The photographer is looking for generalized feedback about the aesthetic and technical qualities of their image.
Description
0430 and alone on Chinamen’s Beach, Northern NSW. Dawn and alone on the beach is something I love! Heavy cloud and not a great deal of colour that morning so it was one of those times you have to work with what you’ve got. A 10 second exposure to tease some colour and movement out of the sky. The rocks around here carry a lot of colour, from the red-ish lichen to the pebbles.
Specific Feedback
It’s a messy image so comment on this aspect would be appreciated.
There are a lot of great elements in this photo. First, it seems to my eye that the horizon is tilted and could use a slight CW rotation to make it level, but that could just be an optical illusion. Second, I like the drama in the sky and I want to explore the sky all around, but the foreground rock on the right side makes the whole photo right-side heavy and traps my eye. Third, did you use a graduated ND filter during capture, or was a gradient used in processing? There seems to be a luminosity shift to darker tones in the sand as the eye moves up. Have you thought about maybe cropping the bottom third out to make it more of a panoramic composition, then the elements would tend to balance themselves out with the dramatic cloud upper right and darker rock lower left? Further, the lines in the lower darker rock lead the eye into the dramatic cloud. I think if you work with the cropping you could get something that will be more cohesive.
I think this image has a lot going for it. I love all of the drama in the sky and the rocks in the foreground are interesting too. I also like that there is a path though the center of the image from the bottom between the rocks to the background. The only thing I’m not sold on is the darkness in the rocks in the midground – possibly caused by a too strong graduated ND filter – whether a real one or in post processing and the cyan cast to the water. I think that those two things could be fixed rather easily though.
At 0430 I was essentially standing in the pre-dawn dark. I would have used a GND filter on the day and to get some light onto the foreground I’ve used a 10s exposure. The result was a VERY flat RAW image. In ACR I’ve added a narrow GND on the clouds for exposure (darker) and a brush mask to the foreground rocks to bring out some detail. Those mid-ground rocks face toward me and away from the sunrise so they are naturally very dark.
I agree with the comments re the rocks on the RHS and so this cropped image.
