Lake Placid

[BananaRepublic]

Id like to get critique and feedback please.

 

[Space Face]

Fine composition and just enough movement on the water.

 

[smoke665]

Id like to get critique and feedback pleas

First off the title suits this as it is a serene view, you've done an excellent job on capturing a good exposure, and have a very strong leading line in the dock. Unfortunately without a central focal point to hold the eye, it's value is lost, you need a landing point coming off the dock. For example a boat on the far shore, or a dead tree/large stump, something that stands out against the oneness of the scene.

Sometimes with a limited palette you can highlight certain elements like the cloud, or the bright spot on the trees of the far shore to give the image a landing point. Cropping to a 16x10 format lets you get rid of shoreline on the right and other distractions helping to keep the eye narrowly focused on the dock and shore. Adding a gradient to bring out the sky, and a radial filter accentuates those features. Maybe something on the order of this.

 

[weepete]

Smoke's pretty much nailed the editing on this one, the contrast bump and the colour pop is a great shout.

As for the image, it's a pleasant image of a nice scene. The one thing that bugs me is the orange shape near the bridge support pillar which seems out of place, and I cant quite make out what it is.

Compositionally it's resonable, fairly simple but deliberate and decent. I'd have liked to have seen something in the right hand side to bring the eye back, as the bridge and the tree lines are narrowing to the right pushing the eye from the left to the right and out of the frame. The movement in the water isn't quite strong enough to do this by itself.

Overall it's a fairly decent shot after a little work in post.

 

[BananaRepublic]

Smoke's pretty much nailed the editing on this one, the contrast bump and the colour pop is a great shout.

As for the image, it's a pleasant image of a nice scene. The one thing that bugs me is the orange shape near the bridge support pillar which seems out of place, and I cant quite make out what it is.

Compositionally it's resonable, fairly simple but deliberate and decent. I'd have liked to have seen something in the right hand side to bring the eye back, as the bridge and the tree lines are narrowing to the right pushing the eye from the left to the right and out of the frame. The movement in the water isn't quite strong enough to do this by itself.

Overall it's a fairly decent shot after a little work in post.

Thanks the orange thing is a swimmer who had a live boy tied to them, in case I guess, it looked like the barrels from jaws. I hope to post another slightly different version in the next day or so.

 

[BananaRepublic]

Id like to get critique and feedback pleas

First off the title suits this as it is a serene view, you've done an excellent job on capturing a good exposure, and have a very strong leading line in the dock. Unfortunately without a central focal point to hold the eye, it's value is lost, you need a landing point coming off the dock. For example a boat on the far shore, or a dead tree/large stump, something that stands out against the oneness of the scene.

Sometimes with a limited palette you can highlight certain elements like the cloud, or the bright spot on the trees of the far shore to give the image a landing point. Cropping to a 16x10 format lets you get rid of shoreline on the right and other distractions helping to keep the eye narrowly focused on the dock and shore. Adding a gradient to bring out the sky, and a radial filter accentuates those features. Maybe something on the order of this.
View attachment 195657

Thanks for suggestions I want to post a different version which may get to some of your points, if only I get round to it.

 

[freixas]

The dock is like a big giant arrow that points me to...nothing special?

But wait, as my is pulled to the right by the dock, the mysterious underwater orange thing draws my eye to the base of the one of the dock supports. I don't really want to go there because, other than the orange thing, the base of the support is not the ideal focus for a nature landscape. Our eyes follow lines, but they are also pulled to the area of highest contrast. There is an unpleasant tug between the dock-arrow and the orange-contrast.

I don't know any way to fix this shot. Smoke665 made a valiant attempt, but the dock still points me to a muddy, dim chunk of shoreline and the orange swimmer is still there. If you could go back in time and add something to serve as a more interesting focus (and get rid of the swimmer), that might help. It wouldn't hurt if you had a more interesting sky--more clouds or maybe a sunset if the angles work right.

Sometimes it helps to have more sky or more water. If you have a wide-angle lens, you could try to exaggerate the perspective of the dock. You still need a good focus point, but depending on how this changes the scene, the landscape might be able to function as a the focus. Other things to try would be to move the camera higher and lower. It's hard to say without being there.

In this forum, you are asked to submit the technical details of the shot as well as your artistic intent. Why did you take this photo? What were you trying to achieve? Without knowing this, I'm having to guess whether anything I've said is relevant. You might want to edit the OP to include the missing info.

 

[BananaRepublic]

The dock is like a big giant arrow that points me to...nothing special?

But wait, as my is pulled to the right by the dock, the mysterious underwater orange thing draws my eye to the base of the one of the dock supports. I don't really want to go there because, other than the orange thing, the base of the support is not the ideal focus for a nature landscape. Our eyes follow lines, but they are also pulled to the area of highest contrast. There is an unpleasant tug between the dock-arrow and the orange-contrast.

I don't know any way to fix this shot. Smoke665 made a valiant attempt, but the dock still points me to a muddy, dim chunk of shoreline and the orange swimmer is still there. If you could go back in time and add something to serve as a more interesting focus (and get rid of the swimmer), that might help. It wouldn't hurt if you had a more interesting sky--more clouds or maybe a sunset if the angles work right.

Sometimes it helps to have more sky or more water. If you have a wide-angle lens, you could try to exaggerate the perspective of the dock. You still need a good focus point, but depending on how this changes the scene, the landscape might be able to function as a the focus. Other things to try would be to move the camera higher and lower. It's hard to say without being there.

In this forum, you are asked to submit the technical details of the shot as well as your artistic intent. Why did you take this photo? What were you trying to achieve? Without knowing this, I'm having to guess whether anything I've said is relevant. You might want to edit the OP to include the missing info.

First off there is technical aspect i want to clear up, time travel into the past is impossible. Apart from the technological requirements there are so many variables, the position of the galaxy and so on and so fourth. That aside I took the photo because I was trying out some filters, so no real artistic intent, but the water was too still even for a long exposure to get what I thought I might. I think this was taken with a 6 stop and possible a soft grad I cant recall. What Ive become convinced about is the ND card/app conversion tables are more guidelines than anything or perhaps Im just doing stuff wrong. As for all the other stuff you mention sky, clouds etc I can not control.

Here another version,