DigaPixBlog

Midday landscapes can work but often they lack drama because of the flat light and deep shadows.  Early morning or late afternoon cross light has a much narrower contrast range, this allows the image to keep both the shadow and highlight details.

The midday landscape presented here has overcome most of the issues associated with flat light.  There is good detail in the foreground hillside with the flowers and the middle ground has the wonderful colors of this Pacific bay, a color not often seen along the California cost.   The photographer’s selection of the extreme vertical format creates additional interest to the scene.

There are a couple of suggestions I would like to make.  I know this is almost imperceptible but the horizon of the ocean in the distance is not quite horizontal.   It’s something   I always look for in a seascape.  The second recommendation I would like to make is the light to dark contrast is weighted a little too much to the dark side, by working with the levels curve this can be altered a little.  This will not bring out the shadows in the trees which were lost due to the midday contrast but it will brighten up the foreground and beach slightly.  At the same time the rocks in the distance could use a 20% dodge to bring out a little more detail.

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A subject in a photograph may not always be the first thing you see.  It is often the small detail that keeps drawing your eye back like a magnet.  Sometimes this is unintentional on the photographer’s part and sometimes it is planed with great care. 

This photograph is a good example of the magnetic subject.  This silhouette is broken by the sand path that leads our eye to the table on the beach.  The sea and sky, though powerful, only act as backdrops to this miniscule feature. The light rays passing above and around the cloud in the upper left hand quadrant have a lot of potential.

I would like to point out to the photographer that the horizon is tilted ever so slightly.  The viewer’s eye is capable of picking up the slightest deviation in a scene’s horizon.  Take the rectangular box selection tool and start in the upper right hand corner and draw a box down to the edge of the horizon then across the image.  You will be able to confirm the tilt of the edge of the sea and sky.

Like the preceding image the sky can be modified in hue and saturation on the computer to give a more dramatic effect if the photo-artist cares to.  If you want to get a better understanding how to accomplish this on the computer check out the ‘Dazzling Photography’ web site.  http://www.dazzlingphotography.com/

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How much computer manipulation should a photo-artist do to the original image?  As much as they want is the answer.  Just recording the scene is not enough to create stunning images.  It often requires modifying the results from the camera in the darkroom or the computer to achieve the photographer’s vision.  Ansel Adams was known for his photography but also for the zone system that made the manipulated results more stunning.  He would work the prints form the same negative a number of ways in the darkroom before he got the result he wanted.  http://www.anseladams.com/index.asp?PageAction=VIEWCATS&Category=22

This sunset silhouette has a lot of potential.  The prow of the boat is nicely placed pointing into the sunset.  The islands on the horizon do a nice job of adding interest.  I like the way the texture of the water surface complements the patterns in the cloud formations.  The photographer has just enough tone detail in the boat to prevent it from becoming a solid dark mass.

I would like to make a few suggestions to the photographer.  The first thing I notice is that the horizon is not straight.  It is important that this line on seascapes be as horizontal as possible, the eye will detect the slightest tilt.  Another concern that can be easily corrected is the black dot in the clouds.  This may have been caused by dirt on the lens or the CMOS sensor.  With a little cloning in the computer this can be removed.

The photo-artist can do a great deal to enhance the colors in the sunset.  Every time an image is transferred from one format to another the color saturation will shift, that is to say what you see in the camera will change a little when it is moved from to the computer, and change again when it is published on the web and again when it is printed.  So you need to manipulate it until it is as you prefer for the final medium it will be presented in.

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There is a photography business called Stock Photography.  Stock agencies take the work of photographers and keep it on file for use in advertising.  For this the user pays a feed depending on the use and the photographer gets a royalty from the agency.  I had an acquaintance that shot for a stock company and she told me about an image taken by her without any particular use in mind. It was of the sea and sky, not a particularly interesting image and she could not think of who would want this shot for advertising.  Rather than through it away it was sent off to the agent with some other shots.  A few weeks later she was told that a military defense contractor wanted to use the photograph in a national advertising campaign about anti-submarine warfare.  The theme of the add: “Is anyone out there?”  This just goes to show that almost any photographed has value to someone.

This photograph is almost exactly like that shot; a few clouds, the horizon and water.  There is little or no subject.  But she was able to make money off her image.  In this scene the exposure on the clouds is nice with some good detail however the sunlight on the water is completely blown out (over exposed).  The photographer has done a good job of keeping the horizon level.

I would recommend that the photographer work with the levels and curves on the computer to add a some tone to the dark side of the spectrum, however there is no way of recovering the highlights.

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Telling a story through photography is the fourth dimension of the art.  An element that helps takes a photo from a ‘record shot’ to a photograph.  Sometimes the story is obvious, sometimes obscure and sometimes it is a universal story.  Never assume that the viewer will interpret the image the same way as the photographer thinks the story is told.  The person that took the image was there and knows what was going on before and after that moment in time, the photographers eyes are clouded by the facts.  The viewer comes with their own experiences and emotions.  So unless the tail being told is universal the reading will differ from reader to reader.

The story in this image can be seen a number of different ways.  Is the man approaching a stranger?  The dog appears to be taking a defensive stand.  Perhaps he is a friend or their father; he appears to be walking confidently toward the young surfboarders.  Why are the boys facing the approaching walker? There is a story but there may be many interpretations.  That’s not a bad thing, just the type of image it is.

The silhouettes are well done in that they attract the observer’s attention and can be easily identified.  The composition consists of three surface textures; the water, the wet sand and the dry sand.  The low light plays off each of these textures making the edge of the wet and dry sand a leading line through the composition.

There are a couple suggestions the photographer may want to think about.  There appears to be a define green color cast to the image as presented.  To reduce green you apply a little of its complementary color, magenta.  Then I would also add a little blue to help balance the yellow, this will result in more of the golden hue.  The other comment has to do with the empty beach behind the surfboarders.  The photo-artist may wish to have this negative space for their composition and story, which is their call.  But it might be tried cropped down a little so that a portion of both of the shadows on the sand are cropped.

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There are some natural events that beg to be photographed; the beautiful sunset, a brilliant rainbow or storm clouds with lightning.  But too often we only see the stunning event and forget that it needs something to play off of.  An example was a photograph I was asked to critique at a photo club a number of years ago.  The week before there had been one of the best sunset color displays in the area that I had ever seen.  A photographer brought in an image of this same sunset and the sky was great, but he had just stepped outside his front door to tank the photograph and had for a foreground telephone poles and power lines, TV antennas, the a few house roofs.  Was it a wonderful sky, yes, was it a wonderful photograph, no. For a stunning sky you need an interesting foreground.

The sunset offered here has that interesting foreground with a nice quiet harbor scene reflecting the hews of the illuminated sky.  The graduated tones in the sky are interesting but not stunning.  I like the way the boats are spaced out allowing us to see the gold reflected in the quiet water.  The low horizon permits the masts to protrude into the sky so we can see the detail of the cables.

There is one small item that does give me pause.  The bird in the upper left hand corner does appear to be a little distracting and about to fly out of the frame.

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Mood in an image can be set many ways but the type of light used will determine more about the mood of an image than any other factor.  If you intend to depict a sad occasion you would normally not use bright lights and conversely the happy spring day would not be shot with an overcast sky.  But you may break the norm and come up with a scene where the lighting is all wrong but still gets the mood across.

This composition shows that not all sunset photos have to have brilliant colors.  The photographer has gone for a quieter monotone mood.  Shot after the color has left the sky with only a trace of left on the horizon.  The reflection of the lit gray sky in the water lets the semi-silhouette of the water craft standout and separate.  The  sky takes up two thirds of the image which is a traditional proportion.

This is an interesting time of day to shoot.  I don’t think I have seen many photographs that did not try to take advantage of the colored sky.  The result of this image is a very quiet, almost a waiting for night, mood. 

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Big Sur on the central California coast south of Carmel has been a Mecca for photographers for the past hundred years including Edward Weston.  The Santa Lucia Mountains rise abruptly from the Pacific to form one to the most rugged coast lines along the California shore.  There is something magical about the area.

This sunset highlights a complexity of cloud formations to from a backdrop to the massive silhouetted rock formations.  The sun is on the cusp of leaving us to the night.  I am particularly attracted to the satin like qualities of the wet sand and its undulating patterns.   The silhouetted rocks give depth to the scene and frame the departing light of life.

Another possibility for this image would be to crop to a square format thus placing the sun on the center line and changing the large rock formations to what could be a land mass; funneling our attention through the channel made by the silhouettes.  I am not saying this format is better just another concept.

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What is a subject in a photo? It sounds like an easy question but perhaps not.  To my mind a subject is something that attracts our attention and keeps our interest in the scene.  Not all photographs have to have a subject in the normal scene.  They could be attractive to us because of the light, the environment (mood), our just the color.  This is what I refer to as a proxy subject.

The photograph submitted here has a very simple landscape composition with a foreground (rocks), middle ground (sand) and distance (water).  The colors are bright and alive with interesting detail.  There is a nice feeling of movement caused by the two different areas of wet sand and the small waves.

It is my feeling this image needs a subject to complete it.  The layers in the sand and water are acting as leading lines that take us nowhere.  Perhaps an interesting subject on the beach would make this composition more interesting.

There is one thing I would like to suggest to the photographer.  In the top right hand corner there is a strip of land and rock that you may want to remove.  There is not enough information to tell us what it is and thus it appears to be an over site and not intended to be in the picture.  I like the rocks in the foreground but would like to see some more flowers, it’s not important just my opinion.

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Southern California is fortunate to have so many wonderful beaches, in some places mile after mile of sand.  And if you know the right spots you can have a beach almost to yourself.  I have a friend that has a house in Hawaii.  The shore near his house is covered with rocks.  He says it is sand it’s just that the grains are the size of grape fruit.

This photograph has a nice combination of elements; the flowers, the rocks, the sand and of course the water.  There is nothing dramatic going on it’s just meant to be a peaceful, present scene.  The soft focus gives it an additional feeling of tranquility.  

There is only one suggestion I would make to the photographer.  Along the right edge in the corner there are three fingers of rock entering the frame.  This could be cloned out if the photo-artist wished.  There is not quite enough information about them to add to the composition.

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There are days when you just want to get outside and breathe the air and feel the sunshine on your shoulders.  There are those perfect days.  People living in Southern California have the good fortune of experiencing many days throughout the year like that, particularly during what is winter in much of the rest of North America.

This photograph captures one of those days.  Can’t you just feel the sun and the genital sea braze when you look at this image.  This scene consists of two colors; blue and white.  The sky is a perfect blue; clean, clear and inviting.  While the sail boats say take me to sea, what am I doing here?

I like the selection of the horizontal crop.  This would be an excellent image for the Ventura Chamber of Commerce. 

The one suggestion I would make, and it is a small thing, would be to crop down just a hair more to eliminate the fraction of a cloud on the top center of the frame.

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Different types of light can make all the difference in the world how we see the world through the camera.  The golden hour, just before sunset and just after sun rise are generally considered the best times of day to photograph.  But once the sun goes down don’t but your camera away.  There are better things to come if you know where to look.  The afterglow or twilight can bring a whole new damnation to your photography.

Here Sand Pipers on the wet sand come alive as darting silhouettes.  The sand and the sea pick up the reflected light of the sky shortly after sunset to display colors not seen during the rest of the day.  The water brings out the texture and patterns in the sand.  There is something magic about these few minutes of afterglow.

The photo-artist may wish to consider the stone in the lower right hand corner.  The highlight draws our attention away from the subject the shore birds.  This could be toned down and still get the idea of a reflection.  The sea and the sand are interesting but if the photographer were too crop the image into a long horizontal we may be more intimate with the birds.

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I have seen a number of photographs over the past few years and have come to the conclusion that every artist needs to know the rules of aesthetics and then break them.  When it works you have something unique, when it doesn’t you have broken the rules.  How do you know if it works? Your own judgment will tell. 

Someone may criticize your work but if you like it that’s good enough.

This photograph of the Santa Barbara pier has a certain mood caused by the cloud filtered sunlight.  Not quite overcast but low key and homogenous.  The waves rolling in from the pacific are captured just at the end of a curl falling onto the sand. 

I feel the photographer has an over abundance of riches.  There is a wonderful sky and wave action that he is trying to capture and for that reason has placed the subject on the centerline of the photograph.  The photographer may wish to consider that this is one of those times when the rule of thirds should apply.  There are two ways to approach the problem, if you are unhappy with the current composition.  The sky can be cropped or the beach and water reduced. 

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The original Lady Washington was built around 1750.  Over the next 45 years she traveled to the Pacific Northwest and Asia.  The ship was a trader in furs and pelts with the costal Native Americans.  The Lady Washington was the first American vessel to visit the Japan.  The replica of the Lady Washington is the official Washington state’s Tall Ship Ambassador.   In 2008 it will be visiting ports in California, Oregon, Washington and British Columbia.

The image presented here shows the Lady Washington just off the cost of Ventura California where it will be until February 10th.  The photographer was able to capture the ship at sunset with a very nice sky.  The horizon is set at about one quarter of the vertical distance giving us lots of room for the golden nightfall.  You will notice that the light area is well balanced in weight in relation to the darker sea.  The three quarter view of the ship is nicely illuminated and if you look closely you can see men in the rigging and on deck.

I might suggest to the photographer that he may want to crop out the wave at the bottom edge of the frame.  This wave tells us that the ship is close to the beach.  Without it we have no idea if the ship is at sea or not.  It might have been interesting to see the subject further to the left past the centerline to give more room in front of the ship.

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                     A Second Photo of the Same Subject 

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Sunsets are photographs that I feel are the most misunderstood.  No matter how beautiful the sky may be generally there still needs to be a strong subject in addition to the color of the atmosphere.  The sky can make or break a weak subject but the pretty clouds are not enough to be the entire image.

This image is a good example of that hypothesis.  The sail boat wound not be a very strong subject without the sky and the sky alone is just a semi-amorphous color.  The texture patterns and colors in the water adds interesting detail to the surface of the water.  I like the island on the horizon; this gives some substance to the line where the sky meets the sea.

The photographer may want to consider the placement of the subject and the horizon, both are on the center line of the illustration.  Perhaps with the sky and the sea in equal proportion they are competing for our attention.  I like bot elements but perhaps we need to choose one or the other for dominance.

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         Sky Only    No Sky 

Cropped #1      Cropped #2     Cropped #3 

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When most travelers return from their vacation they have taken a bunch of “Me in front of ……” photos; Me in front of the Eifel Tower, Me in front of my aunt Tilley’s house, Me in front of …., you get the idea.  These are fine if you want to remember what you looked like, and to prove where you’ve been in the world.  But they hold little interest to other people.

This photographer his traveled and done more than just record where they have been.  They have photographed and interpreted their experience and created an image that others will want to explore.  The photo-artist has replaced a background where we would expect to see the sky with a portion of a work of art that tells us immediately that this image is intended to represent a painting rather than a straight photograph.  Then a dry brush painterly filter was added to the rest of the image. 

I find it interesting that the boat is coming out of the frame and into the scene.  This gives us the illusion that we are close to the gondola and shearing the view of the water front.  The people are all looking into the picture and this adds to the feeling that we as fellow observers should look beyond the foreground subject.  Another element that takes us deeper into the illustration is the fact that the boat and boatman are both black while the buildings are all light colors and our eyes are drawn to the brighter objects.

This photograph was taken on a very cold day in Venice. Even though it is a sunny day why else would the passenger in the gondola be wearing a knit cap?

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This photograph was taken at Biddeford Pool a large tide pool on Saco Bay in southern Maine.  It is near the first permanent European settlement in Maine called Winter Harbor.  The light house in the distance is the 1910 Wood Island Light.

The photographer has captured the crest of the wave breaking over the beach rocks using a fast shutter speed.  The light on the foreground rocks is quite good and the color of the sea is a stunning azure.  The placement of the light house was determined by the amount of wave the photographer desired to include in the image.  About one third of the way in from the left frame it is nicely situated.

Perhaps the photographer would consider a couple of suggestions.  The white in the waves is a little flat and could be brought up by altering the white point on the RGB Color Curve using photo manipulation software.  This will make the whites more brilliant.  Another though would be to reduce the amount of sky in the image and darken it a little.  There is little information in the sky area and by lowering and darkening this area we get more of a feeling of the importance of the light house.

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The photographer has elected to submit this image with a digital frame.  As you can see I put a simple gray frame around each image before posting.  If you decide to enter material pre-matted I will consider that as part of the image and critique your selection of mat as well as the image.  In this case the mat and frame selected for this submittal are excellent.

This image is a counter point to a similar theme entered in December.  The photograph of the surfer entitled ‘Sand’.   Where that work could be defined as the energy and power of youth this picture says tranquility and reflection. 

The subject nearly to the left hand edge of the frame is not looking at the camera but passively contemplating her stroll.  There is movement in her gauzily dress suggesting a slight on shore breeze.  With the early morning light the photo-artist has captured both the highlights and shadows contained within this illustration.

This photograph tells a story!

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Wow!  This is an image I will remember for a long, long time.  Big Sur area shot yesterday.  This photograph tells a story and brings up emotions.  And that is what we ask of art.

Graphically you will see circles within circles.  The most apparent is the sandbar in the center of the scene but more important is the outer circle extending from the distant horizon, then outside the frame and reentering too the very close foreground. The movement of the current has been captured with just the right shutter speed illustrating the semicircle flow of water around the sand bar.  With perfect exposure this evocates the moment just before night, this is the quiet time.

The only very small item that I would like the photo-artist to consider is the small white rock in the foreground.  Forget it.  It is perfict as is.

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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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