The last of my waves from the trip to the beach this spring, I saved this one for last…On first look it didn’t really jump out at me, but after some time with it, it became my favorite. There are two things about this one that I like the most, the first is the glow inside each part of the wave, it is one of those things that you don’t even realize you are getting until you get back on the computer to see it. The second is that it reminded me so much of a painting, its almost like you can see the brush strokes in the top 1/2 of the image.
Specific Feedback Requested
I’m always interested in others thoughts and feedback. Colors and tones seem ok?
Lovely photo, David. It definitely has a painterly/abstract quality. Just a thought, it is helpful in giving comments and suggestions if you could provide the settings you used to get the photo. Also any post processing you might have done. Nicely seen.
This is very nice; a beautiful scene, with a gorgeous light.
I really love the glow of the wave,
On the other side I think the composition is a little busy with the lower wave in the frame. The lower wave is also beautiful but since this mainly an abstract and very graphical, I would suggest that you crop this to a pano excluding the lower wave.
This was shot at ISO 100 ~300 mm f20, 1/3 sec. The idea was to use some ICM to blur the water while retaining some detail in the wave itself. All of the processing was related to contrast and color. I tried to make the whites pop a bit and then darken down the areas around the crashing wave. Some of this was done with curves/levels, other with dodge and burn.
This is a good suggestion, I gave it a look and it could work, it makes the fit a bit tight though.
Wow David, this is delicious. My first impressions were concurrent feelings of kinetic energy and peace; not an easy combination to convey, The light and color that you presented with your camera technique and processing are, to me, eye-opening. The effect is indeed very much one of impressionist painting.
As an abstract, it invited me to play with it to see what I could do:
I wondered if the image needed all the water at the top and bottom, so I played with the crop a bit, Also, the left edge of the lower wave is so close to the frame, it is more tense and less peaceful than the rest of the scene; you may find that just as you wish, however. I added some water there with content-aware fill. The lower right corner has a smidgen of something that I evened out. Also deepened the color and luminosity of the lower water.
Hi Dave, I really like this photo. It does definitely look like a painting! Very impressionistic. I really like all the colors from the greens and blues to golden/orange and browns. I think it’s a very peaceful looking scene. I personally like it as is. Very well captured and composed!
I can see the points you made about why you liked this image and I agree with them. What’s a bit confusing is why the water is greenish in the upper half and magenta in the lower section. Is that how it came out of the camera?
@Dick_Knudson I wondered if anyone would catch the little bit in the LRC! I like adding some to the left side, It looks a little more complete that way, I will need to mess with that a bit on my version. I also like what you have done to the bottom of the image!
@Igor_Doncov I think what is happening is that that bottom left point is angled back toward the sun as that is where the beach starts to angle up, so it picks up the light differently. I’ve added the original raw and a version where I added contrast to show where it is heading with some work.
