Hello and interesting (?) Skyscape

[TaviMeyer]

Hello everyone. I've been recommended to check this forum and it seems to be a place I've been looking for. The thing is that in many online locations where you can publish your photos you may not be getting much feedback.

I've looked outsied the window the other day and saw that the clouds have a very nice texture and light looks very pleasant, so I've grabbed my camera and started shooting. I used Canon EOS 20D, EF-S 18-55mm f/3.5-5.6 lens at 55mm and f/8.0. ISO 100. White Balance: Auto. Shot from hand. I've been shooting to merge the photos together, so the shutter speed varied throughout the series. If I remember rightly the photo was merged using 6 exposures.

Post processing. Camera RAW: White Balance from As Shot (4250) to Cloudy (6500), Tone Curve: strong Contrast, Camera Calibration: Camera Standard. Then CS5: Levels, Duplicate layer, Blending Mode: Soft Light. Then cropping to remove roofs from the frame.

Photo in question: http://www.flickr.com/photos/tavimey...ream/lightbox/

Because the photo was planned as one to be received through the photo merging process, I had to guess how the composition will look in the final image and it is more or less as I wanted it to look like. Now questions:
1. Is the lighting OK, or do you think it would look better if I altered the exposure or white balance differently (the sky was a bit more grey during the shooting, not much though)?
2. Have I done a good thing merging exposures, or should I rather go for a cropped bit of it and make it more abstract?
3. Perhaps I should done something else during the post processing? For example, go for HDR and get colours more similar to what I could see yet with higher dynamic range?

Thank you for all feedback.

Tavi

[Krusty79]

I think your shot looks pretty abstract already, since there are no recognizable elements in it besides the clouds. I wonder what that wispy black streak is.

As far as shooting clouds, goes, I would read through this earlier thread and pay attention to what navcom says - Cloud Shot - Composition and Settings

Here's a shot where the clouds are the main subject, but they are still anchored by the ground - CloudScape :)

[flytyer57]

If you at least attach your photo's to your post instead of the link, you would get a lot more help.

I'm not sure why you would try to merge 6 shots taken without a tripod. It looks like you did ok for this pic though. As Krusty said, it does look abstract and I'm not sure if this needs any more processing. It looks interesting. I like the colors and the light. Just not sure what you are looking for in this photo.

[TaviMeyer]

Originally Posted by Krusty79

I think your shot looks pretty abstract already, since there are no recognizable elements in it besides the clouds. I wonder what that wispy black streak is.

As far as shooting clouds, goes, I would read through this earlier thread and pay attention to what navcom says - Cloud Shot - Composition and Settings

Here's a shot where the clouds are the main subject, but they are still anchored by the ground - CloudScape :)

Thank you for the links, interesting read. Basically the advise in these threads is that cloudscapes should be anchored in some ground objects to help in defining their size and position. And that the shot of a cloud is just a shot of a cloud. What I was going for in this photo was just a shot of a cloud. I wanted the effect to be aesthetically pleasing and slightly abstract. I wanted the viewer to react more or less along these lines: photo->pretty->abstract->clouds

I can add rooftops in the lower part of the photo. They are not bad, actually they're quite nice. Red tiles, Mediterranean city scape. The question is: if I leave the roofs in the frame, won't it remove the abstract feeling? Won't it anchor the photo too firmly in the real world?

[TaviMeyer]

Originally Posted by flytyer57

If you at least attach your photo's to your post instead of the link, you would get a lot more help.

I'm not sure why you would try to merge 6 shots taken without a tripod. It looks like you did ok for this pic though. As Krusty said, it does look abstract and I'm not sure if this needs any more processing. It looks interesting. I like the colors and the light. Just not sure what you are looking for in this photo.

Couldn't attach it, will try with the next one. I've seen that the forum uses links to web locations, but nothing shows up. I guess it may be because of the size of the photo.

As for merging, I couldn't take a single shot at 18mm. I mean I could, but the actual photo cropped out later would be a tiny fraction of the actual frame. Which with 8MP camera would make it fairly useless. I was planning to leave the roofs outside of the photo, so I've decided to take several exposures and merge them together later. I would love to use the tripod, but the roof outside has a slope. Not significant, but my GF would kill me for going out there. I was already leaning out. Plus, the idea of possible falling 5 storeys down doesn't exactly appeal to me Another thing is that I normally take portraits and seldom use tripod, so I knew the shot will be steady. If I remember rightly most of the SS were above 1/100, so I wasn't concerned about blurring anything.

Thank you for you feedback. I wanted to know if it looks interesting and defends itself as it is or if I should crop it differently, for example to include the roofs. As I've mentioned before, I was going for abstract and aesthetically pleasing look. It's not supposed to be extremely artsy, memorable or groundbreaking, I just wanted it to be pretty

[Liz Caldwell]

Welcome Tavi, glad you made it over I have to agree with the other critiques, I love the warm glow and abstract feel, and looks nicely aligned and stitched together.

I could see this hanging behind the bar at a martini lounge

[Liz Caldwell]

Here you go In Flickr go to All Sizes, right-click the one that's no larger than 600px on it's longest side (forum rules, makes for a better fit for all)and either click Copy Image URL (chrome) or Properties (IE) and get the img url. Then you can use the IMG button (under the Undo arrow) and paste in the link. I know flickr has an easier way, but with sharing disabled on the image, this was how I did it.

Originally Posted by TaviMeyer

Couldn't attach it, will try with the next one. I've seen that the forum uses links to web locations, but nothing shows up. I guess it may be because of the size of the photo.

As for merging, I couldn't take a single shot at 18mm. I mean I could, but the actual photo cropped out later would be a tiny fraction of the actual frame. Which with 8MP camera would make it fairly useless. I was planning to leave the roofs outside of the photo, so I've decided to take several exposures and merge them together later. I would love to use the tripod, but the roof outside has a slope. Not significant, but my GF would kill me for going out there. I was already leaning out. Plus, the idea of possible falling 5 storeys down doesn't exactly appeal to me Another thing is that I normally take portraits and seldom use tripod, so I knew the shot will be steady. If I remember rightly most of the SS were above 1/100, so I wasn't concerned about blurring anything.

Thank you for you feedback. I wanted to know if it looks interesting and defends itself as it is or if I should crop it differently, for example to include the roofs. As I've mentioned before, I was going for abstract and aesthetically pleasing look. It's not supposed to be extremely artsy, memorable or groundbreaking, I just wanted it to be pretty

[TaviMeyer]

Originally Posted by Liz Caldwell

Welcome Tavi, glad you made it over I have to agree with the other critiques, I love the warm glow and abstract feel, and looks nicely aligned and stitched together.

I could see this hanging behind the bar at a martini lounge

Hello Liz. Thanks for recommending me the forum, it looks very nice. Wish I knew about it two years ago Also, good luck with your project.

Martini lounge would be a nice location. Or it can serve as a computer desktop wallpaper. I wasn't aiming at Tate Modern with this, so it would seem the photo serves it's purpose and lives to the expectations I had.

[Krusty79]

If you were going for the abstract look, then I would say you have succeeded. I think your shot is way better than this shot which sold for almost 4 million dollars!

I don't see any stitch marks, so you've done that well.

Damn! I guess I must be undercharging....

[TaviMeyer]

Well, this one is just an aesthetic study on light and shadow, nothing more.
As for Gursky... Oh well, smoke and mirrors usually gets the highest price. Human nature never changes, it seems