Class runs from June 4 - July 14, 2018
” Embrace light. Admire it. Love it. But above all, know light. Know it for all you are worth, and you will know the key to photography.” – George Eastman -
Thanks for the repost… I'm always pleased to look at new and better images.
Starting from the top, I like very much the collection of rocks and water and light. I have mentioned several times however, that it's best to try to avoid including the sky and your pictures unless the image is about the sky. The reason is because there's so much more light in the sky then the subject matter you're trying to photograph and it becomes a difficult situation to try to balance the light in the sky in order not to draw away the viewer's eye from the focal point. In your case with this shot, the focal point is in the center lower third where the rocks are framing the movement of the water coming in just beyond that, and a little higher the light on the water also grabs one's attention so I might darken that a little bit and bring the viewers attention back to that focal point. But now, as we stare at the image, the sky is constantly pulling our eye away from the focal point. Can you see how that works? If you were to crop this image down to the horizon line then darken the water more and shift the light more towards the focal point it would improve this shot dramatically.
Now here is a case in shot number two where the sky is fine because of the amount and quality of light on the broken shells in the foreground. In terms of editing this just a little bit more, I would darken the sky just a tiny bit more and also darken the immediate foreground where the shells are out of focus... in other words a slight vignetting might improve this a bit. I like how low you are to the subject matter and how close you are. One last tweak would be to rotate the picture just a little bit in order to get the horizon line parallel to the top edge of the frame.
In number three, you are showing me that you have a good eye for composition… Once again the blown out white of the sky is fighting with the focal point in the foreground where the edge of the water meets the jetty rocks. The original shot may have had enough tonality in the sky that you could of edited it to achieve what I'm trying to teach you.
Number four down from the top also is beautifully seen and photographed... the weakest part of this again is the bright white sky.
The evening light on this black-and-white rendering as is lovely and the sky is not blown out here and the horizon is parallel all good things… What I would do would be to create a feathered selection towards the center where the water and sand are which is the focal point and tweak the light up just a little bit using levels in Photoshop.
Nice seeing on this shot, number six. The only slight tweak here might be to darken just a bit the foreground out of focus sand grains.
The high key tonality of this last one is rather nice…
Thanks for the repost… I'm always pleased to look at new and better images.
ReplyDeleteStarting from the top, I like very much the collection of rocks and water and light. I have mentioned several times however, that it's best to try to avoid including the sky and your pictures unless the image is about the sky. The reason is because there's so much more light in the sky then the subject matter you're trying to photograph and it becomes a difficult situation to try to balance the light in the sky in order not to draw away the viewer's eye from the focal point. In your case with this shot, the focal point is in the center lower third where the rocks are framing the movement of the water coming in just beyond that, and a little higher the light on the water also grabs one's attention so I might darken that a little bit and bring the viewers attention back to that focal point. But now, as we stare at the image, the sky is constantly pulling our eye away from the focal point. Can you see how that works? If you were to crop this image down to the horizon line then darken the water more and shift the light more towards the focal point it would improve this shot dramatically.
Now here is a case in shot number two where the sky is fine because of the amount and quality of light on the broken shells in the foreground. In terms of editing this just a little bit more, I would darken the sky just a tiny bit more and also darken the immediate foreground where the shells are out of focus... in other words a slight vignetting might improve this a bit. I like how low you are to the subject matter and how close you are. One last tweak would be to rotate the picture just a little bit in order to get the horizon line parallel to the top edge of the frame.
In number three, you are showing me that you have a good eye for composition… Once again the blown out white of the sky is fighting with the focal point in the foreground where the edge of the water meets the jetty rocks. The original shot may have had enough tonality in the sky that you could of edited it to achieve what I'm trying to teach you.
Number four down from the top also is beautifully seen and photographed... the weakest part of this again is the bright white sky.
The evening light on this black-and-white rendering as is lovely and the sky is not blown out here and the horizon is parallel all good things… What I would do would be to create a feathered selection towards the center where the water and sand are which is the focal point and tweak the light up just a little bit using levels in Photoshop.
Nice seeing on this shot, number six. The only slight tweak here might be to darken just a bit the foreground out of focus sand grains.
The high key tonality of this last one is rather nice…
Nice work.