Photo Critique

Friday Photo Critique #12

on Dec 25th 2009 with 9 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. We’re feeling festive today, so have chosen a particularly cold and wintery image for you…

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: Mustafa Shairani

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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  • http://sensationmedia.nl Robin Wissink

    I really like the reflections in the water along with the dark blue sky.

    However, the horizon should be on 1/3th of the photograph.

  • Chris Nguyen

    I really like the reflections of light in the water.

    I agree with Robin Wissink. If I took this picture, I would have placed the horizon line upwards to remove some of the negative space in the sky.

  • http://www.woodsphotodesign.com Brendon

    Overall a great pic IMO. I would just crop after the group of yellow/orange lights on the left side of the pic (a little distracting) and Shop out those little flares over the lights.

  • mic reality

    good blue. nice tranquil mood. needs cropping and maybe a bit of an anngle change give more of a focused subject, so the pic can say something(maybe the reflections in the water are the subject) in which case get a better shot of reflections. in any case bridge need to be higher up in photo and less sky.

  • http://www.flickr.com/photos/caiolopez Caio

    The flares are the only thing i’d point, and even so, it’s very little distracting. It’s a great pic. i love how the horizon is in the middle of the photo, not some cliche 1/3th composition.

  • Jonathan Barket

    The location and use of color is fantastic. I’d love to go here and shoot.

    I think it would be an amazing photo if the angle and distance were changed up to give a better perspective. The bridge being so far away gives it a great sense of size, but it doesn’t seem to fill the frame any more. If the bridge was more in the foreground, and the angle was more parallel to the bridge so we’re looking down it, I think you’d have a real keeper.

    Oh, and the lights from behind the bridge are a bit distracting. The lights on the bridge, the bridge, the water and the reflection should be all that’s really there. Everything else is clutter.

    Good shot either way.

  • http://photographyforsoul.com Can Berkol

    Overall a great shot. However, you should have kept your hands a little more steady. Have you used a tripod, if you used a tripod, next time you can try to use a remote as well or the timer function of your camera.

  • Helen

    The composition is not right.

    There are three elements on the picture: the bridge as point of focus, the city and the mountains. They overlap in a way that none of them comes to life. The city, the mountains and as well the water surface do weaken the bridge as center of the image.

    You didn’t choose the right place for taking this shot.

    The composition problem in enhanced by these problems:

    1. Due to the long exposure, the water movements on this side of bridge get softened out. The water looks icy in an uneven way. This is normal for long exposures, but here we have a strictly geometrical building as center of the image. The water looks sharper than the building (enhanced by the sharp line caused by the light coming from the bridge). It is contra-iconic.

    2. You have to decide whether you want to show the city or not. Here, you have an overlapping of the bridge and the city. It’s only the allusion of a city. Its lights weaken the optical lines of the bridge.

    3. The mountains are to flat, indistinct and unimpressive. The have no own life. Their only function is to weaken the bridge.

    4. The photo is not sharpened. The ratio of the sharpness of the elements on this picture is contra-iconic. Why is the water sharper than the bridge?

    5. There is a discrepancy between the water on this side of the bridge and the water beyond. Everyone can see that this is caused by the lights on the bridge, but it looks rather to be an unintentional photographic than an intended artistic effect.

    6. The f-number is to high, the time of exposure is too low. Blue hours are not the best time for shots like these.

    Proposal: Get the blue tones out of the bridge, in order to raise the bridge out of the background. It’s foreground. Re-sharpen the image. The bridge needs a lot of sharpening and contrast. Raise the mountains in Photoshop.

    But it would be better to redo the shot. The major problem is that you didn’t do any decisions. You were just impressed by the view and you wanted the photo to contain all the nice things you saw.

    Before redoing the shot, decide whether you want a vanishing-point-bridge-image (decrease the angle between the line of view and the bridge then; use a lower f-number in order to get a better water surface) or a multipart seascape. I think the hidden shoreline of the city would be quite interesting.

  • http://www.cashbackprinting.com Tom

    I really like the shot. I’d maybe add a little more sharpness to the bridge and work with the crop, but other than that, I think it was well done considering that you might have not been able to get a better shooting spot or the lens to cover all of what you wanted.