Sky beyond four walls

[ovaltinemilo]

1. in what area is critique to be sought?
Composition, lighting and pp.

2. what one hopes to achieve with the piece of work?
The photo intents to depict "bigger world"(vast sky) outside the four walls of our safe home.

3. under what circumstance is the picture taken? (physical conditions/emotions)
On the way home to avoid the hot weather of the afternoon..instinctively looked up and found a good spot to shoot.

4. what the critique seeker personally thinks of the picture
I was rather pleased to see some details of the dark areas and also shadow on the blocks that won't make the bottom part so dull.

 

[nysheng]

very interesting composition!

u might want to consider doing a hdr for this shot.. helps bring out the dark areas more.

maybe a tighter composition might enhance the visual lines a bit more too

 

[ovaltinemilo]

Thanks nysheng... Come to think of it, i shd reli take another pic with tighter composition and compare both...thanks the suggestion...will try Hdr next tm...

 

[night86mare]

you might want to convert this to bnw, with a proper conversion, it will be much better than the color version, as the color distracts here from the primary elements of your composition, which would be the leading lines.

a question here to you is why you have chosen to place the lead-in off-centre.

yes, centred subjects are not good for many things, but do you think a centered composition would work better here? if so, why? if not, why not? if you cover the left of the image (the equivalent of cropping), and then uncover it, which looks better to you?

there are many things in photography other than "off centre" rule, you have to play with them to weigh your options and do what is best for each scene. in this case, the issue here is balance.

 

[runaway1991]

you might want to convert this to bnw, with a proper conversion, it will be much better than the color version, as the color distracts here from the primary elements of your composition, which would be the leading lines.

a question here to you is why you have chosen to place the lead-in off-centre.

yes, centred subjects are not good for many things, but do you think a centered composition would work better here? if so, why? if not, why not? if you cover the left of the image (the equivalent of cropping), and then uncover it, which looks better to you?

there are many things in photography other than "off centre" rule, you have to play with them to weigh your options and do what is best for each scene. in this case, the issue here is balance.

very much agreed!

 

[aprilmoon92]

you might want to convert this to bnw, with a proper conversion, it will be much better than the color version, as the color distracts here from the primary elements of your composition, which would be the leading lines.

a question here to you is why you have chosen to place the lead-in off-centre.

yes, centred subjects are not good for many things, but do you think a centered composition would work better here? if so, why? if not, why not? if you cover the left of the image (the equivalent of cropping), and then uncover it, which looks better to you?

there are many things in photography other than "off centre" rule, you have to play with them to weigh your options and do what is best for each scene. in this case, the issue here is balance.

hmm i agree about the off-centre, but i actually disagree about bnw... cos if he converts directly, the mid-ish tones of the sky will blend too much with the flats, but the stark blue now makes the contrast very strong. perhaps a bnw conversion where you make the 'blue' curve (in Curves) weaker first, so it is lighter compared to the flats. or play around with the separate RGB curves to desaturate the blue so it contrasts, but isnt so strong that it distracts the user from the leading lines

 

[ovaltinemilo]

Thank you all for the good suggstions. I do agree very much on the off centred thingy but still prefer blue sky..haha...These comments/suggestions really help me in the future...Thank you all again. I shd try hdr too..though it was "unfriendly" to do on D40.

 

[xunliang]

pleasing composition here.

 

[night86mare]

hmm i agree about the off-centre, but i actually disagree about bnw... cos if he converts directly, the mid-ish tones of the sky will blend too much with the flats, but the stark blue now makes the contrast very strong. perhaps a bnw conversion where you make the 'blue' curve (in Curves) weaker first, so it is lighter compared to the flats. or play around with the separate RGB curves to desaturate the blue so it contrasts, but isnt so strong that it distracts the user from the leading lines

erm, i am not sure what you mean by "convert directly"

there are loads of ways to convert to bnw, the easiest way is desaturation - you aren't by any chance referring to that?

there are many other ways, like the channel mixer, which would differentiate the weight of the tones, etc. conversion of color photography to bnw can be almost viewed as an art.

 

[Fallenphoenix]

i prefer it portrait =)

 

[wildcat]

Very interesting picture. I find the illusion of being off centre very interesting. While I normally like rule of 1/3 and generally tilted pix for direct shots, the use of shadows (left side) to create the illusion of a right-based pix. Between top two and bottom two buildings I like the nicely balanced use of 1/3 rule by using the "jagged" one-sided.

I like this :bsmilie:

 

[heshanj]

yes, very interesting composition - although following some advice given by many members already, u can make this much better.. but the composition is great , i think

 

[ovaltinemilo]

Thank you all for the insights. I will definitely see how each suggestion can be used to improve on this.

As I am not reli good at bnw, I do feel tat I prob shd try bnw on this to see what can I get from this as suggested by night86mare.

Thank you guys..reli kind for u guys to share...