Japanese clock

[amrita]

Hello again everyone,

This is another photo I took whilst strolling around Kyoto trying to practice street photography.

I found this scene and was really drawn to the clock. The sky was pretty blown out and I played around with the pic in iPhoto afterwards.

My questions are
- what do you think of the composition
- how does the image look in terms of my iPhoto fiddling? I am a complete novice with post production and have just fiddled with it to my own taste and would be keen to see what the general opinion is.

Also - just to check - Have I posted this picture in the right section - I'm not really sure that it falls under 'landscape' or 'cityscape'...

Thanks!

From 03.02 Kyoto Feb 2011

Model: Canon EOS 500D
ISO: 400
Exposure: 1/320 sec
Aperture: 10.0
Focal Length: 55mm
Flash Used: No

[amrita]

Hmm, ok so no takers.

I can assume
1. Its perfect, everyone loves it and cannot criticize it! (unlikely)
2. It horrible, everyone hates it and doesnt want to hurt my feelings by saying so
3. I posted it in the wrong section
4. Nobody cares

??

[Nicole]

You have posted in the right section (so that's at least one thing off your list ). Critique is kind of hit and miss sometimes. And sometimes it is that people don't feel they have much to offer so a thread goes ignored. That said, here's my opinion so you don't have to feel like nobody cares :

Starting with the post-processing, for the most part it looks good to me. I'm not sure just how blown out the sky was, but you've done a good job recovering it without going overboard. I do like the fact that some of the photo has gone to silhouettes. However, the clock seems too dark to draw my eye. Generally your eye is drawn to the brightest part of the image. Here, that's the bright cloud area on the right.

Which in a way brings me to the composition, I'm not too sure about it. Like I said, the cloud draws my eye more than the clock, which you've said is your subject. The clock doesn't quite stand out to me. I think that I can imagine what stood out when you were taking the shot, but to me it's not quite translating over. While it probably wouldn't have been possible with the locations of things, I would have liked it more if the fence wasn't behind the clock, but rather balanced it out on the other side. But that was probably not possible, so we'll leave that aside . The other thing I'd say about the composition is to consider what each element adds. The power line along the top isn't adding much in my view. However, if the other elements were arranged differently, I could see how it would contribute (strange, I know).

Overall, I think it could be a much stronger shot, but it might be better with a reshoot to figure out how to make it a bit stronger of a scene (though you probably wouldn't get the clouds... oh what a dilemma!). Don't give up!

And welcome to the forums!

[amrita]

HI Nicole

Thanks for your reply! And for sorting through my list. Lol.

Thanks of course for your feedback. I took a lot of photos of the clock the day I went out and I posted this one as it was the one I was least sure of and thought would be most criticized. In a way though, it was also my favourite. For some reason, I really like the power lines and the basketball net as it makes me feel that the clock is forlorn and forsaken in this industrial like setting. But I guess the composition doesn't tell that story. I will head back and try to reshoot. Luckily for me me the clouds in Kyoto don't seem to be budging!

Thanks again.

[Krusty79]

Someone said on another thread that your eye is naturally drawn to the brightest area of an image, so that's why Nicole said her eye goes to the bright cloud and not to the clock. Your clock is in the dark part of the image, so that makes it harder to make it stand out. Another approach would be to keep the clock in focus, but blur the background.

Also, I don't think those power lines at the top of your shot are supporting your subject. They do not lead my eye towards the subject, but away from it.