Three from today C&C Welcome

[bentcountershaft]

1. I took this for two reasons. First I liked the sky's reflection in the puddle. Second I liked the lines of the contrasting textures.

2. This one was a bit of a disappointment. My eye was on the fisherman laying on the pier. I first shot zoomed in, but the bridge in the background was kind of over powering, so I did this one. It's ok but lacks the intensity of what I had in mind. I also don't like the placement of the pole to the left, but I wanted the suns reflection in that spot so I was kind of stuck.

3. This one I'm mostly happy with excepting the sky. I like the people down at the end because it helps give a sense of scale to the sculpture.

 

[Rudha]

first of all i'm not a professional or an expert but having said that i think there are couple of things that could be done to improve your images.
1. If the reflections are your main subject then you should have moved a bit closer, also i think it's a bit out of focus and the river doesn't serve any purpose.

2. you pretty much said it yourself, best thing would have been to get closer o the fisherman, i guess walk the pier(is that what it's called?)

3.Again isolate your subject, here the sculpture, and there were some blown headlights, but i liked the symmetry in the picture and also the shadows of the trees.

Happy shooting

 

[lunaaa]

i find that black thing in the first pic a little distracting but i like the reflection of the sky.

 

[bentcountershaft]

Thanks for the replies and input. After I posted this last night I went back, hoping to get a night shot of the big sculpture with the lights on but apparently the city is trying to save money and not use those lights. I did get some other shots, but first I'll post some re-edits and/or different shots from the first go round.

The first pic I'm going to leave alone due to there not being much I can do with it. The main idea of it for me was the lines so I'm pretty happy with the crop. The focus issue which I really didn't look closely at until it was brought up makes me want to scrap it anyway. The wind was blowing pretty well there yesterday so I'm thinking the ripples in the water threw my auto focus off. That's what I'm going to tell myself anyway, couldn't be my fault .

The second pic I agree, it was just too far away to do what I wanted so decided to use my first shot and just crop the offending bridge out. When I first took it I was going for a silhouette look so I decided to go black and white to enhance that being that I cropped out most of the color any way.

The third pic I also decided to use an alternate shot with a slightly less blown out sky. I like the compression of the first shot better so there doesn't seem to be a happy medium possible. The best camera placement for this shot is impossible due to a pole being directly in the way. The two rows come together to the point where I was standing so i couldn't back up enough to get the look I wanted and I couldn't get closer to make the sculpture more prominent without losing my leading lines. I may try it again sometime with a longer lens closer to the ground and see what I get. I can't seem to get the sky to the color I want, too purple, so for now this is all I have:

Bonus pics:

This one almost worked out. I'd like to try it a little earlier with a twilight sky ( the sun would be setting to my left and slightly behind me) to help define this sculpture a little more from the sky but there are too many people around at that time. This was taken about 1 in the morning and there were still twenty or so people out and about. Luckily they saw what I was doing and tried to stay out of shot but I doubt I'd get that consideration with a bigger crowd. I guess I'll have to try it and find out.

I was going to post this one last night with the others but wanted to keep it to three. I just thought it was kind of nifty.

 

[guitstik]

I was going to post this one last night with the others but wanted to keep it to three. I just thought it was kind of nifty.

I really like this one. It may work better if it were cropped center.

 

[bentcountershaft]

Thanks, I originally shot it with it centered but was afraid it was too boring. I like both versions.

Oh, and another night pic as well. Just goofing with this one at this point. Wish the lights on the trees weren't so much brighter than all the other lights, this could have turned out nice.

 

[white]

I think #2 is nicely composed. However, the people in the photograph are so small that I think they are distracting. The shot would be better just as a study of line/architecture. The B&W version is no good -- instead of the warm brown you get flat gray; color is much better.

 

[BrianLy]

I really like #2

 

[Derrel]

I think photo #2 is a visual feast! Really,really fun to look at and let the eye wander over and over and over through the frame. Simply outstanding. One of the nicest genre scenes I have seen in months and months. Really.

 

[bentcountershaft]

Are you all talking about #2 in the first post, of the river/dock scene? The reason I ask is that I don't think it was showing up for a while. Thanks for the continued responses, I really enjoy learning from multiple points of view.