Posted by JL Morris on December 18, 2007
Posted under
Color,
Critiqued,
Seascape
For a week or so Southern California had high waves along the cost, the surfers loved it. This often occurs this time of year along our beaches. It is amazing to see the tall waves come crashing to shore but a difficult task to capture on film (pixels).
This rendition has two things going for it. The first is the visible spray from the crest of the waves and the rock formation on the right giving us some perspective, so we can see their proportional height. Without this landmark in the photo the waves could be one foot high or twenty feet high.
There are a couple of items that concern me at first glance. The immediate foreground is some orange item. It is so out of focus that we have no idea what it is other than a blob of color. The next layer consists of rocks that are also distractingly out of focus. I wish this rock formation were in focus and we would have a nice counter balance to the rock pattern on the right. You may want to consider making this into a long narrow strip photograph.
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December 18th, 2007 at 10:56 am
Hi Jim,
Thank you for your critique and comments. The wave in the distance is about 8 feet high. I like it how your cropped it into a panoramic version. The large wave was about 140-170 feet away from me. I was trying to create a colorful photo that was creating a good feeling of the distance, but still showing the distractive power of the water. To achieve this I used driftwood in the foreground with the action in the middle and sky in the upper third to balance the color of the bottom. Here is a link to the original version http://photo.hlehnerer.com/Gallery/Locations/Ventura-Ocean-Waves/slides/Ventura-Ocean-Waves-2007-12-078-IMG_4102.html
I personally love how the water is building the texture in the large wave. I also feel distracted by the different elements, but I think it was a nice try.