After looking out of the window and not expecting much with the gloomy weather I decided to have a wander down to the beach. I’m glad I did after the light show that I was treated to. Luckily it died off just before the school run or I’d have had an awkward decision to make 
I’d love some critique as to composition and post processing please.
Exif: iso 100, f8, 1/250 nikon d5300, nikkor 70-300mm lens, tripod, poloriser and cable release
Many thanks
Chris
The lighting in this photo is spectacular. You made the right choice with your composition to minimize the land and water as those elements do not carry much visual interest and serve just to anchor the scene. The sky carries the image nicely though.
Magic light! I like the your comp. It’s balanced but drew me in
Thanks guys, much appreciated
This works nicely. I really like the visual connection between light and dark areas in the image. Well done!
Thanks Jay
Well done Chris. The light here is very dramatic, and your composition and processing have made the most of these wonderful conditions. I also think you have included just the right amount of headland to balance what is going on in the sky. With these wonderful clouds and light, this image would make for a great B&W conversion as well.
Thanks Ed, much appreciated
Hi Chris,
The sky and lighting is phenomenal.
The rest of the photo is a little lacking but think the sky is strong enough that it can still work.
The water bothers me a bit, I really think a long exposure here would have helped the water greatly. I think you did a good crop to minimize the water. I would not remove the water entirely.
The headland has some nice light on it and is a nice feature subject. Depending your morals a slight dis-proportional increase in size of that headland (subtle so it still looks natural overall) ; could potentially improve the shot overall. Would not want to lose any more of the sky on the right though which is why I stated dis-proportional.
Thanks Matt. I shot a long exposure too with the intention of exposure blending the water in but my tripod must have sank into the sand as the images don’t match and won’t align in photoshop. Is there any other way of doing this other than auto align layers?
Hi Chris,
I find auto align when you really zoom in has flaws at times so reluctantly resort to manually aligning even on images I thought would be easily done automatically.
Can make colors at meeting points tricky though.
Best to open each as smart objects in PS so you can tweak things on the files once manually placed.
So bring the images as smart objects both into PS, duplicate one of the layers to bring it into the other window. Lower the opacity on the top layer and move the bottom layer trying to align where you think it should go. May need to use free transform along with move to position it right.
When you are close, change opacity back to 100% on top layer and change blend mode to difference.
Difference will show where things are just slightly misaligned at the meeting points so you can tweak further.
The images are still smart objects at this point so if meeting point colors are not looking right click on the photo to open camera raw and adjust one of the images to better match up with the other.
Once done rasterize the layers.
Hope that helps,
Matt
Ah brilliant. I’ll have a play tonight. I’m really just starting to learn photoshop and it’s a really steep learning curve. Thanks for your help, I appreciate that.
Perfect. Just needs some violins and ethereal soprano vocals.
Chris,
Awesome sky, dramatic with the classics beams of sun light. Honestly, don’t have any nitpicks or suggestions; processing looks great to me. I would even add that I think you chose the right amount of sea to ground the grand scene. Have some good advice for manually blending another frame with the water you like, but as presented, again the amount is just right.
Lon
Thanks Lon, much appreciated. I think I agree, if the land was any larger I think it would take away from the grand, oppression of the sky. I wanted to make the land seem almost insignificant and I think it does that.
