CHIJMES - CITISCAPE

[NormanSelvaraju]

Was walking through the CHIJMES area and thought of capturing the scene. Hot weather makes for nice skies.. Haha. Anyways, its been long since in took a landscape/cityscape photo and I want to put it up here for comments and critique.

Hope to hear from you guys. Cheers.

1. in what area is critique to be sought?
Composition, Post-processing
2. what one hopes to achieve with the piece of work?
A shot of CHIJMES. Practicing making HDI manual blended images. Revisiting landscape photography.
3. under what circumstance is the picture taken? (physical conditions/emotions)
It was a hot day with very thick puffy clouds in the perfectly blue sky. I wanted to capture the landmark church building in CHIJMES with the picturesque sky.
4. what the critique seeker personally thinks of the picture
The photo seems balanced in terms of composition. As for post-processing, though it is a HDR image manually blended with 3 shots, it does not have the jarring HDR look that most HDR photos have. So I'm glad for that. However, I seek your thoughts on both the composition and the processing.

CHIJMES pp. manual HDR blend by Above Norm, on Flickr

 

[saveDqueen]

1. in what area is critique to be sought?
Composition, Post-processing

Personally I find certain elements in the photo distracts me away from the glory composition that you were seeking for on the architecture. And the breathing room of the "subject" is less comfortable to me personally in this composition.
If you need examples;
- unnecessary integration of foreground showing elevators, barriers and branch. Items are meaningless and reveals moderness of subject, taking away romance or nostalgic emotions from photo.
- Composition is what any average man would do, having a signature look/style is not just on PP aka HDR, tinting, blahblah. To me personally, framing/PP of subject did not evoke certain emotion or thoughts.

2. what one hopes to achieve with the piece of work?
A shot of CHIJMES. Practicing making HDI manual blended images. Revisiting landscape photography.

Does not appear to me as HDR, not sure what are you revisiting. It looks normally like what it always has been.

3. under what circumstance is the picture taken? (physical conditions/emotions)
It was a hot day with very thick puffy clouds in the perfectly blue sky. I wanted to capture the landmark church building in CHIJMES with the picturesque sky.

Lost details (shadow, midtones) could be cropped to remove weakness in photo and direct attention towards correlation between Building and Sky.

4. what the critique seeker personally thinks of the picture
The photo seems balanced in terms of composition. As for post-processing, though it is a HDR image manually blended with 3 shots, it does not have the jarring HDR look that most HDR photos have. So I'm glad for that. However, I seek your thoughts on both the composition and the processing.

Comments on composition are repeated above, HDR techniques is politely average. Details in shadows were lost, Tonal and exposure range of building and foreground details are poor.
Conclusion, this photo does not awe, inspire or surprise me as per the Composition and PP direction OP was going for. Especially the inclusion of "Revisiting" in title always gave me the impression that a photog would capture the subject in a way that no one else has imagined or something has changed with the subject itself.

Hoping the best for OP as anyone looking to improve should not be satisfied and nowadays I feel lesser need to "package" my thoughts and words, saving time for you and me.

 

[NormanSelvaraju]

Hi savedqueen.

Thanks for the very detailed analysis and advice.

It's precisely what I needed. I initially only thought that my post-processing left much to be desired. But you have pointed out valid items that I would need to reconsider about the composition and even the post processing.

No excuses. I just need to work on it. Thanks.

 

[DSolZ]

I like now the sunburst cast itself on to the church.This is how I would crop it. I find the foreground distracting and doesn't add to the image. The lone branch could also be clone out.

Personally I think black and white would give a stronger image and would work well if yellow/orange/red filter is added to darken the sky and give chijmes more figure to ground. You would lose distraction from the red roof on the left as well. Not sure if you agree. Please pardon the artifacting and posterization, this is a quick job with snapseed, don't have a desktop with me now.

I would also try to recover some details from the shadow (bushes) and the highlights (cloud and sunburst)

 

[NormanSelvaraju]

Thanks dsolz.

You are right about the distracting foreground. Point noted. Appreciate your interpretation of the Bnw. Would prefer the colour version though.

 

[Btjan]

I like now the sunburst cast itself on to the church.This is how I would crop it. I find the foreground distracting and doesn't add to the image. The lone branch could also be clone out.

Personally I think black and white would give a stronger image and would work well if yellow/orange/red filter is added to darken the sky and give chijmes more figure to ground. You would lose distraction from the red roof on the left as well. Not sure if you agree. Please pardon the artifacting and posterization, this is a quick job with snapseed, don't have a desktop with me now.

I would also try to recover some details from the shadow (bushes) and the highlights (cloud and sunburst)

I like these....awesome angle, framing and light. The b&w just made it even better.

 

[thoongeng]

Looks quite good to me, rather natural processing. Good overall exposure and taking care of the verticals.

Minor points in post-processing, I took a look at your bigger flickr version - looks oversharpened, and wondering why the right corner of the image looks quite soft. Since you are doing blending probably can recover the blown highlights of the ground and part of the roof.

Composition wise as others pointed out, either you crop off the foreground fence or leave more space for it, This probably is more of a 'documentary' shot, nothing wrong with it however if you want to evoke more emotion or 'wow', maybe explore at another time or angle and if the facade is front or side lit it may be better.

All that said I myself have not explored this area much before, have not experienced the difficulties of composing this shot so take my comments with a pinch of salt ;p

Thanks for sharing

 

[NormanSelvaraju]

Thanks thoongeng. Appreciate the positive reinforcement.

I'm not sure why there is a difference in the sharpness as I did not apply any additional sharpening. I only set sharpen for screen = high when I exported from lightoom.

Totally understand where you are coming from in terms of the composition. I see now there is a lot of room for improvement. Thanks again.

 

[thoongeng]

I'm not sure why there is a difference in the sharpness as I did not apply any additional sharpening. I only set sharpen for screen = high when I exported from lightoom.

Must be the export sharpening from Lightroom then. You can see a white outline, most obvious at the outline where the church meets the sky. Even on the downsized version here can almost make out the outline. No problem with personal viewing, or when printing you often have to 'oversharpen', just a note if you are eg submitting to some contests may be frowned upon ;p

 

[sjackal]

Was walking through the CHIJMES area and thought of capturing the scene. Hot weather makes for nice skies.. Haha. Anyways, its been long since in took a landscape/cityscape photo and I want to put it up here for comments and critique.

Hope to hear from you guys. Cheers.

1. in what area is critique to be sought?
Composition, Post-processing
2. what one hopes to achieve with the piece of work?
A shot of CHIJMES. Practicing making HDI manual blended images. Revisiting landscape photography.
3. under what circumstance is the picture taken? (physical conditions/emotions)
It was a hot day with very thick puffy clouds in the perfectly blue sky. I wanted to capture the landmark church building in CHIJMES with the picturesque sky.
4. what the critique seeker personally thinks of the picture
The photo seems balanced in terms of composition. As for post-processing, though it is a HDR image manually blended with 3 shots, it does not have the jarring HDR look that most HDR photos have. So I'm glad for that. However, I seek your thoughts on both the composition and the processing.

CHIJMES pp. manual HDR blend by Above Norm, on Flickr

Looks good, I like the tree branch included, it fill the dead space and adds dimension. I don't find the dark shadows at the bushes a problem, it looks natural and shadows add punch and contrast to photos, remember, photography is not about lighting everything and showing everything, shadows define shapes and dimensions. What details you want for the bushes? Admire the leaves?

I agree about the elevators though, a lower angle may hide it more and make it less obvious. I would edit away the flare on lower left too.

 

[Octarine]

I really like how you did the HDR blending. It doesn't look like one, well done.

 

[NormanSelvaraju]

Looks good, I like the tree branch included, it fill the dead space and adds dimension. I don't find the dark shadows at the bushes a problem, it looks natural and shadows add punch and contrast to photos, remember, photography is not about lighting everything and showing everything, shadows define shapes and dimensions. What details you want for the bushes? Admire the leaves? I agree about the elevators though, a lower angle may hide it more and make it less obvious. I would edit away the flare on lower left too.

Thanks sjackal. I was going for that same effect when I left the branches in. Glad it works to some extent.

After the others had brought up the point that the bottom is a distraction I certainly agree with you that the bottom part is a distraction. Shall keep that in mind for next time.

Didn't realise the flare there! Should have been more careful during the final processing.

Thanks for the comments! Appreciate it.

 

[NormanSelvaraju]

I really like how you did the HDR blending. It doesn't look like one, well done.

Thanks Octarine! Coming from you it means a lot. Cheers!