This scene grabbed me when I saw it in the field but I am not so hot anymore after working on the sketch. I am posting to understand it from other people’s perspectives. What do you like and what don’t you like about it?
For me, it seems like the pattern in the foreground really attracts my interest and I thought the progression of the mesquites to “many” in the BG is also quite interesting. But maybe the geometry/arrangement of the is not quite ideal and that’s what’s throwing me off?
D500, 300mm, f/8, 1/200, ISO 200. Warped on the left side to accentuate the slope of the dunes.
The default at NPN is a black canvas. I saw what I thought were compositional issues until I downloaded it. Notice how much better this looks within a white frame. The frame adds to the light treatment which the composition already has and things look pretty good. There is a color cast that could be just a tad cooler on my monitor but I like it as is.
I quite like the foreground pattern but I get lost as I progress above it. Nothing up there really holds my attention. If you have enough pixels, pano crop for just the foreground?
Adhika,I think as a desert it is empty , but also the colors are empty to me. And therefore a bit dull image IMHO. The composition seems as it should be.
This image stood out for me. I like the flow of the image from front to back. I love the S curve leading-line in the sand. I like the large-to-small objects, reinforcing depth. I like how the light is handled. I also like the signature. Not sure I would do anything…except for maybe a small crop on the top. Great image. Very interesting.
@Adhika_Lie, the light is beautiful, and the sweeping foreground line blends nicely with the midground bushes. To my eye, that’s the shot. I tried to crop some of the image, but would have liked to recompose the image, placing the camera higher in order to isolate the first or second bush from the others. To me, that’s where I would end the shot. I think a square crop with all the foreground and the first 1-2 bushes in the midground is very pleasing. Taking the entire image together, me eye follows the midground bushes to the right edge of the frame or gets lost in the shrubs in the background.
Such beautiful light. I love those salt pan remnants, too. What strikes me is the balance with three things - my eye follows the dark line of bushes right out of the frame, the smaller bushes at the top aren’t adding anything, and the left side of the frame seems empty.
I think with a bit of dodging/burning you could direct the eye better and fill in the left side of the frame. Also cropping a bit off the top. I took a quick crack at it. I cropped off the top a bit, lightened the remaining bushes at the top and in the ULC, darkened the little bush center left (to give it more visual weight to balance the bigger line of bushes), and darkened the shadows of the main bushes. To my eye, this gives it more balance.
I like Jim’s idea, too. A square crop with the salt pan and first two bushes would be elegant.
Thanks, guys! Very good feedback and inputs on this one.
@Igor_Doncov it’s really interesting what a frame does to the image. It does look better that way. I am curious, you are one of the guys here who always posts framed images (@Doug_Blunt is the other). What’s your reasoning for the additional steps? I always mat my prints but never “mat”/frame the JPEG for web posting. Not sure why.
@Ben_van_der_Sande, I think I am leaning towards the opposite. I feel that it’s too crowded. I think this is what @Harley_Goldman, @Jim_McGovern, and @Bonnie_Lampley were saying about the top. My reasoning to keep the top is that the repetition would prevent the eyes to stay there and instead focus on the lower 2/3 of the image. Unfortunately going higher is impossible as I was already standing on the highest part of the dunes from here. I really like what Bonnie did with the crop though. It feels a lot more balanced. Thanks, Bonnie!
There are several reasons why I frame my images. Just as you try to match anything to the wall when you hang something an image needs the proper environment to look best. The environment affects the interpretation of the image. Color interpretation changes with the background. In this case you had a light image whose feel was being destroyed by the black background. The distant bushes felt wrong to me as well until I added the frame and then it fell into place.
But the biggest reason I use a frame is that it’s part of the composition. The design, the layout of lines and shapes take form within the square. A line in one area is not the same without the other lines formed by the edge. The relationship is no longer there and compositions are really just about relationships between components. That’s why people comment about objects being too close to the edge. The frame is always there and part of the composition.
The cons are very few. Some people seem to think you have a high opinion of yourself or even showing off with a frame. This is easily ignored. Others on social media want to see work by amateurs like themselves and see frames as the sign of a professional. They seem to be put off by it as well. Show the same image with and without the frame and the second will get much greater recognition.
When I download an image at NPN I always zoom out in the app to add a frame before evaluating it. And btw, the thickness of the frame is greatly significant. A thin frame feels meaningless now to me and almost annoying.
@Igor_Doncov, I agree with pretty much everything that you have just said. Pretty much how I feel when I print and frame my work (I am really a big fan of custom framing). But I have never thought about this when I post on the web, here or elsewhere.
This. I used to think about maximizing the image area, now I feel the same way as you do. The frame and matting help to separate the image from everything else around it.
I think I would personally try for a more “centred” crop, eliminating most of the upper bushes and the small left side bush (which attracts too much attention).
I like the warm, soft side light and foreground curve, I can definitely see why you were attracted to the scene in the first place.
After reading all these suggestions, I worked on it a little more and decided to go with this crop. I agree that the background bushes are not necessary and rather clutter the image. @Harley_Goldman suggested a pano crop of the bottom and @Jim_McGovern also suggested something similar. I happen to have a horizontal composition of this shot but it doesn’t look quite right without getting higher. But I think I can isolate the frontmost bush with a longer telephoto lens next time I am here. Time to get that 500PF lens
Yah, I really liked the mats that one of the pro wildlife photographers (Lisa Langell) was putting on her shots…so I adopted the practice. Now, sometimes I won’t use a mat on horizontals because they already post smaller on FB than the verticals, but when I do leave the mat off, it feels really unfinished to me. Just a habit, I guess. But people would feel funny not matting their prints, so it makes sense to me that a mat on a digital image looks better for the same reasons. But not everyone agrees, and that’s ok.
Adhika, I think your reworked crop makes the image work much better. In the original presentation, it almost felt like you had two disconnected subjects, or put another way, not enough of a connection between the “Nike” Swirl (it sort of looks like the Nike logo) and the vegetation. In the cropped image, eliminating the far background places more emphasis on the former mid-ground vegetation. This remaining area of vegetation now has a somewhat more pronounced shape, which sort of mimics the reverse S-curve of the Nike Swirl. Thus I feel there is now a stronger connection between the two elements.
I also enjoyed reading @Igor_Doncov discussion of mats/borders and why he uses them. What Igor did here makes a noticeable and favorable change in the way I perceive the image. I’ve never tried using borders like this for web display, but Igor’s discussion is certainly food for thought and experimentation.
Not absolutely sure what I feel, Adhika. One thought is that I might like to see full depth of field to bring up the distant features. and maybe just a slightly higher contrast. I like the composition as is. I like Igor’s framing idea too.
@Dave_Dillemuth, @Ed_McGuirk, and @Ian_Wolfenden thanks! I agree that cropping helps to simplify the clutter. But, I am quite amazed at what framing does to the image even though the image stays the same. If printing the image is the final goal, shouldn’t the critique be given to the image in a form that resembles that final form?
In a way, this is somewhat related to this discussion. That, presentation matters, even as we post here online: To frame or not to frame? To post with a detailed description or without even a caption? Image before description or the other way round? I find this very interesting.
And Ed, now I can see the Nike sign, I cannot look at the image without thinking about Nike
I watched a video on Van Gogh recently about his studies on color and how he used them. In short, he learned that colors appearing close to one another affected the appearance of one another. He therefore painted color combinations that brought results different than the individual colors themselves. I think there is possibly a lesson here for photographers as well, that is more than the cool/warm compositions that we are fond of creating. This was also revelation to me because I always thought of Van Gogh as passionately throwing color on a canvas in fits of inspiration. Apparently it wasn’t quite like that.
A bit late… but still wanted to comment. Lot’s of good feedback, suggestions and comments.
I’m really enjoying what you saw and captured here. This is one of those scenes where it would be fair to say that most folks would be walking on by to another destination. Kudos for stopping to capture this one.
Framing. I like Igor’s thoughts on and his example. Much can be said about presentation and it certainly applies here. I wonder though, what percentage of folks have dark vs. light themes? That would certainly matter in choice of framing, colors, etc.
I’m leaning to one of the cropped versions; primarily because the top 1/3 or so isn’t providing or adding much to the scene. Actually, it does provide location context, but that’s about it. Good news is, that you have many possibilities here and that bottom “swoosh” in the comp is the anchor no matter how you crop.
