ediesaul wrote:
Critiques appreciated, and thanked in advance.
Thank you, Apalflo, Treepusher, Bill, Frank, and Linda From Maine. I very much appreciate your looking, commenting, and asking questions. I will answer them as best as I can.
Subject: I wanted to depict the potential. In this case, the potential of a good time, a restful time, a fun time, by the shore. To that end, this photo shows the water, the beach chairs, the outdoor furniture, the rotisserie. Nobody is there yet. A single bird is flying toward the open water - harbinger of good times.
Perspective: I like the frame within the total frame of the photo - a picture within a picture. Because the inner frame does not show all the potential, one still needs to peruse the entire photo to get "the complete picture." This kind of framing would not having been accomplished with a different perspective, a side-view, for example. Perhaps a side-view might make for a good photo, but it would be a different photo for sure.
Focus: This photo is from the eyes of someone who has just arrived. I remember seeing a Wyeth painting from the perspective of a bird just above and behind a bird in formation as the flock was flying over agricultural lands. Yes, the birds and landscape were very well depicted, but the perspective was the subject, I think.
Black-and-white/no high contrast: While I like the architectural dimensions in the photo - stairs, beams, slats, awning, window - I wanted detail to show texture. I did darken the chairs to make them stand out more as silhouettes. I also darkened the foreground. I extra-sharpened and added contrast in the water to make the ripples stand out. In addition to texture, there were buoys hanging on the far left that I didn't want the viewer to miss. I felt that more contrast would have deleted texture and would have overexposed white areas. The bird, for example, would not have been recognizable as a bird, I think. The light on the leaves would have been too white. I think, with all the objects in this photo - the house, the foliage, all the stuff on the decks, the water - that this photo cannot be a high-contrast photo, just a suggestion of high contrast but with delineations in hue.
To Bill's point about lightening some areas, please direct where you think that would enhance the photo. I could do that.
Cropping: I tried to crop as Apalflo suggested, and could not find a way that I liked. I would not mind Apalflo, if amenable, doing a crop so we can see how the image could be improved.
Re: cropping to see the water. I don't think that just the view would make an interesting photo; what do others think?
A good subject for discussion might be: is a photograph successful when viewers have to look all over it to "get it" vs. a simple subject; can ambiance itself be a subject or only part of the subject?
Cropping closer to the house - I tried that since the grass is not the subject of the photo. The proportions seemed off. Maybe it's my inexperienced eye?
HDR: The photo was taken when we arrived. If I had thought of HDR, and, frankly, I'm not that sophisticated as a photographer to recognize in advance when it should be done, I might have taken multiple shots at different settings. I do in-camera HDR, at times, when I see a scene with differing light. I wonder if the data associated with this photo would tell us if I did in-camera HDR. I don't remember. This vacation was the first time I shot in RAW and I am still learning how to use the sliders. My monitor is only 18", and I look forward to one day having a larger one to really see the differences in shades.
Treepusher suggested HDR to bring up the shadows. Is this suggestion similar to Bill's? Does Treepusher mean an overall effect, or in specific areas?
I hope these answers cover all the issues that you have raised. If you have more questions, I would certainly be delighted to tackle them. These are very important questions that challenge a beginner like me. If I can't defend my choices, then I know I need to look at things differently, to acclimate my eye differently, and to learn more. Please grade me on my answers! Thanks again, all you wonderful people!!!