beach silhouette composition critique

[monstermum]

Hi. This picture is cropped from the original (which had a giant silhouette woman severely dwarfing the subjects I wanted)

Have I cropped it enough to capture a feeling of beachiness?
Does the photo have an interesting storyline?
Is there anything else that you would have done to make this photo work?

all comments welcome, I need to learn!
mm


_MG_2049 by *monstermum, on Flickr

Camera Canon EOS 50D
Exposure 0.002 sec (1/500)
Aperture f/5.0
Focal Length 18 mm
ISO Speed 100
Exposure Bias 0 EV
Exposure Program Aperture-priority AE
Metering Mode Multi-segment
Exposure Mode Auto
White Balance Auto
Scene Capture Type Standard

[docxnoel]

You have a nice silhouette, exposure looks fine and I might say that this is technically good but not aesthetically pleasing because;

the horizon is a little bit tilted and it place on the deadly center of the frame, in this I want to see more of the sky.

there is to much foreground, maybe you can cropped it by half.

then the three people is walking away from the frame.

also the position of the sunlight is so boring, again it is on the deadly center and it hurts my eyes.

This is upon my personal taste and it varies from diffrent people, but still it is a good capture but can be improved.

[monstermum]

Here is the original uncropped photo. ( I wasn't sure if I was allowed to post another one in this thread, I hope it is okay.)


_MG_2049 by *monstermum, on Flickr

You can see why I could not put the people walking into the frame. Also in the original the sun is off to the side but the crop brought it to the centre.

I would welcome any suggestions on how any of you would have dealt with the original photo.

[sk66]

As you said, the original pic has it's limitations. I agree with the other comments regarding the composition.

The "fix" is a little trick I learned. Crop the image for desired content then resize the canvas to give space where you want it. Next select a section of the image to be stretched into the blank canvas and do so using the transform or stretch function.

This is closer to what I would have chosen from your original.

[monstermum]

I like it, but I don't have PS. I use Aperture 3 and am still muddling my way around it. (I need a good tutor!) I will try to find that function and play around with it. Thanks!

[JFSanders]

I think Aperture 3 has a healing tool. Not sure as I am a Capture NX2 user. But What I did was to heal her out of the photograph and then crop to move the horizon down. After that I applied a Gaussian blur to the sky and a high pass filter on the horizon line. If you would like a more detailed explanation just say so.

Jim

[freybear3]

good photo, but the sun is way to bright and is very distracting

[monstermum]

@ Jim....Wow! I have a LOT to learn about post processing! I like it. If you can explain I would be grateful.

@Freybear...I know the sun is very bright, but I am still learning the pp and haven't mastered doing small areas yet. :<)

Thanks for the comments, they help me to learn.