When I saw the light, my first thought was floating fairies. I like finding patterns in nature. Here I saw the light and dark contrast, the different shapes it created as well as the shape of the light. All different and repetitive patterns. They all seemed to compliment each other as they called for attention. Look at meeee!
Specific Feedback Requested
Any feedback and criticism are welcome. While I would love my image to be cryptic, The subject is fairly obvious. Feedback and suggestions on how to make the image better. What feeling does it give you if any?
Technical Details
1/160 at f 16, ISO 320
24-70 tamron lens at 70mm
Nikon D810
Hey buddy,
I’m sure Sarah will have a ton more to say but immediately I saw the bright diffraction spikes – they are grey instead of white - which means you pushed the highlights down way too far.
Hi Martha – Thanks so much for sharing your water fairies! The mix of the sparkles, ripple patterns, and colors all come together nicely here. First, I will agree with Matt’s comment about the processing. Something about the sparkles looks unnatural. I would expect them to be white or warm-toned and more defined. I would rather see them look a bit blown out without much detail instead of like little grey circles. It sounds like you are already going to consider addressing that issue. You could also consider making the color balance a bit more blue. The color of the water looks sort of teal. I know this can happen with glacially fed lakes or rivers sometimes so maybe that was the case here. Just thought I would mention it since the color looked a tad unnatural at first glance.
The other thing you could consider is a crop off the left. With photos like this, I like to see consistent repetition across the frame. For example, if we divided the photo into quadrants (both a grid and vertical stripes), how would the arrangement of the sparkles look? The vertical strip on the left would have far less sparkles than the rest of the frame. So, in my suggested crop below, I cropped off some of the left and cloned out a few small sparkles on the right to bring more balance to the framing. Then, I chose a final crop that offered an equal margin without sparkles on both the left edge and right edge, and then flipped the photo horizontally. This all makes the photo feel more balanced to me. I also cloned out a few tiny bright specks of light.
