Sunset over Wheat

pm63 · Jun 30, 2008

Opinions appreciated.

Larger version on Flickr.

pm63 · Jul 2, 2008

Please, anyone?

abraxas · Jul 2, 2008

I like the subdued colors but think the heads of the wheat should be brought out a little bit (contrast). Horizons that are halfway usually tend to sort of a boring photo. Maybe if the top half of the sky were cropped off (getting rid of the traces of contrails)?

astrostu · Jul 2, 2008

It seems out of focus to me. Or focussed on the stuff in the front and not the back, which I think is where the focus should be.

rjackjames · Jul 3, 2008

Stunning shot I love it.

poppy67 · Jul 3, 2008

Its a nice shot of a lovely sunset but its not really saying much to me as I like to see some kind of focus point..You might be better to crop more from the foreground to give the sky more impact or as said above bring out the detail in the wheat more..

pm63 · Jul 4, 2008

I like the subdued colors but think the heads of the wheat should be brought out a little bit (contrast). Horizons that are halfway usually tend to sort of a boring photo. Maybe if the top half of the sky were cropped off (getting rid of the traces of contrails)?

Thanks. By bringing out the heads of the wheat, do you mean lightening them even more in relation to the sky? I used Photoshop's Shadow/Highlight tool to lighten them but found that to my tastes this was the most I would go.

I take your point about the horizon. When shooting I did think about this and decided on a central horizon but after cropping it now, it does indeed seem like the horizon should lie across the top third.

It seems out of focus to me. Or focussed on the stuff in the front and not the back, which I think is where the focus should be.

Thanks for the suggestion, though I must disagree on this point. It is indeed focused mainly on the wheat (though to me it seems that all is in focus) but to me this is more important and it draws the viewer into the pic and it would look silly if the focus was on the background and the foreground wheat wasn't sharp. It was shot at f/16 so the background should be in focus.

Stunning shot I love it.

Thank you.

Its a nice shot of a lovely sunset but its not really saying much to me as I like to see some kind of focus point..You might be better to crop more from the foreground to give the sky more impact or as said above bring out the detail in the wheat more..

Thanks, I agree that the shot would have been more successful with a more specific focal point, the field of wheat is bit too general.

abraxas · Jul 4, 2008

Here's an edit, probably overdone, but so you can get an idea of what I mean.

I used the dodge tool at about 5% to highlights and midtones brushing the area I wanted to come up. Then I used the burn tool at 5% set to shadows and went over the same area. Then a very slight curve adjustment. -Then cropped.

Use the textures as a focal point, subject, what-not. If you can fnd a pattern, so much the better. Here's an example of mine that I shot last winter.

Texture