Photo Critique

Friday Photo Critique #11

on Dec 18th 2009 with 16 comments

Friday Photo Critique is our weekly community project, where we publish a photograph submitted by one of our wonderful readers, then ask you all to offer constructive feedback on the image.

After a few days, I’ll update the post to feature the most helpful and insightful comments. You will also be credited with a link to your website or portfolio, so be sure to enter it correctly when submitting a comment!

Quick Ground Rules

  1. Play nice! We’ve deliberately chosen photographs that aren’t perfect, so please be constructive with any criticism.
  2. Feel free to offer any type of advice – composition, lighting, post-processing etc.
  3. You can also link to photographs that you feel offer a great example of this type of image shot exceptionally well.

Without further ado, here is this week’s candidate for Friday Photo Critique!

The Photograph

Photo Critique

Photographer: MacBrains

Please let us know what you think in the comments – how would you have approached the scene or taken the photo differently? A massive thank you to everyone who commented last week. The post will shortly be updated with some of the most insightful comments.

The most constructive and helpful comments will be featured on the site, and you’ll also be given priority to feature your own work in a future Friday Photo Critique!.

David Appleyard is davidappleyard on Themeforest
 
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David Appleyard is a designer and writer based in the UK. He manages Tuts+, along with having founded several design websites including Design Shack and PixelsDaily.  

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  • Herson Contreras

    I really like the colors, but the clouds could use more detail. The buildings in the foreground are a bit dark, but it’s all good.

  • earthrokk

    For this image, I would crop out just above the last area of orange in the sky to give a wide landscape frame. I would adjust the contrast and boost color if I were to keep this in color. I prefer to see this in a B/W Duo tone or Tri-tone image. I like the blues and the oranges playing together against the black of the housing, so reducing the image to two colors makes sense. I would also burn out the details of the house and just make it a full silhouette. I would bring back the detail of the trees to the left, but allow it to move the veiwers eye from left to right.

  • http://mattbaume.com mattymatt

    Quite nice composition, with the geometrical house and organic hills framing the sky. (Although the shape of the house is a little hard to read — maybe a slightly different angle would have yielded a more “house-like” shape?)

    I would probably have adjusted the color of the sky and hills a bit to get a stronger, more complementary color. The hills are a nice blue and the sky a nice orange, so I think you could get a pleasant contrast by amplifying their saturation.

    The contrast in the clouds is particularly weak. Some people like this! But I don’t. So I’d have tweaked a couple separate RGB curves, each one masked to a different part of the sky, to use a broader range of color. Alternately: you might try copying the green channel and pasting it with blending set to multiply.

  • Bryan

    I agree with earthrokk – cropping out where the sky returns to blue would be a good idea. Increasing the saturation and contrast would also further enhance the image – being a silhouette-type, there ought to be “pop” or a “wow” factor that is currently lacking.

    If you had the ability to go back in time, I would have also tried to shoot this with a bit of sun remaning – adding in a light source would have enhanced the image as well.

  • Alex C

    I agree about the cropping. I would bring it down a little bit on the top. I would brighten the colors in the sky and burn the details out of the house

  • http://ckpj.com Cameron Knight

    I pulled this image out and brought it into photoshop. I pulled out a lot of detail in the shadows using the Shadow/Highlights function 50% strength/50% tonal range. The house is really what makes this pictures, it’s stone and very cool looking, ancient and rustic. Once I did a general lightening that way, I loosely selected the dark bottom portion of the picture using a medium feather and applied a warming filter using the photo filter tool at about 30%. I then loosely selected the top of the photo and increased the contrast. I like the photo uncropped because the very top is the only chance at have white in the image, without something that is close to white, I think everything looks under exposed and muddy. I then went into hue/saturation and boosted the saturation of EVERYTHING A LOT. It’s a great shot, but the details of the house really make the shot. In my opinion, having it in silhouette doesn’t work.

    • earthrokk

      Hey Guys,

      I followed what Mr. Knight suggested as to the shadow/highlight adjustment and I was impressed with the amount of detail retained in the image. However, I think it leads to more issues with the image than solutions. This only exposed the problem in composition and perspective as opposed to enhancing what was captured. I use the Shadow/Highlight adjustment in all of my work, but there are times that making the adjustment cause the image to fall flat and less interesting.

      Cropping the image and basic adjustments are best for this image.

  • Thomas

    I agree with the last two statements about cropping and contrast. The reason it would look better cropped is because the upper layer of the clouds, where the sky is visible, starts to break up the smoothness of the overall composition. Also by lowering the vertical dimensions of the image and equalizing the amount of sky and land present in the image, there is a lot more balance between the colors of the horizon and the darkness of the building.

  • http://www.cashbackprinting.com Tom

    The colors are really nice and I like the silhouetting of the mountains.
    I’m might be asking for too much, but I would have liked to see the image without the house.
    + A slight boost in color for the extra punch.
    Thanks for sharing your shot!

  • http://www.saroverhees.be Saro

    I don’t find that there is much going on in this photo. It doesn’t exceed the avere and daily sights.

  • http://www.flickr.com/photos/41562250@N02/ Diana Eftaiha

    i love the sky texture though i wish it was more vivid
    the building are underexposed. i think they shouldve been either completely silhoutted or better exsposed but not in between

  • BVBeckman

    That would have been a great candidate for an HDR photo.

  • http://www.gregveit.com Greg Goodale

    A very atmospheric photo. I like the way the shape of the building leads the eye towards the distant landscape and would focus the image on that.
    There are beautiful oranges and blues in there that could be brought out more using Vibrance in PS4.
    I actually like that this is not an HDR – it keeps the image simple. If I could see the details of building I think my eye would be distracted.
    I agree that it would look nice in a panoramic crop without the top third. To compensate for that, I would increase the tonal range by using some curve layers. Perhaps dropping a gradient from top to bottom would also keep the eye in the frame?

  • http://www.flickr.com/photos/macbrains/ David (aka MacBrains)

    Hi everybody,

    Thanks a lot for your comment on my picture. I agree about the cropping. My idea was to create a silhouetting effect with the building. Unfortunately, my shooting position wasn’t low enough and I could not go down in the village.

    @Knight : is it possible to see the result of your treatment ?

    I also shot a picture without any houses, but it is not as “complete” as this one. You may see it (and others) here: http://www.flickr.com/photos/macbrains/4200442014/

  • Richard Browne

    Largely, I agree with most of the previous comments. I like the tone in the picture, and the composition. As an untouched photo, I think it’s pretty damn good.

    I wonder what speed and aperture you used for this?

    I would play with cropping most of the top third out and just a slice off the bottom so that the silhoutted ground and the area where the cloud extends across the whole picture would frame the image. However, this would make the house more important in the frame.

    If the picture was taken to capture the colourisation of the scene, I think it works very well as it is.

  • http://www.flickr.com/photos/macbrains/ David (aka MacBrains)

    Thanks Richard,

    Picture information are:
    Hardware: Canon EOS 1000D
    Exposure: 0,017 sec (1/60)
    Aperture: f/5.6

    More info here: http://www.flickr.com/photos/macbrains/4171838445/meta/