Super Moon

[dvtldav]

Here is my shot of the "Super Moon". I went to this lake about 45 minutes from where I live that has this cottage on this little island and I knew the moon would be coming up over it somewhere. I used a 2 stop graduated ND filter plus some PP to keep from blowing out the moon but still get some detail in the cottage. Would lightening this in PP help? I looked at it lightened and it didn't look as natural. How is the composition and PP. Any other critique will be welcome as I am still learning.

Thanks

Dave



EXIF:
Camera: Canon XSi
Exposure: 1/6sec @ F/11
ISO: 100
Lens: 55-250 mm @ 123mm

[navcom]

I think it's a pretty good capture. Compositionally it's a bit unbalanced. It has great elements but they are just not quite balanced in the scene. The two main elements (moon and cabin) are kind of sharing the same vertical line but the line is slightly off center. While having them centered probably won't be perfect, having them slightly off center is a bit worse.

It might help to crop in a bit closer to get rid of some of the elements on the left and right that don't support the composition too much. Crop it in such a way as to make the horizon occupy the lower 1/3 of the image and so the cabin is slightly right of center and the moon is slightly left. That will bring a bit more balance.

Nice use of your ND grad!

Hope that helps!

[dvtldav]

I see what you mean about cropping some on the left & right and some up from the bottom. I will have to try that and see how it looks and try to get the moon & cabin offset as you mentioned. I will probably wait until I have had a few more critiques so maybe I can incorporate several changes at once.
Thanks for the input.

Dave

[mosgood]

I dunno, I kind of like it the way it is with the moon over the cottage. The only thing I don't like is that you can see some other cabins & stuff behind the cottage which is a bit distracting. I'm not sure how you could PP out the other buildings without it looking like it's been heavily PP.

[SwissJon]

I agree with Navcom's take on it being unbalanced, but with things that aren't symmetrical, I feel that putting them centrally would be a mistake. My feeling would be to crop it in such a way as to move the subjects to the right, and then flip it horizontally, so the subjects are reversed and in the left had side of the frame. Because we read from left to right, our eyes naturally scan in that direction, if you put the empty part of the frame on the left, your eye scans over it and ignores it. If you put it in the right, the eye sees the subject first, and starts the story.. In this photo that would mean that you look at the moon, then the cottage, then follow the island down until you reach the little bird at the end, something you're likely to miss in this version.

When looking for meaning and purpose, we miss the details and nuances in any form of art, when we find meaning and purpose, we instinctively look for detail to around that, but very rarely will we backtrack over areas that our subconscious has already told us are empty while we were looking for the meaning.

[dvtldav]

Here is the cropped & flipped version. Is it better than the original or does it still need something done to it?

[SwissJon]

It certainly feels better that way to me, but I feel you may have cropped too close, you've lost the fact that the house is on an island. Was the original the uncropped version? Can you leave a little more to the right on this photo? And just a couple of mm to the left also? And more of the reflection?

Would be good if you can find a way to bring the brightness up just a small amount.. Not much, just enough to make the house more visible?

It's a lovely photo, it's just a case of finding the shot within the shot.

[navcom]

I think the main drawback to both compositions is the fact that it doesn't fall into a balanced category very easily. I think that's because the moon is not directly over the building so it doesn't feel right centering everything. And the moon and building are not far enough apart to fall into something like the rule of thirds or other offset composition. They are too close together but not close enough.

It would've been nicer if the moon was directly over the building or far enough off to one side that you could crop the scene so the building/island was on one side and the moon on the other.

[dvtldav]

@SwissJon, here is a new cropped version with a little bit of lightening. I can do more of both if needed.



@Navcom, there is not much of a way I can separate the moon from the cottage until I get a chance to take another photo, but I will keep your ideas in mind for other shots.