photogeneralist Loc: Lopez Island Washington State

Last Sunday when I stepped out of the restaurant, I was greeted with this sunset. I walked across the street and stepped to the side so as to capture the semi diagonal leading line of the boat dock. I whipped out my new to me Sony HX80 pocketable carry everywhere bridge camera and took this photo. I'm seeking input on the composition. Don't be kind out of politeness. Your greatest kindness would be an honest appraisal of what I did right and what is wrong. 4.1mm(24 ff equivalent.) f 8 +1 EV (+1 ev part of a -1, 0,+1 exposure bracket) ISO 80 1/40 sec Metering center weight metered on the sunset then recomposed.

(Download)

repleo Loc: Boston

I think it is a fine picture 'as is'. It is always easy to come along afterwards and say ' you could have tried this or that'. So, not to take from your shot and with benefit of hindsight , maybe you could have moved more to the right to get the jetty to point more towards the sun and to show more reflecting water. Boat masts silhouetted against the sun would be another thing to look for. Also, some of the best sunset shots occur ten or fifteen minutes after the sun has disappeared below the horizon when the lower sun lights up the clouds from underneath and the sky is heading into 'blue hour'.
Just me playing around with ideas.

joehel2 Loc: Cherry Hill, NJ

I agree with repleo maybe a shot more from the right would work a bit better. But, maybe more to the right was not an option. In that case, I think a tighter crop eliminating the heavy wooden gate brings the other walkway more to the center, it is a more interesting focal point, plus the crop makes the sunset more of the feature.

treadwl Loc: South Florida

I do not mean this to be cruel. The first thing that hit me is what is the subject? Is it the pier? If so the pier is lost in shadow and sort of muddy and unclear. Is it the sunset itself?? Well, the sunset is small, and the colored clouds are limited. To save this shot, try opening shadows and cropping off about half of the empty blue sky.

The eye of the viewer automatically goes to what is light and bright. In this case the sky---void of clouds it is boring. Before you take a shot---ask yourself what is the subject----then ask, how can I show off the subject to the best advantage. Try googling piers at sunset and see what you get. Good luck!

Rineal Loc: Copake NY

I think it's a very nice shot but I would crop some off at the bottom. The sunset part sits a bit too high for me. But everyone has a different take - if you are happy it's good!
Richard

CHG_CANON Loc: the Windy City

I have much the same reaction as Larry's, what / where should I look? The edits below will help address this question, although the 'sharp' focus within the foreground details is lacking, mostly due to the low light where there's not much to "see" in the shadowy light.

The image would benefit from some editing:

1. Crop to 16:9 and move the horizon line to the upper 1/3 horizontal guide line. Pull-in the left / right margins to remove distractions on the edges and to get the horizon positioned on the 1/3 guide and the sun almost onto the left 1/3 vertical guide. To my test edits on a copy of the download, the horizon is more important than the sun in repositioning.

2. Darken the blacks / shadows of the image. The darker shades are more greyish, see all / most of the wood, even the posts under the pier. Make the shadows darker and some almost to complete black.

3. Clone-out the wisps of plant in lower right. These may be removed by adjusting the right and left margins when adjusting to the 16:9 crop.

4. Adjust the white balance, increase the temp a bit in K or adding yellow, depending on your editor. Remove some of the red moving the tint slider toward green.

5. Add some sharpening and process the noise / grain, particularly in the blue of the sky.

ecobin Loc: Paoli, PA

I’ll add one comment to all the good ones posted: in general (not always) the horizon should be either 1/3 or 2/3 from the top. Since this sky is uninteresting, other than the sunset area, I suggest cropping out much of the sky putting the horizon 1/3 from top.

Tjohn Loc: Inverness, FL formerly Arivaca, AZ

I would have tried to move to the right and incorporate the dock pointing to the sun and maybe lower the aim to include less sky.

AzPicLady Loc: Behind the camera!

As always, I'm seeing the opposite as everyone else. I really like those wisps of clouds in the upper sky, so I'd really hate to miss them. And the blue sky is beautiful. Piers don't hold much interest to me, unfortunately, so the lower part of the image is of lesser importance to me. However, attempts to crop out the bottom result in really unpleasant balance. It's quite dark and has quite a bit of noise in it, so I sort of wanted to diminish it. I would like to see the pier rotated a bit to the left (as some have suggested) so that it points more to open water than to the land. And seeing more water between it and the far land would be nice.

Cwilson341 Loc: Central Florida

I feel, as some have already suggested, that a tighter crop would be beneficial. Take some off the top. There is more blue sky than necessary. Take some off the bottom to get rid of the heavy wooden parts in the foreground. Finally, take quite a bit off the right side where there is very little of interest. All of this will put the horizon at the 1/3 mark and enlarge and feature the beautiful sunset colors. I tried this and thought it came out well.

rmalarz Loc: Tempe, Arizona

At first glance my thought was what is the topic of this photograph. The horizon line pretty much splits the photo in two vertically. As such, the relatively bland sky is in a contest over the rather shadowy hidden features of the bottom half of the photograph. Yeah, it's a sunset alright, but not a particularly attention-getting one at that.

I think the photograph should provide a strong hint as to what the viewer should be guided to see. Once there, the viewer should be enticed to look around just a bit in hopes of finding some small hidden treat that might await discovery. Those hints can be strongly influenced by careful exposure and processing.
--Bob

photogeneralist Loc: Lopez Island Washington State

I don't understand "jetty /dock pointing more the sun. The dock is fixed in where it points to and no change of camera position will move the dock. Moving farther toward my right would have put the dock running more across from side to side of the photo, not leading line but a view blocker. By moving into the water I could've aligned the cluster of boats at the end of the dock with the Sunset point. But that would have lost the pictoral interest of the dock as it was moved out of frame. (besides it was cold and the bottom is soft sucking mud) However, maybe by June 21, the sunset will have moved far enough north that the dock will point more toward the sun. As Linda from Maine suggested, I have since cropped off the bottom up to the mud line , that puts the horizon at about the pundit favored 1/3 line and diminishes the dark bulk of the dock. It helps the photo. The dock has already had it''s light values heavily boosted to bring it out of it's deep featureless black appearance. More post processing would be obvious as unreal artifacts are introduced by pushing the processing too far.

Thanks for the input guys, but I think Linda from Maine gave me the composition the works for me.

repleo Loc: Boston

Moving to the right would have allowed you to get more of a direct line towards the sun along the line of the open water on the right hand side. The idea would be to position the sun at the end of the jetty instead of shooting over it. Something like below. The sun is the obvious subject and the causeway is leading directly towards it instead of crossing past it towards nothing on the other side of the frame. This is not exactly an 'original' composition, but I think it illustrates what some of us were getting at.

Obviously, the angle is different to yours so you would need to go much further to the right. I'll take a wild guess and say that you took your picture outside the Galley Restaurant on Fisherman's Bay. If you had moved a 100 yards North along Fisherman's Bay Road you would have got the line with the reflection of the sun on the water along the right side, the jetty pointing to the sun and maybe some boats silhuetted against the skyline.

(Download)

photogeneralist Loc: Lopez Island Washington State

You are right. It was the Galley Restaurant on Fisherman Bay. What is a Bostonian doing with knowledge of Fisherman Bay geography?
Actually I did explore a little further right (North) but roadside trees kept getting in the way, obscuring the sunset and the angle of the dock became too much sideways. My ideal shot would have been looking straight down the dock with the sunset midway between the railings at the far end. I don't think the sunset will swing far enough north to ever accomplish that composition. It was chilly and I was in shirt sleeves so I didn't work the scene too long.

photogeneralist Loc: Lopez Island Washington State

Your alternate example is a fine photo of the concept you are suggesting except for the presence of the bright green island which distracts from the line of the dock.