wantto pull the detail out of all that snow and ice.

I have also never seen snow/ice quite that color, maybe I'm wrong but the white balance feels off here.

I'm not drawn to viewing the water, maybe it's just me. But the left 1/3rd isn't really doing anything. More importantly, the bottom left corner has almost no detail, and if you want to draw the eye to the wat that's where you're drawing it from. If that corner has some detail or anything, it would pull the eye from that corner, through the icicles, and them out the top left. Since there's nothing there, the eye just enters in the center of the frame and stays there.

Lighting is very very flat. This gives some poor contrast, and you want to emphasize contrast to pull the detail out of that ice. I feel like there are a lot of clipped highlightsor something too, but again hard to tell at this size.

It's definitely an interesting subject, but I think it needs more work to make it an interesting photo.

[sourav]

I would prefer if you tilt your camera a little upwards, so that the tree is in the top right 1/3 and the curve of the ice at the centre, is at the bottom left thirds.
That way you will will have a subject, which will lead the eye towards the curve of the ice.
Cheers

[Michael_2010]

It has a lot going for it and man you can almost feel the frigid air just looking at the monitor. My eyes are being led upward toward those trees. Then there is almost a visual disappointment, because they are incomplete. It would almost be better if the frame terminated before getting up to those trees, if including the whole tree didn't work.

[Krusty79]

My first question when I saw the image was, "why is the ice brown?" The white balance has already been mentioned. Maybe a Levels adjustment will help also? I see what you were trying to do, leading the viewers eye along the "shore," but my eye also goes to the brown area below the tree, then up the the tree. Maybe because there is more detail there to draw the eye?

[wsbII]

Thanks for the feedback everyone. Lots to think about for future shooting and for working with this pic more.

The ice and lighting do seem wierd, but do reflect what was there is my feeling. I'm probably biased though. The ice was over brown rocks and was contrasted by the very light coating of new snow from the night before. Maybe the new snow and brown under the rocks made more contrast visible and makes the ice appear brown? I did check different white balance options in the raw conversion and was watching for clipping. Changed camera setting to camera neutral also to try to get as "white" as I could. I did also adjust exposure to get right to the edge of clipping without creating highlights.

I'll have to work to see how I can incorporate your feedback into making this a better shot. The lighting was weird as the day was dark and overcast, but this was shot in a very short window where the sun peaked through and really front lit the rocks and ice.

Might also have to post some other shots of the same area. The tree thing also really bugs me and i did take some vertical shots also to incorporate the tree. Feels much better compositionally, maybe I'll just work on those. Again, thanks for the feedback!!
Bill

[wsbII]

OK, so we'll see if I can incorporate feedback and improve on the image. I think there is some PP I'd still like to do, but I think I made some changes based on feedback that make the image stronger. I took two images that I had - one had the foreground on the bottom left included and one included the tree. I added them together in CS4, merged the layers once aligned to include top of tree, repaired the sky, and did some minor adjustments. THe snow appears much whiter and I did adjust white balance to "daylight" and then adjusted exposure and brightness to achieve more whiteness. Let me know if you feel I incorporated the feedback and made a better image...



cave point iced rev 1 | Flickr - Photo Sharing!

[BCampbell]

Much, MUCH more interesting foreground, that's a better balanced landscape overall.

The crooked horizon is a problem, and the sky is mostly a wash of "blah", but that's a big improvement.

[Michael_2010]

Vast improvement and now the vertical lines of the trees add to your composition. I think you could use a perspective correction in your chosen editing software to bring the horizon to level and keep the main tree vertical.

Very nice!

[EOBeav]

I agree, the second one is much better. See? You're learning already.

Now, how about shooting at a different time of day to get a more interesting sky? Alternately, you could turn this into a b/w and see where that takes you.

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