Labrador Jetty HDR

[Culés]

Sorry, can't be bothered to read through all that you wrote here, but I am sure you're right, try to take it easy next time, its just a photo

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Critique Corner - Post your image in here to get serious and honest feedback from fellow photographers.

it's not personal, but there is a sudden influx of frivolous post that borders on nothing but "i like this photo, it seems alright to me", followed by some ramblings which seem to do nothing but sugarcoat it for the ts everytime, this is not the way to go.. people will never take this section seriously already. just taking the chance to point this out to the mods in charge of critique corner.

if you had posted your comment elsewhere i would probably have just ignored it and moved on, even though it does not seem right to me, but here? i am not seeing how it helps the ts in improving at all, when such comments (without substantiation) are posted. i have disagreed with majority opinions before in this section, but never without any substantiation.



i hope you understand the context for my questioning - it is nothing to do with your disagreeing with me - everybody does *have* a right to a viewpoint, but this is not the section to express one's viewpoint without any credible reasoning giving. hope you get what i mean, cheers.

 

[night86mare]

Sorry, can't be bothered to read through all that you wrote here, but I am sure you're right, try to take it easy next time, its just a photo

alright, i will; next time i will not reply, and i will report the post to the mods.

here it has been done after seeing the extremely disappointing and close-minded response despite an attempt at explanation. i apologise to myself for thinking that you might have bothered to read it, should have saved the time for something better.

cheers. quoting the post for the record.

 

[emlee]

definitely, well the "weird feeling" could be taken away with horizontal perspective correction, but you would have to crop a lot.

i would also add on that the lead-in is into something not quite so pleasant looking, nor something very noteworthy - a weird looking part of the jetty :dunno: it is best if you lead-into something that is aesthetically interesting at the very least, else you end up leading in for the sake of leading in

if you want to see a good shot from this perspective, you can look at zerodivine's version here; though he has done it in a different way which might not be done again because the works there have been stopped (so no more crane to be framed). note that he also has that disorientating tilt to the left , where this frame can be found inside, but here the viewer's focus is drawn away from it. i do think landscape works better for labrador; reason being the rocks are too big for vertical, or too small. and whatever the case the most interesting you could use for foreground might be a lot of rocks (small ones), or seaweed during low tide. in both, you might as well compose it horizontally to make use of the jetty in the background :dunno:

if the lead-in is from the left, as is common when it comes to shooting labrador park beach.. then yes, your horizon will be straight if you want to include the pillars of the jetty nearest to you.

Thanks for the explanation. I do enjoy reading a good review.

With no pun intended to anyone, I have read many people giving generic feedback e.g. "weak composition". This is not very useful as I guess the person who post the picture would really like to know the "how". It is then up to the reader to decide whether he/she agrees or not. There is no need to try to convince everyone to agree.

So for that, thanks for your thorough feedback all the time.

 

[newlife]

personally i really dont care if the pic looks real or artificial but the pic shud definitely hold my interest long enough to enjoy it i really like the purple sky and the orange sun effect.....they look stunning together:thumbsup:all it needs is a little cropping frm the bottom:think:if ur subject is the bridge then enhance it all around with leading lines,colors,sharpness or blurry back gorund...watever suits ur moods or moment at that time.....vertical framing dominates a subjects,so showing too much around the point of focus is unnecessary....the end:bsmilie:

 

[jenson]

there is good use of leading lines here, with a dramatic sky, but the purple sky looks fake and the foreground does not add much interest to the photo. so would suggest cropping away the foreground and a bit of the left of the photo for a cleaner composition, and adjusting the colours so the sky looks more blue than purple.

thanks for correcting.. in fact.. i did feel the same about those ugly seaweeds.. but like mentioned below.. those are the only foreground available at the scene.. i fact did take a shot with a tree branch that i dragged in.. haha..

i guess its clear now that purple sky doesn't work.. the sky is originally blue btw.. thanks!!

 

[jenson]

personally i really dont care if the pic looks real or artificial but the pic shud definitely hold my interest long enough to enjoy it i really like the purple sky and the orange sun effect.....they look stunning together:thumbsup:all it needs is a little cropping frm the bottom:think:if ur subject is the bridge then enhance it all around with leading lines,colors,sharpness or blurry back gorund...watever suits ur moods or moment at that time.....vertical framing dominates a subjects,so showing too much around the point of focus is unnecessary....the end:bsmilie:

the orange sun effect is what i was trying to lead viewers into.. =)

as the weather isn't that good that day.. the orange sky is actually not very obvious in the original photo.. i have to push the temperture settings in photomatix all the way to the right to bring out the orange.. and that causes the sky to become purple... *then i think its quite cool, so i kept it that way. hehe..

 

[jenson]

definitely, well the "weird feeling" could be taken away with horizontal perspective correction, but you would have to crop a lot.

i would also add on that the lead-in is into something not quite so pleasant looking, nor something very noteworthy - a weird looking part of the jetty :dunno: it is best if you lead-into something that is aesthetically interesting at the very least, else you end up leading in for the sake of leading in

if you want to see a good shot from this perspective, you can look at zerodivine's version here; though he has done it in a different way which might not be done again because the works there have been stopped (so no more crane to be framed). note that he also has that disorientating tilt to the left , where this frame can be found inside, but here the viewer's focus is drawn away from it. i do think landscape works better for labrador; reason being the rocks are too big for vertical, or too small. and whatever the case the most interesting you could use for foreground might be a lot of rocks (small ones), or seaweed during low tide. in both, you might as well compose it horizontally to make use of the jetty in the background :dunno:

if the lead-in is from the left, as is common when it comes to shooting labrador park beach.. then yes, your horizon will be straight if you want to include the pillars of the jetty nearest to you.

Thanks again for your constructive advise!
actually i do not understand when you say "disorientating tilt to the left" and why will it not have that effect if its leading in from the left? can point me to some good reading material??

btw.. that pic you included here.. it has a very nice gradient blue sky.. i suppose its the effect of GND filter? is it a always a must for landscape shots? can i achieve same effect from PS? any recommendation for GND filter(reasonable budget ones)?

 

[night86mare]

Thanks again for your constructive advise!
actually i do not understand when you say "disorientating tilt to the left" and why will it not have that effect if its leading in from the left? can point me to some good reading material??

btw.. that pic you included here.. it has a very nice gradient blue sky.. i suppose its the effect of GND filter? is it a always a must for landscape shots? can i achieve same effect from PS? any recommendation for GND filter(reasonable budget ones)?

not off hand, but this is something i have written, you can see relevant pages 2-8, and ask me if you do not understand. feel free to give comments on that too.

a quick explanation would be that, while your verticals are vertical, your horizon will seem tilted, even though it is not a very prominent factor. you see the jetty in the distance in your photo, it is tilting downwards. that is the tilt i am referring to. the thing is, your photograph probably *isn't* tilted, but the jetty is relatively close, so because of this thing called "horizontal perspective distortion" , expalined in the link i have provided.. it will seem tilted.

that, you will have to ask zerodivine, the person who shot that shot. i do think that he has used a gnd there though. it is not *always* a must for landscape shots, especially if you have a circular polariser.. but i think it is almost always a must for sunset photographs/sunrise photographs.

can you achieve same effect in ps? sometimes, when the light allows you to. you can do it with duplicating a layer, setting the layer type to multiply and clearing away the nonsky portions - your sky would be darkened.. then set the opacity lower to something like 30-70%. but once again, during sunset/sunrise, the difference in lighting between foreground and background is so vast that this will not be enough since the details you want are lost. recovering these details would result in massive posterisation (blending of details) for recovering highlights, or massive noise when recovering shadows. if you shoot and play more with your photos you'll see what i mean.

for decently priced gnd, you can look for cokin or tianya, but i would not recommend cokin -adds a very nasty yellow cast that cannot be removed even with pp. tianya can be gotten from ppcp.. but ppcp is becoming more and more unreliable, which reminds me that i have to put up a complaint thread soon to get something done. it is sad that the primary source of tianya filters in singapore is becoming like that.

 

[eikin]

I'll like to take this opportunity to remind everyone participating in Critique Corner to take note that short, unsubstantiated comments are relatively of not much of a use to critique seekers and readers in general. take note of the existing guideline http://www.clubsnap.com/forums/showthread.php?t=273343

Disagreements in critiques should never end with shallow words like ''I don't have to like what you like,'' but should be substantiated with knowledge and debated through in a gentlemanly fashion. If everyone just post comments like ''Nice,'' ''I like'' and such, we'll never be able to produce an environment befitting of being called ''Critique Corner.''