Weird?

[colonelcamp]

Hey Guys,

I took these pics earlier this week and I don't know how I feel about them. I think the quality is really good, but the subject is what is throwing me off. Any C&Cs would be appreciated.

Thanks,
Danny

 

[tirediron]

I'm not entirely sure of what you mean by quality. Technically these images are good, the main issue being the blown sky. The only good way to resolve this issue is by shooting at a different time. Artistically, I'm not getting a lot from them. Could you give us an idea of what your thought-process was here? The compositions aren't making a lot of sense to me.

 

[colonelcamp]

Thanks for your reply!

The skies are definitely overexposed. I just got a ND grad filter to hopefully help with that.

As far as the composition, I was just trying to get angles other than a straight on shots. I thought the 3rd one might look interesting having the flowers up front with the headstone in the background. I also thought the first one might be interesting having the statue in the foreground and the archway monument in the background.

Danny

 

[tirediron]

Okay; the main suggestion I have would be to reduce your DoF; right now pretty much the whole image is in focus, and there's no definite subject to attract the eye. Shooting with a much larger aperture (smaller f #) will allow you to isolate your subject with selective focus and give the eye a point upon which to rest.

 

[colonelcamp]

hmm. That's definitely a great idea, but I went into this wanting to get the whole image in focus. I was using manual focus for these shots with f/22. I guess my thinking was that the entire image would be what I wanted the viewer to focus on.

On the manual focus subject, I have a quick question, maybe you can help me out.

When using manual focus, I noticed when I pressed the shutter half way, the center focus point in the view finder would turn red, I'd take my shot and get everything in focus because of the aperture setting.

Let's use the 3rd pic for my question. If I used an aperture of, let's say f/9 (and the appropriate shutter speed), and I set my focal point all the way to right, would the green plant all the way to the right be the focal point and bokeh occuring from there out towards the rest of picture?

As you can see, I'm new to this. I'm still playing around with the focusing and I think manual focus is so much better.