Traffic Ligths

[AndresDM]

Hi everybody, along with introducing myself to the forum, I wanted to get some critiques on this picture. I`m new to photography, got my camera on new years day, but I want to keep learning and this seems like the perfect website to do so. Anyways, for some reason I`ve always wanted to take a picture like this.

Nikon D5000
f/25
8sec.
ISO 200
No Flash

Only post-production that I did was to crop the picture a little bit.

Thanks

[cphoniball]

Welcome to DPS Andres.

The biggest thing with this picture is the composition. It's exposed well for a night picture and seems to be technically sound, but there is just too much going on in the picture and there's no overarching themes. I see bunches of different colored lights in different places and there's nothing to direct or hold my eye. If you haven't already I'd recommend taking a look at some of the composition tutorials on this site.

[Heatcliff]

I love the composition

cphoniball is right that there is much to see,
but,
a lot of it is contrasting each other very well. For example the beautiful 'classical' architecture on the left side is very well set off against the large skyscraper behind it. Just so is the older looking lamp post contrasted with the traffic lights.

Additionally, I love how the traffic light seem to stand out colour-wise against a B&W-looking background.

All in all, I like it, keep it up ^^

[AndresDM]

Thanks for the help!, I agree with both comments, now that you guys mentioned it I too think that there's quite a bit going on in the picture, that also made me go back and see some of my others pictures and I think I'm having the same problem on some of those too hehe Hopefully with more experience I'll abe able to identify better what adds to a picture and what's not neccesary