Aesthetic: Feedback on the overall visual appeal of the image, including its color, lighting, cropping, and composition.
Conceptual: Feedback on the message and story conveyed by the image.
Technical: Feedback on the technical aspects of the image, such as exposure, color, focus and reproduction of colors and details, post-processing, and print quality.
Specific Feedback and Self-Critique
Wandering (as usual) on the beach there was a small rivulet running across the beach with a lot of heavy mineral deposits that added interesting colors. Once I opened it on the computer, I thought it looked like a landscape with rolling hills going into a canyon. So, I cooled the top to make the ocean with waves coming in.
Conceptually, I have no questions. Just wondering if it looks too crunchy - all those little sand grains are really something if you pixel-peep it. I intend to print it, so I think that a print on matte paper won’t be so strongly textured.
Technical Details
D5600, f/16, 86mm, 1/250s, ISO 360, hand held.
Processed in ACR (expanded histogram as the original was very low contrast; cooled upper part with linear gradient; increased vibrance & saturation a bit; reduced clarity & texture; slight S curve; cropped to 16:9).
Hi Bonnie,
wow, you found a really beautiful small scene here. I love it. And your chosen title fits perfectly.
At first glance, I thought the image was very noisy. But you are right, if you zoom in you will realize that it is simply the grains of sand. Amazing!!!
Oh Bonnie, this is so unique and beautiful!! I too love the name for this image and at first glance thought it was noise, but when enlarged realized it was sand. This photo is so well worth hanging. You are so talented at finding unique images and putting your own processing spin on them. If I only had 1/2 your ability to compose images, I’d be happy. I don’t know much about printing, but I hope it prints as well as you hope.
Very cool!! At first it struck me as frost on a small landscape. I think I’m standing on a hill looking down at a flat area. Wonderful colors and shapes!
It would have taken me a while to see it as sand, but it doesn’t strike me as film grain at all, even of the old fast film variety. Actually it almost has the look of unusually dense Fuji pepper grain.
Amazing. Simply amazing. I didn’t think grain or noise, I first thought of an art filter in PS - you know, the Stylize filters, emboss, find edges, sketch, despeckle, fragment… yeah, one of those. Other than the color/sat/vib changes, it sounds like you didn’t really have to do too much - it’s all sand and it’s, well, amazing.
Certainly impresses a landscape with rolling hills that meet the sea. Great choice in using the gradient to cool to top. Outstanding!
Beautiful image, Bonnie! It looks like a pointillism art painting. Which I loved doing in art class! What I love about this is that it makes me feel like I’m at the beach and can hear the ocean sounds, the waves and seagulls, and feel the suns warmth. It has a happy feeling to it.
Bonnie, I’ll echo the sentiment from the others here. Wonderful creative image! This one drew me in and made me think and explore the image. The title is perfect. The sweeping lines and colors look great. Yes it does appear a bit crunchy in the thumbnail but looks great viewed enlarged. Great job!
This is really interesting. I don’t understand how you got the effect in this photo. Ive used Oil Paint for fun but this is so unique and questions my eye at first glance.
Good to hear this Vanessa. It’s a sort of fun image, so I’m glad it feels happy.
I didn’t “do” anything to get this effect - it’s a straight ahead photo of sand on a beach. The texture and colors are from the sand grains (well except the top, which I made more blue than it was).
What was the ISO settings. Did you shoot early morning. Just to be there and see this shot is amazing. I’ll go back and look at everything closer. I’ll do a better job typing.
Hi Looking at your photo and what is linear gradient. i use vibrance a lot as well. Reduced texture ?? your photo really caught my eye. Now I’m so curious in your editing technique . Ive used Oil Paint on some photos just trying to give a different look. Take Care gill
@Gill_Vanderlip, my ISO was 360 (I had it on auto). This was mid-day, about 11:15 (pacific time). It’s one of those shots where I thought it looked interesting when I first saw it, but then when I got it onto the computer, I saw more possibilities. That is rather my mode - make photos of things that catch my eye and then explore the processing possibilities later. You have to be willing to accept a lot of duds with this way of shooting .
A linear gradient is one of the tools in Camera Raw or Lightroom (other software has the same kind of thing). You can add an adjustment to just part of an image by adding gradients (linear, radial, brush - there’s more than one kind). Here’s a screen shot of the gradient I used to make the top more blue in this photo. The red shaded area is the only part of the photo that was adjusted and the adjustments you can see from the sliders on the right. There are lots of online resources for learning these kinds of things. Not sure what software you’re using, so I don’t know what to recommend.
Thanks . I use Photoshop. i use it like a darkroom mostly but i do experiment some with different filters. Solarize is something i have used and it can give a weird effect that works sometimes… I have had my share of DUDS … People tell me I do macro photography the best.
Its a beautiful photo … Very different and interesting. It you ever print it Try Metal Prints. I think this would be great on metal. No frame needed.
Hi Bonnie, this is another beautiful photo you’ve made! I don’t think it’s too crunchy at all, it’s sand & kind has to look like this! The repeating diagonals starting at the bottom left & go to the top right are a great way to lead us through the frame. I really appreciate the color contrast between cool & warm tones. As I look at the photo longer & longer, I begin to notice that there are quite a few triangles in the frame formed by faint lines in the sand & by contrasting colors. I have a thing for “triangles” in photos & these are subtle but I like them. I also like how the line toward the bottom all converge & bring us to a point of interest we can explore & eventually move on from. Good work, Bonnie!
Wow, this photo really caught my eye. Like others have said I at first thought it was an exceptionally tasteful use of noise or some sort of crunchy art filter. Seeing that it’s all real texture that you even toned down some just makes it that much cooler.
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