A Day At The Lake

[Loving It]

Nope, no canoe. I do have a shot with some milk weed in the foreground. It did add some interest. Looking back through my shots, the majority of them have lots of sky. Next time I’ll zoom closer and try to get more landscape.

[tvoelcker]

Perhaps try a crop with this existing photo. Maybe I can take a break from working on my house this weekend and give it a shot if you don't get the chance.
Coming from the bottom go up to the first set of clouds. Try cropping just above them and see if you like it any better ?
I'm going to set this as my desktop here at work so maybe some more ideas will come to me the more I look at it.
AnnetteJ is also another person that might have some good suggestions aswell as samanax.
Hopefully by bumping this thread up one them might que in....

[ptrbee]

hey, i'm relatively new to this as well but have you thought of shooting a panaromic of the lake, not just 3 wide shots though eg 6 or 9 deep shots like 3x from left to right then starting left again on top of the first shot, like stacking the shots??

ptrbee.

[AnnetteJ]

You're quite right, it's a perfectly good pic but it doesn't jump out. You obviously like this lake as you keep going back there, so try thinking what it is about it that you love and then try to think of a way to express that in a photo. The sky in your pic is great and gives it a good sense of perspective, but maybe the portrait orientation is making it feel somewhat narrow. It seems to me that this lake is a wide open space and that may be what you need to capture, so landscape or even panoramic like ptrbee suggests [although I'm not quite sure what stacking 9 shots can do that one wide angle one can't?] It seems to me from this pic that you are drawn to the open expanse of the sky over the water and reflected in it and you say most of your pix of here have lots of sky. The mountains in the background are almost a distraction to this as we expect them to be more prominent but they are just too far away to be relevant, unless you can zoom in much closer to them. But if it is the sky and water you want to express then maybe it's better to find an angle that doesn't even have them in? I would have tried a pic of just the reflected clouds, zoomed in a bit, in landscape, that's a way of showing the water and the sky with nothing else! Have you got a wide-angle lens or even a fisheye, that would get more of the whole scene in. Getting right down to water level, either by lying on the shore, or even getting in the water [in summer of course! and being very very careful not to splash the camera!] and getting a shot from right at water level would lose the mountains, then you could have mostly sky but with the ripples of water at the bottom of the shot. I was also going to suggest getting a few plants, especially tall grasses or reeds, in the foreground, but you say you have tried that, although I don't know what milkweed looks like! I'm sure with some perseverence and imagination you will eventually get the definitive shot of this lake, just keep trying!

[tvoelcker]

Originally Posted by AnnetteJ

You're quite right, it's a perfectly good pic but it doesn't jump out. You obviously like this lake as you keep going back there, so try thinking what it is about it that you love and then try to think of a way to express that in a photo. The sky in your pic is great and gives it a good sense of perspective, but maybe the portrait orientation is making it feel somewhat narrow. It seems to me that this lake is a wide open space and that may be what you need to capture, so landscape or even panoramic like ptrbee suggests [although I'm not quite sure what stacking 9 shots can do that one wide angle one can't?] It seems to me from this pic that you are drawn to the open expanse of the sky over the water and reflected in it and you say most of your pix of here have lots of sky. The mountains in the background are almost a distraction to this as we expect them to be more prominent but they are just too far away to be relevant, unless you can zoom in much closer to them. But if it is the sky and water you want to express then maybe it's better to find an angle that doesn't even have them in? I would have tried a pic of just the reflected clouds, zoomed in a bit, in landscape, that's a way of showing the water and the sky with nothing else! Have you got a wide-angle lens or even a fisheye, that would get more of the whole scene in. Getting right down to water level, either by lying on the shore, or even getting in the water [in summer of course! and being very very careful not to splash the camera!] and getting a shot from right at water level would lose the mountains, then you could have mostly sky but with the ripples of water at the bottom of the shot. I was also going to suggest getting a few plants, especially tall grasses or reeds, in the foreground, but you say you have tried that, although I don't know what milkweed looks like! I'm sure with some perseverence and imagination you will eventually get the definitive shot of this lake, just keep trying!

I knew I could count on Annette for some inspiration and a great critique ! When I read the part about a landscape orientation I slapped myself upside the head for not thinking of that.
I have to admit, I too thought about getting down into the water and shooting across it but I wasn't sure if the reflections of the clouds could still be captured from this angle.
Now I must disagree about the mountains. I like the fact they are in the frame and I feel it adds a second or third area of interest within the frame. However, I was wrong in thinking they should be more prominant. It is one of those things that stand in the distance, nobably and quitely but doesn't try to scream for attention. It is almost as if the mountains are saying" if you want to look at me then here I'am. If you don't want to pay me any attention then that is fine with me because I know I'm beautiful'.
I don't want this too turn into a novel so I better stop rambling.
I did do the crop that I mentioned before and after looking at it I guess perhaps I was thinking of a landscape orientation. I had alot of fun playing around with this image adding a b&w conversion, a slight blurred effect to everything except the center of the frame and also boosted the sauration too the point it almost appeared as a abstract.
Anyways, here is the simple cropped version.

From dps edits

[Loving It]

Thanks everyone for your suggestions.
Tom - I like your adjustments, very nice.

Looks like I need to take more time when I shot and make sure I get it from every angle with portrait and landscape.