Behind the scenes of Vancouver

[Ahrk]

Very new to photography and even newer on thephotoforum!.

I'm particularly proud of this one, but please critique away!

 

[tirediron]

Welcome to the forum! An image like this is difficult to critique without knowing what your intent was.

 

[The_Traveler]

Welcome to the site - and to photography as well.

While the shot is pretty well exposed and nicely sharp, there are a couple of technical things.
The building tops at the far left are blown out, they could probably be burnt in some to make that skyline intact.
At the right, that vertical wall is tilted from lens distortion, perhaps upright that.

The real issue is that there is no real center of interest, nothing obvious that we should be looking at.
It's a documentary cityscape rather than a photo that tries to show us something specific.

 

[Ahrk]

Welcome to the forum! An image like this is difficult to critique without knowing what your intent was.

There were 2 points of intent, 1 was just simply I liked the aesthetic/contrast of the rail yard butting up against the city; the 2nd would be that on the other side of those buildings is a very affluent, trendy retail area, at the right spot you can peak behind it which is what you see, almost as if peaking behind the curtain of a play and seeing all the internal workings. Writing this out now I realize that the second point would be completely lost on the viewer without more context.

Welcome to the site - and to photography as well.

While the shot is pretty well exposed and nicely sharp, there are a couple of technical things.
The building tops at the far left are blown out, they could probably be burnt in some to make that skyline intact.
At the right, that vertical wall is tilted from lens distortion, perhaps upright that.

The real issue is that there is no real center of interest, nothing obvious that we should be looking at.
It's a documentary cityscape rather than a photo that tries to show us something specific.

I really hadn't noticed how blown out the buildings were now until you pointed them out. As well as photography, I'm very new to Lightroom so have yet to delve into burning and dodging (looks like I've got my night planned for me). I'm having a hard time seeing what you mean about the distortion. Are you meaning the circled area below? Not exactly sure what you mean by 'uprighting', rotating the picture so that wall is perfectly straight? If that's the case wouldn't that offset the rest?



Is this something I could be aware of and fix without post? Is it due to the lens? 35mm?

Thanks again for all the pointers, I thrive off the critiques.

 

[The_Traveler]

I'm having a hard time seeing what you mean about the distortion. Are you meaning the circled area below? Not exactly sure what you mean by 'uprighting', rotating the picture so that wall is perfectly straight? If that's the case wouldn't that offset the rest?

View attachment 62480

Is this something I could be aware of and fix without post? Is it due to the lens? 35mm?

Thanks again for all the pointers, I thrive off the critiques.

There are ways of partially correcting perspective distortion but, it is quite possible that the slant is real. Since it does look as if the vertical wall is tilted, I would just crop off that little bit and remove that bit of distraction.

Wait until a better, and possible real, candidate for perspective correction comes along before you try learning how to do that.

Lew