The photographer is looking for thoughtful feedback on the image as a whole, especially around the areas noted below.
Feedback Focus: Artistic / Expressive
About This Image
The sun was setting and the sky glowed orange due to airborne fertilizers over farm fields. I waited until the sandhill cranes flew in front of the last glow of the sun.
Feedback Requested
Is this too dark? Should I lighten the entire image. I recently purchased a new monitor and calibrated it, but I’m not sure about the brightness of the screen. Thank you.
Hi Joyce, really nice catch with the birds in a great position in the image. Their position highlights the setting sun and brings our attention right to the birds. As far as brightness, I think it just depends on what you are after in the image. This version works well for me with all elements in silhouette and tells a story of flooded fields at last light and the great addition of the cranes.
Hi Joyce! I like this image. The Sandhill Cranes adds a great finishing touch, and their placement in the image is just right. The color in the sky and reflection is incredible. I agree with Allen about the brightness. I really like it as is, but it can be adjusted as your vision and desire dictates.
I’ll second the comments above – very nice capture and the shadow detail doesn’t look pushed too far so the drama is good for me. Calibration should adjust monitor brightness to an optimal setting, but it would be assuming room lights are reasonably subdued. Think “dimroom”.
Adding information about the capture and processing is always helpful for critique.
And now I see this is your first post, so I’ll add a Welcome!! This is a very nice first post – I hope to see more!
Thank you. I appreciate your input and will provide more details next time. I like the drama and wanted to call attention to the cranes with the last light, but when I first processed this (on another monitor) it was not as dark. I’ll work on it a bit more and will be sure my room has the same “dimness” for all processing.
I gotta echo Diane’s note and welcome you to NPN! Looks like your first post since joining at the beginning of the year. Glad to have you here and we look forward to more images and your participation in the galleries.
This is a wonderful “wildlife-landscape” image. The flooded fields work nicely to add interest to the reflecting sunset and give the viewer a sense of location and context. I like that the two cranes are in different positions of flight. Very cool.
As far as the darkness goes - it’s only an issue for me in the horizon line really - and primarily in the left half of the image. Now the whole scene is basically a silhouette, and so as presented it works very well. You wouldn’t want too much more detail anyway. Hard to know without seeing the original. And I also agree with Diane, about know the equipment, well really the settings. There’s a checkbox you likely missed called “include metadata” which will automatically grab that info from your file (if it’s included!)
Visual Notes
[Crop] reduce a bit of empty sky, lessen the darker areas on the left
Hello Joyce. Welcome to our great forum. Look forward to seeing more posts from you. Looking at the histogram it’s kinda left heavy with the light side basically flat. I boosted the bright levels a little. Hope you don’t mind. It seems to have made the birds sharper and stand out more. the left side of the image seems softer and a little murky. The right side seems a lot sharper. I cropped a little to get rid of some of that and a little sky. I love the two distinct poses of the birds midflight. One seems like it’s heading in for landing while the other is maybe picking a better spot.
I agree with your feedback. Thank you. I had to do jury duty, so didn’t have time to reply any sooner. I also still need to retire and spend more time on photography!
