The photographer is looking for generalized feedback about the aesthetic and technical qualities of their image.
Description
I wanted to get a nice last sunset 2024. When I got to the beach, I saw a man and his son and thought… he was sharing his thoughts of the past year and how 2025 was going to be a Great year for him.
I got up pre dawn early 1-1-2025 and went back to the beach and saw the sun bursting upward in the sky bringing in a beautiful New Year.
Just a few moment’s later, The first sun of the New Years started coming up with all its beauty and glory.
I started reflecting on all the Good, Bad, and Ugly of the past year and how this year is going to be the best ever.
Thank You all for the help and support I’ve received from this community of photographers.
Happy New Year to all, and I hope this year is your best ever.
Specific Feedback
Any and all feed back is wanted, I learn something new every time I submit an image and get feedback.
Technical Details
Canon R5m2, 70-200, f/4, 1/500, ISO 100
Critique Template
Use of the template is optional, but it can help spark ideas.
Happy New Year to you too John! That’s a great way to close out the old and ring in the new. I love the colors in the sky in that middle picture; that first light of the day can be rich. I’m jealous that your skies were cooperating; we had a lovely shade (emphasis on the singular) of gray here in the Pacific Northwest .
You were shooting in some tricky lighting! I find tonal range when shooting straight into the sun to be quite challenging, and I think @Ed_Williams’ question about filters is a really good one; a graduated neutral-density filter can work well with these flat horizons. Even without the sun up, in that second image it would help you to open the foreground while keeping the rich color. Taking bracketed exposures and blending them in post can handle the situation well too, but it can be a bit of work. As presented, for those second two images I’d embrace the pano crops even more so that the black/near black foregrounds are less dominant.
Hello, John. Really challenging conditions you had here. Even most modern cameras would find the dynamic range in the first photo too wide even bracketing exposures or with an nd grad. It might have been best to capture the sun just as it breaks the horizon for a sunstar and not full on risen. I like the story you’re telling with the father and child and goose.
I would probably crop some FG off the second image for more of a panoramic effect. The dark featureless FG is a little too dominant. The sky in the image is fantastic.
For the third image, if the raw file is not too underexposed, I would try to bring out some shadow detail in the FG boulders. Also it would have been nice to not have the buoy’s top just breaking the horizon. I love how you’ve broken the image into thirds.
All 3 images could use some horizon correction.
Thanks for the comments @John_Williams, @Michael_Lowe, I had a ND filter, but I have no experience with it, so I didn’t use it. Now I know I should have. I’ll try using it next time and also, I’ll try bracketing. I try to learn something from every image I post.
I saw the near all black FG but was not sure how to fix it without messing up the BG. I’ll go back into PS and try to fix the FG a bit and straighten out the BG.
Thanks guys, you’re a great help and that’s why I’m a member. If I pay attention, I can’t help but get better.
Thanks again.
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