My wife and I just returned from our annual anniversary backpacking trip in the Eastern Sierra, magical place. This image is from the lake that was our basecamp for the trip. Eight mile hike in, surrounded by beautiful mountains and scenery but I’m always drawn to the more intimate scenes. I really enjoy the geometry of the rocks and the reeds, I kept the polarizer “off” to keep most of the reflection of the bright sky.
I did not notice until I returned home that the two rocks in the back are a little “soft” where the front rock is perfectly sharp and in focus. I’m not sure if that bothers me or if I’m just being critical of myself for not noticing that in the field. With the focal length used and the placement of the rocks I’m not sure it would’ve been possible to get them all perfectly in focus. Any other feedback is welcome also.
What artistic feedback would you like if any?
Any is fine.
Pertinent technical details or techniques:
(If this is a composite, etc. please be honest with your techniques to help others learn)
Single exposure, Sony a7Riii, Tamron 28-75mm @ 61mm, ISO 200, f13, 1/20sec.
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I really like this image, Andrew. It is very elegant - an almost Zen-like statement. The softness that you mentioned doesn’t bother me at all. My critique would be this. The image seems, as I said, to be about a Zen-like equanimity. However, for me that is underminded by the slightly cramped feeling at the top of the frame, which creates tension. Personally, for this kind of image which is all about calm rather than dynamic flow, I believe a square crop would be ideal. I don’t know if there is anything left in the original shot at the top of the frame but if there is, adding it to make a square crop might be worth a try.
I very much enjoy this quiet scene. The top caught my eye also, but I wanted to gradually burn the water just a little, to keep my senses in the scene.
Andrew, Ithink the analysis of this image by @Kerry_Gordon is right on the money. Given the subject, the light and your processing, this image should be about “calm”. I think this image is good as presented, but it has the potential to be great with some of Kerry’s suggested tweaks. The B&W processing, and subject matter here is just so good (love the look of the water), that this image deserves some further tweaks of composition if possible.
Regarding the sharpness/focus concern you mentioned. It doesn’t really bother me a lot. But if your goal was maximum sharpness, then focus stacking would have been the way to go. For images of water surfaces like this where you need to use a longer focal length, and are shooting at an angle to the water, then focus stacking is the best approach. This water looks still enough that you could have pulled off using focus stacking.
As an alternate suggestion, and just for curiosity sake, I did a rework where I applied TK Clarity on a localized basis to the back two rocks by painting it on via a mask. (using more strength on the furthest back rock). I think I may prefer you original look, with the DOF falling off to the back.
Perhaps you’re over thinking the sharpness aspect.(?) IMO, ‘tack sharp’ is an overrated quality in photography. Like every other aspect of image making, the value of it should be dictated by the story the image is telling. In this case, the story…for me…is the zen like calmness presented. A ‘titch’ of softness could be considered a plus in such an image.
It’s a terrific image as presented. I do understand what others have suggested re: the brightness in the upper border area. It can let the viewer’s eye wander up to that border and out of the frame…though it strikes me as a bit of a nit here. IF it turned out that was something you wish to address, one suggestion I haven’t seen made would be to crop some off the top. And that because, in addition to the minor brightness item, that top border is also the only one where none of the grass reeds interact with it. Cropping some off the top to make some of those most upper reeds touch the border, I think might provide a little balance. But it might also remove more of the upper rocks than you’d be comfortable losing.
This is gorgeous. I’m with Kerry on the visual tension imparted by having just that tiniest bit of space at the top of the URC rock. I think cropping a tad off the top to eliminate that space would bring our eye back to the center after moving around the triangle created by the rocks.
@Bill_Chambers@Kerry_Gordon@Dick_Knudson@Ed_McGuirk@rjWilner@Bonnie_Lampley
Thank you all very much for your feedback, I appreciate it very much. Unfortunately there was no more room at the top of the image, the reflection from the mountain across the lake forced me to compose the image this was. I also tried a square image but I could not get it to not feel cramped, I originally wanted a square but I just couldn’t work it without it feeling cramped for me. You all have such discerning eyes and don’t miss a thing, I did not think the tiny gap in the URC would be noticed but that seemed to be the downfall of the original. I’ve slightly reworked the image to reduce the brightness in that corner. I’m extremely pleased with this image, thank you all again for your feedback. This group is truly a wonderful place to be, especially in these challenging time! Be well everyone.
P.S. @rjWilner you are 100% correct about “tack sharp”, that’s what happens when you allow yourself to rely on Instagram for feedback. I won’t allow myself to do that anymore, back to focusing on art.
The lack of a foreground or background compresses the image into two dimensional space. The result is a sense that these rocks are floating in space. Even though logic tells you that this is water and that the upper part is behind the lower part it looks as though the upper part is above the lower part. I don’t know if that was the intention here or even if there is any concern about that.
That’s the theory, Igor. But I certainly don’t perceive it that way. To my eye there is clearly a foreground and a background, likely because the rocks themselves appear to have volume, there are shadows and the foreground is darker than the background. Plus the human brain compensates, after all, every photograph is actually two dimensional.
I guess I’ll have to disagree with you on this one, Kerry. This is how I perceived it and an explanation of why it looked that way to me. I guess I should have explained that. There are no perspective lines in this image. The upper rocks which are further away look bigger than what’s close. There is no gradation of light. It looks like three large shapes on a white background. I see this more as an abstract of lines and shapes than a scene of rocks on water.
Ah, but now we enter into the realm of phenomenology. I have no ground to argue what you see. What you see, is what you see and you have given a perfectly reasonable explanation for why you see it. But where it gets interesting is that what you see is not what I see. Whereas, you see something flat, I see something with dimension. We are having different experiences. So, while your explanation is consistent with your experience, it doesn’t appear to be so for mine. I love this stuff!
@Igor_Doncov@Kerry_Gordon And here is another reason why I really enjoy this platform and the members here. Art (all art not just photography) is subjective, we all see and interpret scenes differently and there should be open dialogues, not “I’m right so therefore you’re wrong”. I really enjoy the vision and input from you both, thanks again for taking the time to provide feedback. For what’s it worth, i purposely shot at the angle I did to provide as much dimensionality to the image as I could. The shore line was right below the image and a reflection the distant mountain was on the surface just behind the background rocks, both of which distracted the composition and feeling I was going for. I’m extremely happy with this image, it brings me great peace in an insane time.
This is excellent. I love the simplicity here and the black and white accentuates that. The out of focus part seems relegated to the very top part of the rock and not noticeable unless you zoom in. I think it’s fine but you could probably do some selective multiple high pass sharpening on that area and see if that helps.
Thanks so much for the feedback @Richard_Wong. As I suspected, I let the power of social media influence me in even thinking about the “out of focus” areas. I’ve printed this image and absolutely love it, will definitely be printing this one bigger.
Way late to the party here Andrew but I have to say that I think this image benefits from the rocks being a little tiny bit soft at the top. To me, those rocks simply frame the image and provide boundaries while the real focus is on the water and the reeds in front of the distant rocks. Critical sharpness is WAY overrated and generally, only pixel peepers care about it to much degree. We can all get fanatical about certain things but I don’t think critical sharpness is one of them to get upset over.
I’m just returning from the Sierra myself and I totally agree about the Sierra being magical, particularly if you are able to go into the backcountry and backpack a little bit. Most of what we see in the way of pictures from the Sierra comes from within a half mile of a road or highway but there is sooooo much more to see if you just go in a couple miles. It’s the same for Yosemite. It’s all about the valley but that’s only 1% of the total park. The upper basin of Tuolumne meadows is simply fantastic. I just have to say that I think this is a fantastic image processed beautifully. What a place to spend an anniversary.
Great to hear! I have a framed acrylic print at home that cost me more than $1k. It’s not perfectly sharp in the back due to some wind moving the foliage and the DOF wasn’t 100% on the mark. It’s my favorite print though. No one really notices except for other photographers who stick their nose in it.
