First potential sale. please critique.

Lackoffunding

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Hey there,

A buddy I know wanted me to shoot a picture of a bridge for him to give as a christmas gift. He saw this and wanted to buy it. I hate this picture and wanted to do a better job.

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It was a nice night tonight, and there was even more water under the bridge, so I figured I should stick with the long exposure. What do you think of the results? Anything I could improve? If I am selling this, I want it to be as good as I can get it.

1.
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2.
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Personally I like the second, but i'm more impressed by the water. In the first, I really like the detail in the grass and trees, and the coloration of the lights. If he is wanting a shot of the bridge he may like 3 better because the bridge is more the center of focus. A tough call, probably can't go wrong with either. Has he seen the new ones yet? Might be best to let him make the call.

All three are great shots though, nice work.
 
I think the third photo (#2) is the best by far. The first two are a bit too focused on the slow exposure rushing water, which while cool, is a bit of a gimmick. The third has great composition and just looks better in general; the bridge is the focal point, the tree on the left isn't cut off, the clouds are more dynamic, the hill is less washed-out by the lights, and the water has directionality through the frame. It's a great shot, IMO. :)
 
I like the third (#2) as well. Is there any chance of getting rid of some of the noise in your clouds? Are you shooting in RAW? There appears to be some light artifacts above the bridge and a lens flare to the right on the bridge. I know I'm being a bit critical but if you are shooting with a UV filter I might try without. I do like this shot quite a bit though.
 
Those are some nice pictures.. IMO, the bright light to the left of the bridge in 1 and 2 ruins them-nothing a BB gun can't fix..LOL, but really-the bridge looks great in all of them, but the third on is probably the best "bridgewise." But the water is awesome in the first one.
 
I'm not too crazy about any of these. Not because they are BAD images, or a bad idea but because the execution could be better. In the first two shots, the glare from the light really takes away from these. Add to that cropping into the bridge, which is the subject of the photo, and it loses its' appeal. I like the third shot, but wish you could shoot it from the other side of the creek.

If you can reshoot this, you may want to consider going back and shooting it as an HDR image. You may get the light in the frame, but it won't have the huge glare that these show, and you'd get great shadow detail in here as well. My only other advice if you do this is to not crop into the bridge... If you go with the HDR, shoot SEVERAL images. I typically shoot about 12-15 of the scene with exposures changing from very over exposed to very under exposed.

Overall, I think it's a great effort though and I commend your wanting critiques for these- it's the single best way to improve your work.
 
Thanks everyone for all of the input. Those lights are really tough because they are meant to light up the river so all of the tourists in spokane can see it when the water gets really high. I did shoot raw, and the noise is much less apparent on my monitor, but I can definitely look into that.

About the glare. It bugs me too, but I am having a tough time of figuring out how to avoid it. I guess I can try to just shoot an HDR image and hopefully that will decrease the highlights. I wish I could shoot at dusk, but the location I am shooting from involves a bit of trespassing and I don't want to get caught.

And lastly, the lens flare. I shot with a UV filter. Is that what caused it? The problem is, I don't have any other filters for my lens yet. If I let my lens go uncovered, my front element could get wet and I don't want to have to deal with that. What kind of filter would be best for this shot?

Again, thanks so much for the critique.

graeme
 

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