Ship at dock. Critique Edit / mood please

[Tzetsin]

I grabbed this shot on a trip to Vancouver a couple months ago. I really like the shot, but the entire image is a little bit busy. I've done the edit with the idea that I wanted the ship immediately noticeable. I think I've pulled it off.

I need a critique on the "Edit" not the subject or composition please.

The original picture is VERY saturated. The first thing i did was heavy desaturation, and selectively brought back a bit of saturation to specific areas of the image. Then I selectively darkened some areas to bring focus to center / ship. Over all, I was going for a "quiet, mystery" feel to the image.

Please critique the edit, how well did I bring focus to the ship vs the background ships, while bringing in a "quiet mystery, moody" feel to the Image.



EXIF:
Canon 60D
75mm
1/60sec @ F5.6
ISO 100
Polarizer
No Flash

Thanks for looking.

-Jason

[dlambert]

That's a very nice photo. The details are really well-captured. Funny you mentioned "busy" because that's exactly what I thought before I read your description. It looks like the worst of the crowding is on the left, back in the shadows, right about where the light starts to fall away. I'm not sure if you're going to be able to improve much on the left with cropping, because you're already pretty close to the bow of the boat.

I thought about composing from 10-20 feet to the left of where you were standing, looking back across the bow of the boat and capturing a bit more of the bay behind it, but it looks like you'd still be picking up a fair bit of business from the boat behind your subject, so I'm really not sure that would be much of an improvement. Maybe a slightly wider composition would balance the busyness on the left with a little more of the background, though.

This is a total flyer, but what if you brightened the whole photo a bit and maybe warmed the light balance, then went over some of that rigging with a brush to lighten and desaturated a little more -- as if the rigging's washed out by the sun? I'm not sure if something like that could be made to look natural, but it might de-emphasize the rigging a bit. I'm not sure that's quite the mystery look you were going for, though.

All nit-picking aside, though, I really like the picture. The details make me want to zoom into a dozen different parts of the photo to see more, so it's a hard photo to get bored with. Really nice.

[Tzetsin]

Originally Posted by dlambert

That's a very nice photo. The details are really well-captured. Funny you mentioned "busy" because that's exactly what I thought before I read your description. It looks like the worst of the crowding is on the left, back in the shadows, right about where the light starts to fall away. I'm not sure if you're going to be able to improve much on the left with cropping, because you're already pretty close to the bow of the boat.

I thought about composing from 10-20 feet to the left of where you were standing, looking back across the bow of the boat and capturing a bit more of the bay behind it, but it looks like you'd still be picking up a fair bit of business from the boat behind your subject, so I'm really not sure that would be much of an improvement. Maybe a slightly wider composition would balance the busyness on the left with a little more of the background, though.

This is a total flyer, but what if you brightened the whole photo a bit and maybe warmed the light balance, then went over some of that rigging with a brush to lighten and desaturated a little more -- as if the rigging's washed out by the sun? I'm not sure if something like that could be made to look natural, but it might de-emphasize the rigging a bit. I'm not sure that's quite the mystery look you were going for, though.

All nit-picking aside, though, I really like the picture. The details make me want to zoom into a dozen different parts of the photo to see more, so it's a hard photo to get bored with. Really nice.

Thank you for taking the time to reply. I'll give what you suggest a shot. Will take me a day or so to repost though.

I'm glad you like it, I feel the same way about wanting to explore it, which is why i feel is worth putting the effort into saving it. The original shot is very high resolution, I'm able to zoom in on the paint chips

-Jason

[Tzetsin]

Re-edit

This version is a lot warmer. It pretty much loses the "moody" feeling, but i think it works better.