C&C and help please

[cindyg2024]

I was just going through some old pictures I have on my computer. These are candid shots from our trip down to New Orleans last Thanksgiving. I think some of them have potential. I really need help with the one sunset pic though. How do I tone down the glare? (#4) Also is #5 too large of a picture? I thought the idea of having the orange glow from the sunset with the moon in the sky was a good idea, but I feel like the overall picture is too large and has no focal point.

1 - A crane on the beach

2 - The girls frolicking in the water

3 - My Mother-in-Law enjoying the sunset

4 - Sunset picture

5 - Sunset and the moon (with the in-laws walking on the beach)

 

[LaFoto]

Well, I'm afraid there is nothing that can still be done about the glare in Photo 4. All information is lost in the bright, overexposed parts there. You would have needed to either wait for the sun to go even further down and be less bright, or have made use of filters (says who does not have [m]any filters herself, either :roll: )

But I do like all the other four photos shown here. They speak of a WONDERFUL evening on the beach, and the colours of the first are wonderfully muted and soft, though if that had been mine, I might have experimented with a bit of "play" in PS (levels, maybe also saturation a bit, only of the reds and blues, maybe, just to see the effect).

As to the last and you question on whether there is too much in that one frame: no, there isn't. If you feel it is too large, you might think about cropping in a bit from the bottom to lose some sand, and a bit from the right to get back to the normal print size. But I do like those small, "lonely" people on the beach, and the vastness of the evening sky above them with the moon! Looks quite romantic!

 

[cindyg2024]

Thank you LaFoto. Again, I'm still learning and these pictures were taken completely in manual mode back in November of last year before I really even started looking into learning about photography. I didn't change any settings on my camera and no post-processing/touch-up was done. The first amazes me because it actually did capture the exact colors of the evening.