Some recent photos, Some Landscape/People. please C&C

[jsecordphoto]

After posting some landscape photos here recently and getting some good critiques, which were very helpful I'd love to hear some C&C for a few more photos

 

[cbarnard7]

Really love all of these- especially #1! I was going to say, "level them" and then saw the horizon line. My only little, nit-picky critique would be that the bridge in the last isn't centered. But, that's all I got!

 

[jsecordphoto]

Really love all of these- especially #1! I was going to say, "level them" and then saw the horizon line. My only little, nit-picky critique would be that the bridge in the last isn't centered. But, that's all I got!

Thank you! The first photo has a really cool story behind it too. I go to this beach near my house fairly often to shoot photos, there is the blue heron I've been trying to shoot photos of for a while now with no luck. So I'm trying to be quiet and get a photo of this heron before it flies off, and this group of kids shows up stomping around in the water and making a big scene. At first I was kind of disappointed but then saw the lighting, and realized I might be able to get a cool silhouette of them playing on this sandbar. I asked the kids, who were probably around 10, if they minded if I took their photo. So I start snapping away and then their parents come running over from across the beach to find out who this weirdo taking pictures of their kids was haha. I showed them some of the photos real quick on my LCD screen and they loved them so it was all good. Some of my favorite photos have been like that, totally unexpected situations and I just happened to have my camera in hand.

 

[ratssass]

...all very nice,but i like the 3rd the best.....both the colors and the surrealistic feeling.

 

[cbarnard7]

Really love all of these- especially #1! I was going to say, "level them" and then saw the horizon line. My only little, nit-picky critique would be that the bridge in the last isn't centered. But, that's all I got!

Thank you! The first photo has a really cool story behind it too. I go to this beach near my house fairly often to shoot photos, there is the blue heron I've been trying to shoot photos of for a while now with no luck. So I'm trying to be quiet and get a photo of this heron before it flies off, and this group of kids shows up stomping around in the water and making a big scene. At first I was kind of disappointed but then saw the lighting, and realized I might be able to get a cool silhouette of them playing on this sandbar. I asked the kids, who were probably around 10, if they minded if I took their photo. So I start snapping away and then their parents come running over from across the beach to find out who this weirdo taking pictures of their kids was haha. I showed them some of the photos real quick on my LCD screen and they loved them so it was all good. Some of my favorite photos have been like that, totally unexpected situations and I just happened to have my camera in hand.

Yeah I'm sure they were weirded-out! Especially around sunset, creepin' around! Turned out great, though. Well done.

 

[robbins.photo]

I really liked #1 - big fan of silhouette - have to be honest though, #3 I didn't really care for much. Not sure how much photoshop work went into it, but it looked more to me like a digital rendering than a photograph. That may not be the case of course, but it was the impression I got when I saw it.

 

[FanBoy]

Photo #1 is fantastic in every way. I like your spontaneous photo back story, and I'm glad the parents understood.

 

[jsecordphoto]

I really liked #1 - big fan of silhouette - have to be honest though, #3 I didn't really care for much. Not sure how much photoshop work went into it, but it looked more to me like a digital rendering than a photograph. That may not be the case of course, but it was the impression I got when I saw it.

#3 is HDR, one of my first attempts actually and it was only 3 shots (-1,0,+1) so I still didn't get too much range in light values. Not a lot of processing went into it in photomatix/lightroom as far as really tweaking the saturation or anything. Thank you for the feedback though, I wish I had known more about metering for HDR at the time maybe I could've got a better range of values in there and it would've looked a little different.

Idk if my experience is just better than normal or what, but compared to some of the stuff said in the other recent thread about lack of good critique on this site, I've had a lot of great feedback- even if it hasn't been good I still take it in and try to learn and it's been super helpful. Thanks everyone!

 

[pgriz]

#1 - is excellent, but I'd consider a square crop, where the top boundary would be the point where the water and the background mountains join, and the right side would be positioned roughly at mid-image.
#2 - Looking at this a while, I'd be tempted to crop to the ride at the right. The dark sky doesn't seem to add much, and the left and center structures appear static, whereas the right has both motion, and a figure standing in the foreground giving some human dimension.
#3 is a little too saturated for my taste. If this was for real, I'd be worrying about the sun going nova. On the other hand, the reflections, the positioning of the dock in the image and the timing to capture the sunset/clouds are all excellent.

 

[The_Traveler]

#2 is very nice, the perspective distortion adding to the impact.
Since the sky is so meh, this might look even better in a pano crop.

#3 is just a nice sunset with the saturation knob turned to 11.

#1 is very nice.
You might try taking out the boy on the left and cropping to 4 x 5 with the remaining boy just to the left of the thirds line.
I can post an example if you allow.

Lew

 

[jsecordphoto]

#2 is very nice, the perspective distortion adding to the impact.
Since the sky is so meh, this might look even better in a pano crop.

#3 is just a nice sunset with the saturation knob turned to 11.

#1 is very nice.
You might try taking out the boy on the left and cropping to 4 x 5 with the remaining boy just to the left of the thirds line.
I can post an example if you allow.

Lew

After the last critique on my landscapes photos, where everyone said I needed to go a little easier on the saturation (which once I thought about I completely agreed with) I decided to have a much lighter hand in post processing. Now with people saying the sunset photo was too heavily processed with saturation

I didn't even touch the saturation bar in photomatix. If you don't believe me come check out a sunset on the lake in New Hampshire!

Anyway Lew I tried doing some different crops after your advice

I really liked your suggestion of doing this photo as a pano crop. The sky really didn't add anything to the photo and I feel like this is a stronger edit. Thanks again

 

[The_Traveler]

After the last critique on my landscapes photos, where everyone said I needed to go a little easier on the saturation (which once I thought about I completely agreed with) I decided to have a much lighter hand in post processing.I didn't even touch the saturation bar in photomatix. If you don't believe me come check out a sunset on the lake in New Hampshire!

No problem, it is a just a bit highly colorful for my tastes.
Glad the crops worked out.

Lew

 

[jsecordphoto]

Hopefully that didn't come across as too defensive, just saying that it wasn't touched up too much. Thanks again for the C&C to everyone, nice to get some input from some photographers I respect and it helps a lot.

 

[The_Traveler]

Not at all, at least AFAIC.

All ok with me.