Fence

[Infinite Monkey]

I guess my big question here is whether I'm trying to make too much out of a fairly mundane scene. Can this fence carry an image? I'd like comments on that to go along with more general comments on composition and exposure.



Thanks for any time and thought you give to this. Here's the Exif data:

Camera Nikon D80
Exposure 0.01 sec (1/100)
Aperture f/10.0
Focal Length 18 mm
ISO Speed 200
Exposure Bias 0 EV
Flash No Flash

[shruggy63]

Darn I'm struggling with the tonal range on my monitor again. As a fan of your work I'd have to say that you photographed a landscape when you were trying to concentrate on the fence?
If you moved left & used the textures of the thick post & the rhythm of the posts at the left of the picture leading the eye into the pic it'd be good? But I don't know what the background would've been like then?

[Infinite Monkey]

Thanks for the thoughts, Shruggy. This gate really was just about the only part of the fence that offered any structure. Most of it was simply metal posts holding up strands of barbed wire. I thought the gate, standing in front of vast open spaces was interesting, particularly as the rest of the fence leads off towards the horizon of mountains. But I'm still wrestling with whether it succeeds at that.

[shruggy63]

I don't think this picture works but, with the benefit of hindsight, if you'd have included the post for its textures up close & the barbed wire crisply focused with a defocused background, that might've worked? A contrast between angular wire & rolling hills might work?

[Hill Country Hack]

Can you go back and try a slightly lower perspective?

[flytyer57]

I think that if that fence line did not run off the edge of the picture it might look nicer. If you get the chance to go back and reshoot, try having the fence line run into the right third of the picture leading into the mountains in the background.

[Infinite Monkey]

Thanks to Shruggy, Hill Country and Flytyer for your time and thoughts. I was never quite sure about this photo and you've helped me to see some of the shortcomings. The suggestion of shooting from a lower perspective is interesting and I'll try it next time I'm down that way but more and more I just don't think there's much of anything there to build an image around. This is really just the sort of feedback I needed. It really helps.