Graham Smith Loc: Cambridgeshire UK

I would appreciate thoughts on any aspect of this picture but particularly those regarding composition.

Graham

minniev Loc: MIssissippi

Well you have finally posted one I feel halfway comfortable responding to. Your street shots are quite wonderful but I don't have expertise in that area, and don't want to just say "nice shot".

this is a very sweet composition, with the implied diagonal from the first poles up by the boat and beyond to the pole in the foreground holding all of it together. The little red stripe on the boat is just enough contrast to the rich blues to make it capture top billing. The triangle of land on the right side gives perspective. The light, of course, makes the shot. Very nice. If I were to offer any suggestion it would be to very gently lighten the shadows in the lower 1/10 of the frame so you can see the edge of the post and distinguish it from its shadow.

mariposa84 Loc: Rochester NY

Would you consider this a negative space photo?

Graham Smith Loc: Cambridgeshire UK

That's not an argument I want to get into as I doubt there is a definitive answer. I have no strong convictions one way or the other.

Graham

mariposa84 Loc: Rochester NY

I apologize I wasn't trying to have an argument I was just curious as to your opinion as I think your shots are beautiful and you are very knowledgable. Please accept my apologies i meant nothing by my question.

Chuck_893 Loc: Lincoln, Nebraska, USA

I don't think Graham meant that quite that way. I think what he meant was "argument" in the sense of "debate" or "discussion." I don't think Graham is angry at all. It's so very hard to do all this in writing when you can't see facial expression or hear nuance in the voice and delivery. It's one reason I make liberal use of emoticons, which I honestly think are ridiculous but unfortunately the only reasonable substitute for face-to-face. :lol:

I don't want to get into that debate either, since I understand it so little. What I do think, Graham, is that my eye goes straight to the big piling sticking up in the foreground, then wanders away to the relatively tiny but bright red and white boat. Then my eye asks, "Now what?" The picture seems to lack a center of interest, or if it has one, it seems to be rather, um, uninteresting. I know you and what you can do, so I am not being nitpicky. It seems at the moment to me to be a very sharp and well exposed picture of nothing. That is NOT meant unkindly! :-) This is one picture I would not ordinarily linger over, except Graham Smith made it.

Bmac Loc: Long Island, NY

I think the pole on the right, due to it's size, has become the main subject and the boat a secondary one. The pole also causes the composition to appear unbalanced. Perhaps a balancing or framing object on the left would have helped, or eliminating the pole on the right altogether thru a crop. The boat, with that nice strip of red, and the well exposed sky could become the image. Composition is admittedly very subjective, this is simply my view. 8-)

Edit: Just looked at it again, starting to doubt my own critique as the photo definitely has appeal, especially on the download. :)

Country's Mama Loc: Michigan

I am probably way out of my elements here, but I am going to give this a whirl because I know that Graham will teach me a lot.
Again going by the guidelines written up by Nightski;
There is not a single clear center of interest. The pole in the foreground draws your attention, but as has been mentioned earlier because of it a diagonal is drawn to the second boat and the pole it is moored (is that the right word?) to.
I would have been tempted though to crop this photo to eliminate the first pole, though it does cause me to think about where the boat is that would be tied off here and if it was how does anyone get to dry land. There must be a dock out of view.
This photo does follow the rule of thirds. The horizon is about 1/3 into the photo and the boat is located at the intersection of two division lines.
The focus is crisp and sharp and the lighting is beautiful.
The photo tells a story of a boat in for the night or getting ready to leave for the day.
Make think Graham. What am I missing.

Graham Smith Loc: Cambridgeshire UK

I should apologise to you mariposa84, perhaps discussion or debate would have been better words for me to use. Negative space is something that can be argued around in circles for evermore. You either love negative space or you don't understand it, I'm probably the latter because I struggle with abstract thoughts, I'm a practical hands on guy, I need something tangible in front of me.

Graham

Graham Smith Loc: Cambridgeshire UK

Chuck, with both paragraphs you took the words right out of my mouth :-)
I often sprinkle my posts with emoticons, so much so that they can look a bit messy :-)
Although I take a lot of pictures of scenery, I hesitate to call them landscapes, landscape photography is not my forte. I love being out in the wilds of Scotland or the marshes of the Norfolk coast, fair weather or foul. I love to be on the move, I haven't the patience to set up a tripod and wait for hours for the light, I want to see what is around the corner, in addition to that a tripod and selection of lenses, filters etc., together with my tent and supplies for three days would be to much for my ageing frame ;-)
To sum up, what I am saying is that I am a landscape snapshooter, I get to see amazing places and I take pictures of them, sometimes I get lucky. The picture, to me, shows what I saw, early morning, a spring tide ebbing fast and good colours. I want to know how I could have taken a better composed picture or cropped to improve it. I want to know it's faults. By posting the picture I know I will learn something and hopefully others will too.

Graham :-) :thumbup: :thumbup: :thumbup:

Graham Smith Loc: Cambridgeshire UK

M'Lud, I refer the Honourable Lady to my answer to the learned gentleman for the prosecution, Chuck :-)

PS: You are missing nothing, you saw what is there and you saw what is not there. I too want to learn.

Graham

Chuck_893 Loc: Lincoln, Nebraska, USA

Graham, I laughed so hard my wig fell over my eyes! :lol:

I often have exactly the same difficulties that you do with scenery. Like you, I haven't the patience to wait, and often I haven't the time anyway, so often, as I like to say, "You takes yer pitcher with the light you gots!" And that only covers the issue of poor light. I LOVE to shoot scenery, but sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn't and too often I haven't the faintest idea why, so I am probably not the guy to critique this picture.

I keep coming back to it, probably because you made it and I have such enormous respect for you and your work, but also—it is engaging somehow! There's something going on here.

I have looked at pages of pictures of "negative space," and I conclude from them that this is not that (in precise terms anyway, and "negative space" seems to be somewhat imprecise).

I have the picture downloaded in another tab and keep going back to it. I've tried masking off the foreground piling with my hand and feel that definitely does not improve it, so I think the composition needs the piling. That makes me wonder if the piling should be the focus—throw the lens wide open and focus sharply on the piling. I think I like that idea better than its opposite, focusing sharply on the boat and letting the piling fall out of focus, which it really wouldn't do that much anyway.

The picture definitely has something! Someone who knows will come along soon. The one last thing I wonder about is, where were you standing? Is there a short pier or were you in a boat? I wonder if showing part of where you were—the edge of the pier or gunwale of the boat—would anchor the picture somehow? Just a thought. :-)

(And I was going to stop there but got thinking about all the terrific manipulations possible in various PP apps, so I wonder about MIST, or at least throwing the whole background out of sharp focus and letting the foreground piling dominate? Just another thought… :? )

smcaleer Loc: Dearborn Heights, Michigan

Although I think this shot has all the elements to make it quite nice, it gives me an uncomfortable feeling of leaning to the left. The pole leans to the left, the water leans to the left and the eye is drawn to the left towards the boat. This is a shot I would have taken, yet it makes me uncomfortable. That is not to say it is good or bad, just that I feel like things are leaning uncomfortably.

nairiam Loc: Bonnie Scotland

The composition has the elements I was taught to avoid, viz., Horizon at mid position. Eye catching element(s), two or one, I cant decide, also they manage to avoid the thirds.
I would be disappointed if I took this. Sorry, the foregoing is from one of your admirers.

Memphis Loc: Seattle

When I look at this photo I wonder if maybe the best shot was the boat in the distance...that is what I am most curious about. The lighting and sky are beautiful.