The photographer has shared comprehensive information about their intent and creative vision for this image. Please examine the details and offer feedback on how they can most effectively realize their vision.
Self Critique
What I like are the dramatic sunrise clouds perfectly reflected in the glassy surface of the bay. The challenge was how to compose it to be of interest to viewers. The original image includes as much of the scene as I could get from my limited point of shoreline. The cropped image is a possibility so I could create a narrower point of view.
Creative direction
For my “style”, I’m attracted to high contrast scenes. The message here is the incredible color and reflection of the sunrise.
Specific Feedback
All feedback welcome, particularly Aesthetic: composition, cropping and improving appeal to other viewers and not just me. Also suggestions for post-editing and printing.
Technical Details
I will provide this; need to get to a different computer. Tripod. Exposed for the sky and later lifted the shadows on the water. Highlighted boat.
Description
Showed up for a sunrise at high tide to see what developed. As the clouds formed, I kept moving to the right as far as I could, trying to frame a composition. Unusual glass-like water surface, usually the water is moving in the bay. Some motion caused softening of boat outline.
Stunning image. I might lighten the darks a bit to find some structure in the trees. I feel the square crop to be heavy to the left and prefer the landscape version, but as I am not a fan of pano, I would crop a bit off the right.
Meredith, I do like your style and am also attracted to high-contrast scenes. This is, indeed, a very dramatic image you captured. To address your specific questions, I second @Ronald_Murphy’s views on the square crop. That puts the boat too close to the left frame of the image. As a viewer, that seems very constrained to me. As for the full landscape version, I find the land on the left side also unnecessary. My compromise would be a landscape crop that would eliminate that land mass on the left side and try to place the boat at about a third to the left frame (rule of thirds). If I were editing the image further, I would attempt to shed a bit more light on the trees and their reflections and darken the highlights a tiny bit at the bottom of the image. You would need to have to do the same with the sky, of course. The intent would be to eliminate the light distraction on the reflection and accentuate the boat a bit more. Those would be personal preferences, of course.
It puts me on the right path, I feel. The suggested crop, lightening the trees and tamping down the highlights benefits the picture – more like what I saw and less stark. I’ll do another more refined edit.
Very nice edit, Meredith. I’m glad it made sense what I suggested. You did a fine job bringing out some more texture on the trees. In the end, if you’d like to put the final edit side by side with the original photos, it would help other users see the changes more easily instead of scrolling down the thread to compare the images.
Here is how you can add your re-edited photo to appear side by side with the OP. It’s also good to revise the title of the post to indicate there is a revised version. Here’s what I suggest:
(1) Add +rework or +re-edit to the very first line of your post that shows the title. Just click the pencil icon to modify that title.
(2) To add the re-edited image next to the original ones, you’ll click on the pencil icon at the bottom of the original post. You are then taken to the edit mode of your entry. I would suggest placing the cursor at the very top before the original image. That way, the re-edited photo will be the first we see. Please make sure you do not remove the original image. If you want, add some text after the re-edited and original images. That will help viewers know which image they are looking at, if not completely obvious.
What a lovely scene. It’s both calming and dramatic at the same time - an interesting combination. Your rework is an improvement. The one thing that caught my eye is the lack of negative space between the boat motor?/person? and the shoreline. I’m not sure if the boat was moving, but if it was, if you’d waited a few seconds more there would have been some space there. If it was still, you could have raised the camera a bit to make that space. It’s a nit-picky thing, but it’s something I notice, having had it absolutely drilled into me by a past photo instructor.
