Colors

[mcoppadge]

I'm not really looking for anything specific, but I would like some general critique to this photo. I submitted an oversaturated copy of it in Landscape and Nature, and this is one without saturation. I feel like more could be done to this photo to bring out some more color without making it look bad, specifically color in the barn. Anyway, leave your critiques and feel free to play with it and post your own version.

 

[Hertz van Rental]

Before you play around with it, try and think about what it is you want it to do. As it stands it's a 'nice' picture but with no subject.
It's nothing special as a view and the snow, shed and trees are all competing.
It would make a good Christmas card image, though.

 

[mcoppadge]

How important is a subject, exactly? My first idea was to capture the barn with it surroundings. And I attempted to bring out the color in the barn (not shown in this original) to make it stand out more. Oversaturation made that difficult, so I stopped.

In other words, I suppose the barn would be the subject and I'd like to know/see how I can make it more obvious.

And thanks for posting. I was worried that this would go untouched.

 

[Hertz van Rental]

If the barn is the subject then you need to consider what you want to say about it.
Is it the relationship between it and it's surroundings?
The colour and texture contrasts?
Something else?
Once you've decided on that then you start to think of ways of approaching it to show this.


I regularly go through here and look for images that haven't had comments. It usually happens because people don't know how to react or what to say. Then I do my stuff

 

[Dave_D]

Was this image made with the Fuji or the AE1? The fuji does have superior color quality as far as digi's go. If shot with the AE1, what film did you use?

 

[Jeff Canes]

The barn is subject that cool, IMO the white balance is off the snow is to blue

 

[elsaspet]

Ah, but Hertz, can't a photograph just simply exist to evoke emotions? This one does for me. It reminds me of my childhood in Texas. Mind you, it doesn't snow much in Texas but it did once. I grew up up a horse ranch (my mom was into race horses for a while).....I digress.
I believe that it's nice to have a subject in a photo, but sometimes photos also take a life of their own through the viewer's memories.....isn't that right?
(BTW-You still da man!)

 

[Hertz van Rental]

Ah, but Hertz, can't a photograph just simply exist to evoke emotions?

Photographs do that anyway, whether we intend it or not. But as I have argued on many ocassions, if that isn't the emotion the photographer felt or wanted to communicate then the photograph isn't working.
(Please nobody dive in here with a 'yes,but...' rebuttal. Try thinking first instead. If Photography is about communication, then if the viewer gets a completely different reaction from the one the photographer had or intended then communication hasn't happened. It would be like writing a book using just vowels and telling the reader to make their own words and story up. Once may be fun but to do it every time?)
If it is the whole scene then the scene is the subject and so you need to sort out what it is you want the scene to say.
When we take a photo, we do it because it evokes something in us: we are trying to do or say something about ourselves. This usually happens at the level of the sub-conscious and so we are not aware of it. If we want to progress as photographers we have to realise that this is going on and harness it and make it work for us.
Photography is really self-exploration.

 

[mcoppadge]

Was this image made with the Fuji or the AE1? The fuji does have superior color quality as far as digi's go. If shot with the AE1, what film did you use?

Fuji. And not superior, that I know of. Pretty inferior, IMO.

 

[mcoppadge]

If the barn is the subject then you need to consider what you want to say about it.
Is it the relationship between it and it's surroundings?
The colour and texture contrasts?
Something else?
Once you've decided on that then you start to think of ways of approaching it to show this.


I regularly go through here and look for images that haven't had comments. It usually happens because people don't know how to react or what to say. Then I do my stuff

I would say the relationship between it and it's surroundings. It was the existance of them together that I was attempting to capture when I was taking this.

 

[elsaspet]

Photographs do that anyway, whether we intend it or not. But as I have argued on many ocassions, if that isn't the emotion the photographer felt or wanted to communicate then the photograph isn't working.
(Please nobody dive in here with a 'yes,but...' rebuttal. Try thinking first instead. If Photography is about communication, then if the viewer gets a completely different reaction from the one the photographer had or intended then communication hasn't happened. It would be like writing a book using just vowels and telling the reader to make their own words and story up. Once may be fun but to do it every time?)
If it is the whole scene then the scene is the subject and so you need to sort out what it is you want the scene to say.
When we take a photo, we do it because it evokes something in us: we are trying to do or say something about ourselves. This usually happens at the level of the sub-conscious and so we are not aware of it. If we want to progress as photographers we have to realise that this is going on and harness it and make it work for us.
Photography is really self-exploration.

Oh Sheesh......now I gotta "think" too when I shoot!

 

[Hertz van Rental]

Oh Sheesh......now I gotta "think" too when I shoot!

You do that anyway - but a lot of it is going on at the subliminal level.
All I am saying is that you need to understand and accept this - and then think about what you are doing and why, but not when you take pictures.
Doing this puts you in the right 'mind set' - it focusses your subliminal/subconscious thoughts if you will - so you react faster and better to the sort of thing you want.
It's like when you are in a room full of people. You can hear all the conversations as a general background buzz. But if someone says your name it can leap out at you. Same principle.

 

[tmpadmin]

I am too emotionally tired to dive in with Hertz - I have been avoiding the photography discussion forum for a reason. But anything you are trying to do with this image the tree in the upper left is very distracting as well as that little black blob in the snow.