The photographer has shared comprehensive information about their intent and creative vision for this image. Please examine the details and offer feedback on how they can most effectively realize their vision.
Self Critique
The stunning clouds just before sunrise - because of the impending sunrise in the RLC, the left sky is a bit darker - I have opened this area 0.20 via a linear gradient in LR
Creative direction
To me it is all about how to capture what I saw - and I believe I did. Since the clouds were relatively still, I tried a 30 second exposure to get a non distracting water at the bottom - hopefully this works
Specific Feedback
This is a single image - I do have lower exposures for the light of the lighthouse itself - do I need to blend that in ?
I am always open to someone else’s perspective of any kind
Technical Details
30 seconds is all that really matters - did a few and chose 30
Description
Woke up at 3.30am yesterday to shoot sunrise in York, Maine, with good friend Ed McGuirk ( former NPN outstanding moderator ). Two and a half hours later I spent 5 minutes at Nubble Light in York, Maine before heading to a different place a few minutes away. Well worth it - for 2 reason, this sight and of course enjoying breakfast with Ed after the morning shoot!
Gorgeous opportunity!! Sounds like a well-spent morning. It is difficult to visualize anything better in the way of processing, but I wonder about a comparison with a slightly lower exposure, even at the sacrifice of some of the detail on the land. Possibly less exposure on the lights would work well, too. They are dramatic but feel like they could have more detail.
Karl, what a fun image to commemorate the season. Maybe a future post card! I agree it could be a touch darker overall. I think the area I’d like to see darker and would help keep your eyes on the house would be a radial gradient on the right edge where the sun is coming up. Just pulling that down a touch could keep it from competing with the lights on the house.
Gorgesous. Colors of the sunset are wonderful and come across quite natural. Well done on maintaining the colors and exposure at 30s! And yes, I too like that this rendered the water to be non-distracting.
Icing on the cake of course are the festive lights. Well done! A picutre postcard for sure.
Darkening the brighter sky does help draw one’s attention better to the main subjects - the Light house and the puffy clouds itself. When i do longer exposures i often do a shorter one for the sky and then see what works better - here the puffy clouds works well enough i think
