This is not what I would consider a wow image, but rather a more contemplative one. I found this scene; along with several more; as I walked along the beach one morning at sunrise in Cape Henlopen SP, DE. I do like the color balance in the scene as I did reduce the cyan in the water a little. Just curious as to how others feel about it.
As always thanks to everyone for your thoughts; always appreciated.
Specific Feedback Requested
All C&C welcome.
Technical Details
Is this a composite: No
NikonD800, Nikon 17-35 @ 24mm, f 18 @ 0.5 sec, ISO 100, cable release & tripod.
The beautiful sky pastel colors and their reflection in the water is wow enough for me. I think it would be a stronger image with a crop of the dark bottom, but certainly keeping the wet sand.
Beautiful pastel colors here Ed. Cyan looks good to me. I agree with the others about the dark foreground although I’m not sure if cropping will unbalance the image. Maybe try dodging the foreground so it’s not so abrupt. Nonetheless, a beautiful image.
Thanks for your thoughts everyone @Stephen_Stanton, @Jim_Gavin, @DeanRoyer and @David_Haynes; always appreciated. Here is a repost with your suggestions of lightning the sand I did just a small crop from the bottom as I do like some beach there as an anchor. I dodged the original before posting, but I can see that I did not go far enough. Hopefully this one works better.
I am really enjoying this scene, especially the beautiful reflected colors. I will concur with the others in that the dark sand is not working for me. I much prefer it cropped out completely. Visually, I find my eye starts with the dark band and just kind of stops there and when I do get past it, I find myself drawn back down. Otherwise, excellent colors, scene and tranquil feeling.
Ed, what sets this image apart for me is the lovely mix of pastel colors in the sky and water, they make this image feel very soothing to me. Here is another vote to do a pano crop that eliminates the dark sand at the bottom. It’s just so different than the rest of the image (darker, and no nice color), that it holds back the soothing mood in the rest of the image for me.
While I agree that the crop improves this image I do feel that an important element was lost by removing it. The raising of the shadows didn’t work too well because the shadows in the waves became darker than of the sand. So the crop was a good compromise even though it feels like a different image to me. A dimension was lost.
I absolutely love this image and the colour palette is exquisite. The dark sand at the bottom of the frame really anchors the whole scene and because of this I feel its a very important element and I’m glad you didn’t crop it too much in your repost.
I really like this, Ed. I read a few comments and decided to post my opinions before letting the rest of the comments influence my thoughts. My original thoughts were to crop the sand out, but I actually think I prefer it there. I would dodge it some though. I actually think it balances the image. I’ll check back later to see what the consensus is.
