Sunsets (Please Critique)

[Jamie1989]

Hey Everyone. I'm new to photography. Just thought I would post some of my pictures. Please Critique.

 

[Desi]

You've got some nice colors here. Also, some basic compositional flaws. The most striking flaw, to me, is that you are centering your subject and your horizon. You should look up the "rule of thirds" for some basic guidance on composition.

My favorite out of the set is #2.

 

[limr7 5]

Agreed with pretty much everything - great colors, impressive skies, and the necessary tweaks to the composition. I like #2 the best as well. I can see for a few of them why you didn't want to crop - the flare off the sun creates a pattern that you don't want to cut off, but first, try framing it differently when taking the picture, and second, know when to crop. For example, I like #3 but want to see a lot more of the bottom cropped off. It's dead space and doesn't add to the image. On the other hand, if you crop it and put the woman's silhouette near the bottom of the frame, you suddenly notice the triangle made from the boat, the woman, and the sun, and suddenly it becomes a more interesting picture. Just from shaving some off the bottom.

#5 could use some off the bottom, and for #4, I'd take some off the bottom and from the left side of the frame. Put that ray on the left side in the bottom left corner of the frame.

 

[Jamie1989]

Thank you Desi and Limr for the critique.

 

[Jamie1989]

 

[limr7 5]

There ya go! :thumbup:

The cropping of the second one accomplished an effect that I didn't even notice in the original: it highlights the reflection of the sky in the water. At least for me, it's a significant difference. I don't think I even noticed the reflections in the original - my eye kept going to the driftwood in the foreground. If it were really cool driftwood, that might be just fine, but it was kinda scraggly With the crop, though, my eye goes - as will most people's - to the brightest part, the sky, then travels down and is suddenly hit with the reflections in a much more definitive way than in the original. Isn't it amazing what big differences arise from such small changes?

It's easy to play with different crops when processing images digitally, so go ahead and try cropping in different ways to see what works the best. Remember, keep what's important and get rid of the things (like dead space) that aren't part of the "story."