Fullerton Shines


garian

New Member
Aug 27, 2008
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IMG_5077-7.jpg


Hi to all fellow CSers, I am new to this thread. would appreciate alot if you could c&c this humble work of mine.

1. in what area is critique to be sought?
Composition and Colours

2. what one hopes to achieve with the piece of work?
a good exposure of whatever in the content

3. under what circumstance is the picture taken? (physical conditions/emotions)
a cool night with cool breeze under a dim moonlight

4. what the critique seeker personally thinks of the picture
not too sure but feel quite nice.
 

Hello and welcome!

firstly, the only thing i'll like to fault is the composition. there doesn't seem to be a real strong focal point in the picture. the placement of the building with lots of mirrors (i assume that's ur focal point) is competing with the extremely bright fullerton hotel for attention. furthermore, the bg seems lobbed sided. very messy on the left and very empty on the right.

exposure seems fine. a slightly stronger focal point would definitely be better
 

Thanks NY for your valuable advice. will work on that to improve. :)
 

u can take off your filter (if possible u can even change this filter, good filters should not produce flares like this), its causing unnecessary flares (look at the smoothed water below the building)
 

Thanks Sinned for the tips. The flares I am not so sure about removing filter will help. It's actually reflection when I look at it with naked eyes.
 

No good. Composition out. Look at fullerton building on the right, it caught the attention more with its bright lights. Which building is your topic on the left one nearer to us, or the right one ?

This angle is for morning shoot when the sunrise. I believe the left building will be golden in colour when sun reflects from the sea and the right fullerton building will lose its light in comparison.

Unless I'm confused, which i am very much now, I have no idea where is the topic and intention. I will be harsh here. Trash it.
 

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i dun think its reflection.
during that moment, the powerful light from MBS shone down directly at the glass panels which reflects onto the water. so i just manage to wait awhile and captured it. kinda difficult at first but caught the reflection when stop down to 10". this was taken during the MBS lightshow, bracketing -3 to +3 and merge into hdr. perhaps not so good for this picture i think.
 

No good. Composition out. Look at fullerton building on the right, it caught the attention more with its bright lights. Which building is your topic on the left one nearer to us, or the right one ?

This angle is for morning shoot when the sunrise. I believe the left building will be golden in colour when sun reflects from the sea and the right fullerton building will lose its light in comparison.

Unless I'm confused, which i am very much now, I have no idea where is the topic and intention. I will be harsh here. Trash it.

Not so sure if cropping would create less confusion for the composition, maybe you could advice on this?
IMG_5077-7.jpg
 

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Not so sure if cropping would create less confusion for the composition, maybe you could advice on this?
IMG_5077-7.jpg

cropping is worst, makes the whole picture looks tight (see the top part of the photo, its very tight and your buildings cramped together, sky also shown a bit only). You need a wider angle lens for this shot to balance out the space. and probably choose a better angle to capture a wide angle shot.
 

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Noted with thanks bro, will work on a better pic in future. really need to dump this photo liao. :bsmilie:
 

Like what sinned79 commented. Portrait doesn't works for this photo. Still the subject did not stand out of the crowd. Seat back as far as you can from your photo. Let the photo just occupy 10% of the screen and then you assess if you can make out of the subject. The texture of the building is so reflective that it's taking up all the lights and detail from the surrounding. When you zoom in from this far away, there is no wide perspective to make your focus point in this case, because the colour of the building is cluttered and basically blend in with the backdrop which is a set of cluttered buildings with their own lights. I didn't inspect the EXIF data, but I bet it is a small aperture of f/5.6 and above ? The buildings are the back looks sharp too, which further makes your subject less prominent.

I advice you to trash it so that you can have better portfolio. I do have a lot of such photos too. Nowadays I'm more stringent about my works even though photography is not my main job. In fact, since photography is not my main job, I feel I have the luxury to be even more selective when comes to showing people my works. It's really up to you, I still keep those photos, just that I don't show them because it doesn't pass my own judgement. I understand you have spend a lot of effort walking around, getting good perspective and sweating with the tripod. When you are at the scene, you might feel it's alright, but the outcome doesn't seems to be the same because of the nature of the sensor where dynamic range is not sufficient, it just didn't work out correct in the picture and other reasons. Result - Trash it.

If you feel you would like to redo one more time, the following is what I advice that you can give it a trial. No guarantee that it will work out nice, since trial and error is what I do most of the time too.

1) Try the Brenizer method that someone has tried for his/her portrait shoots recently found in http://www.clubsnap.com/forums/threads/973630-Mid-Autumn . Details can be found at http://blog.buiphotography.com/2009/07/the-brenizer-method-explained-with-directions/. It will require you to stitch, but you can use this method to make your backdrop less cluttered by making them OOF. I'm not sure how nice it will look for sceneries and buildings, but no harm giving it a trial. For the water, use a long exposure to totally blur out the water. After that blend them together using masking in PP. Vignetting effect will also bring the focus to the building u wanted.

2) Try another angle and perspective. Building looks more majestic when bottom up, even my office building that sucks from normal perspective looks better when you feel as such 6132671640_55322aa109.jpg.

3) Try HDR, there are a lot of lights. There are details in them that can be retrieved using a shorter exposure. That's where HDR comes in useful. The star burst/flare is nice, so stop down your aperture (good if your lens aperture uses 9 blades) when doing it.

4) Do a sunrise shot, it doesn't have to be sunset or night time for a shot to be nice and as photographers, we can choose to manipulate shots or go with the nature flows. If the setting looks better in the morning, so be it and make the best out of it. Things looks better if you don't bend the lights.

Play with different combination mentioned above. Be flexible, be creative. You may take a look at the works of this photographer. http://www.flickr.com/photos/danielcheong/. I personally feel he is a master of PP and HDRI. He works has been very stunning in architecture and landscapes.


Not so sure if cropping would create less confusion for the composition, maybe you could advice on this?
IMG_5077-7.jpg
 

Thank you so much David, these will be bear in my mind. I will try to apply the tips given. :)