This is second in a series of images I made of reservoirs in the Western US. This was captured in October. I was fairly shocked at the reality of the drought.
Type of Critique Requested
Aesthetic: Feedback on the overall visual appeal of the image, including its color, lighting, cropping, and composition.
Emotional: Feedback on the emotional impact and artistic value of the image.
Specific Feedback and Self-Critique
I like the linear qualities of the strong contrasts in the image. I also like the colors with the subtle greens and magentas. I am wondering about the foreground. Is it too busy? Does your eyes go to the bit of sky in the upper left. Not sure if I should or how I could clone it out. Any suggests are welcome!
I am personally not bothered by the FG as it is, it seems to fit with the theme of the image.
This kind of image is more of a documentary image in my opinion because of the severe lack of water.
The somewhat dried mud with the cracks indicate that this is not a sudden or very new event.
The lines in the bank on the far side also serve as evidence of the missing water.
The color separation, contrast and saturation all look very good to me.
The sliver of sky you are referring to is actually distant ground and probably the easiest and best way to deal with it is to create a mask over that area and reduce the exposure, tweak shadows/highlights and maybe even adjust the white balance to a little warmer tone.
I don’t know what your experience level is with Lr (lightroom) or Ps (photoshop) so please let me know if you’re familiar with Lr or Ps masks.
I’d be happy to edit it, explain what I did and provide some instruction for you if you need it
The image looks really good to me and it makes me feel sad because not having fresh water is scary.
Janine, the color changes throughout this view look good. However, as I view this, it “feels” very horizontal with the swatches of land and color strongly horizontal across the frame. Yes, the bit of sky in the upper left does attract a lot of attention, so cloning it out would be good. (The alternative would be heavy burning-in to so that its luminosity matches the adjacent ridge.) BTW, the posting guidlines ask that you only post one image per 24 hours in a particular gallery, although you can include multiple images in a single post. In this case the two views are so different that I think separate posts is the best way to get appropriate comments on each.
