Sunset on the shore

[Czrich86]

f10
2.5" exposure
ISO 200
18mm

I shot this sunset at a state park in Rhode Island on 11/11/11. The sun was playing hard to get as those clouds rolled in, but I feel pretty happy about it. I'm looking for critiques on my framing of this shot as well as any suggestions for post processing. Thanks!

[milosh]

In this photo you actually have three points of interest (three things that draw attention). The first is the sky, because it's so bright. The second is the rock on the right, because it's so massive and dark. The third is the person sitting down there.

I'm not sure what you intention was, was it to portrait the person sitting quietly besides those stacked rocks and enjoying the sunset, or maybe to show the vastness of the sea, the sunset, or something else. If we knew that, we might be able to suggest a better composition to achieve your goal.

Since I guess that you wanted to portrait the person sitting in that environment, I think you should have got lower in order to include more of the person, and less of the rock and the sky. In my personal opinion, including just the person, the rocks beside it and the water would be enough.

On technical side, the sky is blown out, the rock on the right is a bit too dark for my taste, the whole photo is pretty blurry, and the horizon is leaning slightly to the right. The horizon thing is really nitpicking, but due to the large visual mass of the rock, it becomes more evident.

[ejej]

If I can assume that the main POI is the person sitting on the rock, I would crop the top of the pic down to almost the tip of the rock on the upper right. I feel this would give the viewer more of a sense that they are the person on the rock looking out. For PP I would give the rocks on right side more light (fill light) and use Recovery on the sky to minimize the blowout from the sun that was giving you problems. Judging by the location and time it must have been COLD! If you don't mind, I would like to take a crack at post processing it and posting back to you.

[Krusty79]

I think your best subject is the person sitting on the rock. They only appear as a silhouette because you have a dynamic range issue. That's also why that large rock on the right lacks detail and the sky is overexposed. If you shot RAW or bracketed your shots, you could make one jpg for the sky and one for the ground and blend the exposures using a layer mask. I think you're close to getting a really good shot here.

[Czrich86]

milosh - I believe you actually got my intention with your first 2 sentences. The rocks, girl and sunset/sky were my three points of interest for this. I framed the girl with the rocks to show their massive scale. I agree with you on the tilted horizon. Regarding the rocks on the right, it really seems to be dependent on what monitor it's getting viewed on. It looks great on my mac, but a bit dark on my work computer. Any suggestions on how to fix the blown out sky besides using recovery or toning down the brightness? When I do that, the sky does look darker, but then the colors from the sun look funny. I run into that a lot.

ejej - It was indeed VERY cold. I actually did some layer masking to try and fix the sky/foreground brightness. As I mentioned with milosh, the dark rocks look very different depending on the monitor being used. I tried lightening them a little bit, but they kept looking too noisy. You are more than welcome to try some PP on this shot, but I ask that you e-mail it to me and let me post it. I'll make sure to credit you for your work of course

Krusty - Thanks for the suggestions. I did try some of your suggestions with the shot and that's what I have posted so far. I found it really hard to get the exposures right without looking too fake. Any suggestions for keeping it from looking too photoshopped?

[Krusty79]

Originally Posted by Czrich86

Krusty - Thanks for the suggestions. I did try some of your suggestions with the shot and that's what I have posted so far. I found it really hard to get the exposures right without looking too fake. Any suggestions for keeping it from looking too photoshopped?

What processing have you done? Did you bracket your shots or did you make two exposures from the RAW file?

[Czrich86]

I shot in RAW and used to PS CS5 to to make the adjustments. I created 2 layer masks, one for the sky and the other for the horizon and below. I darkened the sky and lightened the foreground. I didn't do any other adjustments that that.

[EOBeav]

Those gosh darn clouds. They're always in the way when you don't want them, and nowhere to be found when you do.

That being said, this is a nice image. I'm used to seeing coastal shots without people, but I like the solitary figure there. Nice work.

[Krusty79]

If you made the jpgs from one RAW file, that one RAW file doesn't quite cover the dynamic range you need it to. If you had shot RAW at -2, 0 and +2, you should be able to use the +2 RAW file to make a jpg where you can see detail in the rocks. You might have to create a 3rd image for the rocks on the right, since they are the darkest.