Boulder Bay

[Corey Thompson]

I took a cruise up into Big Bear yesterday looking for something interesting to photograph. I was having a really bad creative block and wasn't liking any of the photos I was shooting. To make things worse, there was absolutely nothing interesting going on with the weather or the sky. I can't wait for fall to come around. Anyways, this is the photo I liked the best. How is the composition, is there anything distracting? Does the overall silhouette of the landscape work, or do the lights to the far right and to the far left throw things off? Is the photo too dark, too light? What do you like or dislike about the photo? What would you change or do differently, if anything? Would it look better as a b&w conversion? Not looking for answers to all of those questions, just general feedback in those areas.



Exif
Exposure: 30 seconds
Aperture: f/11
Focal Length: 18mm
ISO: 100

[qoedjo]

hi there
i like the image a lot but then wonder, with the 30sec exposure shudn't it be brighter than this. maybe the plant on the foreground can have just a slightly more highlite as well as the buildings with the lights on

[EOBeav]

That's how landscape photography goes. Sometimes you get the weather, sometimes you don't. In any case, I do wish that clump of vegetation in the foreground was more visible.

[cristen]

Nice colors and good silhouette. But like EOBeav's reaction, the vegetation on the left intrigues me. Would have wanted to see more of it.

[Doug Sundseth]

I like the colors you have in the photo. I think the composition could work well, with the foreground bush, but I, too, would like to see detail in the bush.

You might consider doing a bit of light painting in that situation in the future.

[doxborrow]

I love the color that you captured in the sky. The blue gradient is really rich. I agree that ideally the vegetation in the foreground would be brighter. I also think that the red lights from the docks are a little distracting. Not much you can do about that though. You could brighten the entire dock up, but it doesn't seem like a very picturesque dock (I think you made the right choice keeping it in the dark).

[Corey Thompson]

Originally Posted by qoedjo

hi there
i like the image a lot but then wonder, with the 30sec exposure shudn't it be brighter than this. maybe the plant on the foreground can have just a slightly more highlite as well as the buildings with the lights on

I have a shot that was taken earlier during Civil Dusk, just after sunset. I didn't like the colors in the sky much, too flat and boring. This shot was taken deep into nautical dusk, the sky was getting to be pretty dark. I wanted to keep the aperture no bigger than F/11, I didn't have a cable release on me so I was limited to a 30 second exposure. The only other option I had would have been to bump the ISO up to 200 or more. I don't like the high ISO performance on the Canon 40D though, anything above 100 is too noisy for my liking. One of these days I'll pick up a Canon 5D Thanks for the feedback, I appreciate it.

Originally Posted by Doug Sundseth

I like the colors you have in the photo. I think the composition could work well, with the foreground bush, but I, too, would like to see detail in the bush.

You might consider doing a bit of light painting in that situation in the future.

I never thought of trying that. Do you mean to bring a flash (and shoot it off camera at the foreground) or a flash light and paint some of the foreground with light?

I'll see if I can use the adjustment brush in lightroom to lighten up the brush in the foreground.

Originally Posted by doxborrow

I love the color that you captured in the sky. The blue gradient is really rich. I agree that ideally the vegetation in the foreground would be brighter. I also think that the red lights from the docks are a little distracting. Not much you can do about that though. You could brighten the entire dock up, but it doesn't seem like a very picturesque dock (I think you made the right choice keeping it in the dark).

It wasn't a very picturesque dock. It was quite ugly, lol. I originally wanted to shoot this shot from that dock. As I was walking out to the end of the dock, I realized that the dock was not mounted on any beams that are planted into the bottom of the lake. The dock was floating on the water and moved up and down everytime someone took a step. So, shooting from the dock was not going to happen. I wandered around for a half hour trying to find a good vantage point and figured I'll just have to try to make the dock look as dark as possible.

Thanks all for the feedback. I'll tweak the lighting on the brush in lightroom a bit when I get home. If I don't botch up too badly, I'll post up the results.

[Doug Sundseth]

For more than most people would want to know about light painting, take a look at Dave Black's Workshop at the Ranch series. The last five articles have been about permutations of light-painting techniques and subjects.

[Krusty79]

You have a nice color gradient in the sky, but I don't see any compelling foreground or focal point material in this scene. I don't even see any boats in the water or any fishermen. Sometimes it's just not there...

[Corey Thompson]

Doug, Thanks for the link. I'll definitely check that out.

Krusty79, you're right. There's nothing in the foreground. Thank you for the feedback. This gives me something to think about next time I'm out shooting a landscape shot. It seems like some places don't give me much of anything to work with and some places feel like everything just works out perfect. Either that or I'm not seeing the opportunities that are around me.

On another note, I tried using the adjustment brush to brighten the brush in the foreground. It made the brush too distracting.