Water under the Bridge

[ArmySoldier777]

Hey everybody, it's been awhile since I've had anything critiqued, so I decided I'd pay this section of the site a visit again. The critique section is where I started out at, I learned so much here. And there's definitely no reason to stop learning now, so on to the image.


It was an off and on cloudy day, and I needed to get back home soon. Being that this was one of my last shots of the day, I didn't have time to wait for the sun to come back out from behind the clouds. I think it would've made for a better image if I had waited, but what's your opinion?

I'm welcome to any critiques on composure, lighting, saturation, dof. Say whatever comes to mind, I welcome the critique.





Date/Time: 2011:11:21 13:26:21
Resolution: 4270x2847
Flash Used: No
Focal Length: 50.0mm (35mm equivalent): 1.6x crop body
Exposure Time: 0.033 s (1/30)
Aperture: f/14.0
ISO Equiv.: 400
Whitebalance: Auto
Metering Mode: partial
Exposure: Manual

[flytyer57]

I like this, even if the sun didn't come out. I think the only problem is the bush on the right side with the white spots all over is a bit distracting.

[ArmySoldier777]

Thank you for the feedback. I was on the fence about the bush, I've received comments from people saying they like it, because it fought with the flow of the image and gave it contrast. I've also received comments from people saying that's the reason they don't like it, because it goes against the natural flow of the image lol. So I couldn't decide whether or not I wanted to clone it out. I'm definitely confident that I could do so without affecting the surrounding image quality, it was just an issue of Do or Don't.

Now that I've read your comment, I'll lean more towards doing it I was going to compose it out of the shot originally, but an inch to the left and you start seeing a parking lot "Very ugly for a scene like this". And I felt a tighter crop just didn't feel right. So off to cloning it is!

Thanks again, I appreciate you taking the time.

[kb93]

I like the color of the bridge a lot =)

[ArmySoldier777]

kb93 - Thank you for your comment I like the color of it too, it really stands out.



Here's the updated one after a couple hours of cloning, patching, pixel peeping, etc.

[silverbirch]

I don't have the knowledge for critique - but can I say that I just love both these images!

[ArmySoldier777]

silverbirch - Thank you very much

[Krusty79]

I like the colors of the bridge and trees a lot. I'm wondering if this could be improved a bit if the bridge wasn't in the middle of the shot horizontally. Maybe more of the reflection?

[ArmySoldier777]

Sorry for the late reply Krusty, been a crazy month for me. But I actually thought the same thing when I was composing the shot. Unfortunately, a foot lower and I would've been looking at concrete.. Sometimes it sucks that beautiful nature scenes are ruined by man made things. If I'd panned to the left anymore, you could've seen parking lot as well. And if I'd gone to the right, you can see the road leading up to that parking lot. So I tried to frame everything the best I could without showing anything unnatural to the scene. I do wish I could've gotten more reflection as you'd mentioned though.

[Barry Jackson]

The retouched one is my favorite. Great retouching. If you want to really get crazy with retouching, take out all the white spots in the reflection. It takes a long time but I have always thought it was worth it. I used to even do that when we retouched with a 6-0 brush, mixed liquid colors, and you had to do every print individually. Photographic friends even refer to it as "Barryizing" a print.

I think in the original exposure a cloudy setting rather than auto white balance would have brought out the colors of the trees better.

Since I like extremes I would have tried one set on vivid.

For this one maybe a little more contrast and a little more saturation would help.

.....and maybe just a little more yellow or red in the color balance?

I wondered at first about the bridge being too centered but I decided that you were probably limited to position. It seems to work pretty well where it is.

Good job soldier.