The dam deteriorated, and we lost the lake..

[stsinner]

My first pics after beginning to take photography seriously.. This is a dam in my town that used to hold back a lake and set its level.. Now the lake is so low in spots that you can walk across it..

I really like the feel of these pictures and welcome your feedback.

1.
Here you can see the water below flowing by unregulated. In the lower left/center of the picture you can see steel beams that used to hold the thick wooden boards that regulated the level of the water. They have long been gone:

2.
Kept from the dangerous dam by a fence:

4.
And the outflow of the dam, flowing freely and in desperate need of repair:

5.

 

[Samanax]

The sky is blown out in every shot. Was it a very overcast day?

The color of the water going over the falls is kinda disturbing. Is it water or coffee?

I like the graffiti.

 

[mvehrs]

I like these pictures because they have some really awesome textures in them. Some suggestions though, The sky is blown out in all of the photos. To fix that, try shooting when the sky is not like 50 times brighter then the sky or by getting another angle where the sky is not so bright. Also, I think that a photo should have one main point or subject that the eye is drawn to. None of these photos really do that incredibly.

Great job altogether for the first time!

 

[DavidElliot]

hope that rust colored water isn't what you see when you turn on the tap ale:

 

[ANDS!]

Yea - you should have used your SB600 to light up the entire scene, and exposed for the sky!

Or not. Seriously folks, blown out sky's are not an automatic sign of a fubar'd photograph, especially when the sky isn't the point of the shot. At best, he could crop the sky out, or recompose the shot without the sky in it. The exposure on the dam, especially in the last photo, is cracking and all it needs is a crop.

 

[stsinner]

So what is some advice for a bright, cloudless sky? Is don't take the shot the best solution and wait for an overcast sky?

 

[Samanax]

So what is some advice for a bright, cloudless sky?

Graduate Neutral Density (GND) filters.

 

[stsinner]

Is this a nice improvement?

 

[inTempus]

So what is some advice for a bright, cloudless sky? Is don't take the shot the best solution and wait for an overcast sky?

HDR, and AEB... that's what I'm doing next time out.

 

[ths-acid]

I am no photographic expert, but like others have already pointed out the sky is a bit blown out of proportion, but really it isnt that big of a deal. Also mabye it is just me but perhaps the photos are a little over sharpened which is fine, I just think it makes the plants look a little odd.

But like I said I am no expert, infact I am just beginning, so take my advice witha grain of salt, and remeber keep on shooting.

 

[rufus5150]

blown out sky's are not an automatic sign of a fubar'd photograph

+1

 

[Overread19 7]

for the sky you can try a few things.

1) Auto exposure bracketing (should have a page in your manual about setting this up) and then combining the resulting images into a single image. That way can get the whole range of lighting into a single photo - digital suffers from having a smaller dynamic range than film and also from blowing out highlights beyond recovery

2) Graduate Neutral Density filters - that samanax linked to. These can help a lot, though note that the changes occur in lines across the filter - so in the shot its stright lines of change, which means if you don't have a totally flat skyline you can end up with bits of foreground being exposed darker.
A tip is to get square filters that have to be held in a bracket and then you can move the filter in the bracket so that the point of change occurs where you want it to - the lens filters for this are not as good since the point of change is right in the middle, and fixed there.

3) Wait for better lighting - one hour before and after dawn and sunset are the "golden" hours for photography when the lighting is still strong enough, but much softer and so easier to manage.

 

[Ron Evers]

From what I can see in the pics is that the dam is OK, the spillway is not eroded, the slots for the regulating timbers in the pier & far abutment look secure. It would appear that it is simply that the regulating timbers have been removed above the spillway.

 

[stsinner]

From what I can see in the pics is that the dam is OK, the spillway is not eroded, the slots for the regulating timbers in the pier & far abutment look secure. It would appear that it is simply that the regulating timbers have been removed above the spillway.

Actually, if you look in the third picture, you can see that one of the beams is actually bent.. I have no idea how that could have happend, as the beams are I-beams and very thick.. Maybe a tree floated downstream during a flood and hit it..

 

[EhJsNe]

Well the blown out sky is a bit annoying, but I think if you Put it in a frame on your wall, any ol person who walks in your house would not even care about it, now if it was a landscape where the sky was one of the main focal points of the picture, it would be a problem.

The pictures are very nice. I like how it incorperates crap in a beatiful scene and makes the whole picture look good. I especially like the grafitti on the dam.