River Ice + Repost

repost


original

Stepping out on rocks into the river and bending down and reaching my camera down near the water curling under the ice formations - and pressing the shutter. Bring the camera back up to see what it captured this time. Winter fishing for icy macro photos :slight_smile:

Specific Feedback Requested

I really like any comments that might help me grow as a photographer. This image is unprocessed as almost all of my photos have been. I usually just crop and that is it because processing seems to alter the photo too much. However, I am beginning to learn that processing can be done very subtly and improve the photo without it looking altered and hyper-real. So that is what I am interested in. However, I value any and all comments.

Technical Details

Is this a composite: No
unprocessed

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Ben, what a neat find. Sounds like you really had to go to some effort to capture this, so it is even more appreciated. I would have never thought to try something like this, I don’t think. Very interesting shapes that you were able to find and capture here.

I understand about the editing part. It is ones own preferences. I grew up in the era of the B&W photo lab, and learned there how to work with the development to improve the image somewhat, so I am not as bothered by editing in the nice software that is available today, just easier and no chemicals to smell.

That said, if you have a software available, I encourage you to try different things to see how it might improve an image. If you shoot in RAW, which I highly recommend, you would need to do some editing just convert to JPEG. Things like brightness and shadows for instance, might improve the overall feel of this image. You might even try converting to B&W, just to see what that does. I find that as much as I prefer to be out shooting that at my computer editing, I do learn quite a bit on how to improve my photography.

On this image, I find the top portion as presented, not being helpful to the overall image. So you might try cropping it out, and seeing how that looks. I am really intrigued with what you did capture, and feel you do have something to work with to try to improve even more.

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Thank you Shirley! I tried a few things re. exposure, cropping, and burn tool in my Affinity suite program. I am not sure about what I am doing yet, but I kept in mind your pointers. . I am curious, what do you think?

Oh yes, I think that improved it. See more colors in each of the “bubbles”. I like the crop too. The more you play with editing images, the better you will get with it. The nice thing about doing it on a computer is, you can undo it if you don’t like it.

I added Repost to your title. That lets others know that you have added a new post of the image after you edited it.

Thank you Shirley! I was not sure what to do with the newly edited photo - i kind of wanted to remove the first one and replace it with the second, but i guess others might still want to see the 1st and 2nd.

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Ben, the collection of ice “bubbles” in the foreground hold lots of interest. You don’t indicate camera settings, so it’s hard to suggest ways to improve, although I would like more depth-of-field so the back of the ice bits are sharp. A slow shutter speed would smooth out the bubbles in the water, but the bit of structure there works adds to the story, “artist’s preference”. The bubbles near the upper left are overexposed, but you’ll only get less light there as the sun moves through the sky.

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Ben, nice found. Your repost is an improvement as Shirley points out. I started as a hobby photographer in September 2018, having no idea and knowledge about how to use post-processing software. Also, I had some thoughts that it might be to “cheat” somewhat. This is of course a matter of personal opinion and the choice of each and every photographer, but I have found that the post-processing part is very rewarding to recreate in the image the feeling that I had when shooting but also as a part of a creative process and an artistic impression. This could be done rather delicate, making improvements without exaggeration.