Icicle

[Evie2420]

Hello everyone. I took this picture last week when there was a lot of ice and snow. Now it's all melted, but I managed to get this photo before it was all gone! Please tell me what you think! Thanks!

 

[Bo4key]

I think that you had a good idea here and the exposure is good but the background is distracting and I don't care for the composition at all.

 

[cgipson1]

Nice, Evie.. although it only shows a small part of the icicle! Is there a reason you did not shoot it vertically to get more of the icicle, and less of the background?

Something more like this?


Icicle in Chrome by CGipson Photography, on Flickr

 

[PixelRabbit]

Hey Evie, welcome to TPF!
First may I suggest you change your status to Photo's are OK to edit. Sometimes a quick edit when doing C&C can say it better than any words ever will

I echo Bo4key's thoughts. You captured the icicle very very well, exposure and focus is spot on when viewing it large. The background kills it at first look. Since you chose a great angle for the light on the icicle you have to now work with the background you have, if this was my shot I would do a big crop of the center of the icicle eliminating all of the background, problem solved (If your photos were ok to edit I would have done a quick crop).

When composing a shot think about the subject, is it wide, is it tall, what about it do I want to accentuate?
In this shot it is about the flow of the ice, top to bottom so a vertical composition would be better.

Nicely seen, technically captured very nicely, pay attention to your backgrounds and what it is about your subject that you want to accentuate and you are off to a good start
I would suggest doing some research on composition, there are some great books but I don't know them off the top of my head, hopefully someone else will chime in with some suggestions on specific resources.

 

[Evie2420]

Thanks to eveyone who has so far responded to this! I definately see what you're all saying about the background. I'm not really used to editing my photos, so I guess that's why I said it's not OK, and that's probably why I didn't think of cropping!

The reason behind not getting the whole icicle is because it was rather large and I only had a small space to get the photo, plus, I was really just trying to get the little details in it, and really not looking at the big picture. Though maybe I should have.

I'll definately have to work on my composition. I'll look up some stuff and see what all I can learn. Thanks again very much for the responses. I appreciate them! And be sure to keep them coming if anyone has anything to add!

 

[PixelRabbit]

If you have thoughts of going beyond snapshots of neat things you find editing and cropping are very important parts of good photography . As soon as you start to work on your composition you will start thinking of crops. It is very rare that a photograph doesn't benefit from some editing.