Sunset in B&W

PixelRabbit · Sep 5, 2015

Last night I looked up at the sky and saw the beams of light so headed down to the river to see what I could see. After taking a few "meh" shots I decided to throw my onboard flash into the mix and see what I could come up with. Since the sky and foreground were lit and the middle ground was in silhouette and added exactly zero to the colour version I decided on black and white.

Would love to hear your thoughts, thanks for taking a look!

IMG_2938bw-1 by Judi, on Flickr

limr · Sep 5, 2015

The sky is so super duper awesome in this shot, but it's getting drowned out by the brightness and clutter and proportion of the foreground. It's almost like there are two separate pictures. What I mean is that the foreground half IS kind of funky, but as its own image (cropped at the point where the water goes dark) and not as the entire bottom half of the picture that features that cool sky.

PixelRabbit · Sep 5, 2015

Thanks so much of your thoughts Lenny

I'm pretty sure I also took the shot you are describing before I added in the foreground, I'll have to look at it again and see if I like it, that's the danger of shooting the same spot over and over and over again (this is steps from our front door), it starts to look "meh" even when it might not be lol

limr · Sep 5, 2015

Yeah, I know how that goes

And how green with envy am I over your front yard view!

timor · Sep 5, 2015

I like the compo and the sky (I have a story about the sky), don't like the straight ahead fill in flash, or too much of it. It looks unnatural,

AlanKlein · Sep 5, 2015

As Timor said, the fill flash creates an unnatural look. With the sun setting, you can't have a natural lighted view like that. Also, as others said, the foreground just complicates the picture and make the viewer confused as to what the subject is.

PixelRabbit · Sep 6, 2015

Thanks so much for your thoughts guys! I echo most of them with my own. Note I didn't say "I quite like how it turned out" in the OP like I usually do

I do like some things about it and don't like others, I like the composition and the idea of it but, it looks to me like a composite with the very different lights, I need to make the foreground light make sense somehow next time around, maybe a lantern held up, flashlight, something to make it make sense. I posted it up because my non photography friends are lovin' it and I wanted a different set of eyes.
Lenny, you will have to make it up to the great white north some day and have coffee on the porch with me

Timor, you will have to tell me that story when you call!