The photographer is looking for thoughtful feedback on the image as a whole, especially around the areas noted below.
Feedback Focus: Artistic / Expressive
About This Image
I found this derelict house on the very north coast of Iceland and was struck by the isolation. i decided to try and keep that feeling - but maybe i went a little overboard?
Feedback Requested
There’s a lot of negative space going on. Is it too much?
Also, I don’t quite understand why I’m getting banding in the exported jpg. My export settings are
from a raw image
jpeg @ 100% quality using sRGB
no resizing at 300dpi
no sharpening
Any suggestions on what these settings should be?
Technical Details
Camera: Canon EOS R5
Lens: RF24-105mm F4 L IS USM
Focal length: 105mm
Shutter speed: 1/80s
Aperture: f/11
ISO: 200
This is a really cool image, Dave. I like the lonely little house with all that expanse. While it’s strictly a matter of taste, I could see this with a fair amount less foreground and some less sky. I’ve included a crop suggestion below, but it is purely taste. The gray sky adds a lot to the mood of this image which I think you have conveyed very well.
Doug, there’s definitely a lot of nothing here. I see isolation like this in the prairie’s of Montana and wonder about who tried to settle here, how it went, and what happened. I don’t think you can fix the banding. It’s built into the 8 bit jpg sRGB conversion when the brightness (or color) changes are this subtle and cover such large parts of the frame.
I think these kinds of images really tell a story. It’s the negative space that makes this so improbable as a place to try and eek out a living. It really has to make most people scratch their heads but it also gets you wondering. I could see this working as a pano but it lessons the negative space that might be critical to the scene.
I think the image needs a little bit of counter clockwise rotation to level out the ocean.
I have no problem eith a lot of negative space, on the contrary it could be very effective to accentuate the feeling of an image as here.
I like that there are two darker lines in the field from the lower left corner that leads towards the house. One idea could be to brighten the house a little if that is possible to still have a realistic light in the image.
You could also try a linear gradient on in FG to darken the lowermost part of the field.
I can not help about the banding but I remember that @Diane_Miller discussed it in a comment on a recently posted image.
@David_Haynes@Dennis_Plank@Mark_Seaver@Ola_Jovall Thank you all for your feedback. I find this image - and others like it that i have taken - really are marmite images: folks either love them or hate them. I love them, so I think I’ll keep at it!
Thanks for the alternative crop, Dennis. I think that works very well. And to Ola and David, I appreciate the suggestions re straightening , lower gradient and highlighting the house. I’ll give those a try!
I just picked up on this (been too busy…) So, first – I love the image!! For me, the tiny house and expansive “empty” environment tells a story very well. And back to banding, without taking time to see what I wrote before, I’ll just try to recap simply: I see this was a raw file so the best you can do is to bring out any gradient or contrast in the sky in the raw converter, then if you go into PS be sure it is as 16 bits and minimize any further gradient work. But maybe this is just from LR or some other raw converter? It helps to give information on your processes. The R5 has excellent tonal range. Was the raw file close to a good exposure or did you have to adjust it a lot? What raw converter? What adjustments did you make? Did you then go to PS or just export from the raw converter? Any other software steps?
I see isolation like this in the prairie’s of Montana and wonder about who tried to settle here, how it went, and what happened. I don’t think you can fix the banding. It’s built into the 8 bit jpg sRGB conversion when the brightness (or color) changes are this subtle and cover such large parts of the frame.