Photo Critique

Friday Photo Critique #17

on Jan 29th 2010 with 29 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.

It’s a great way to learn more about photography, express your viewpoint, and have your own image critiqued. Your response will also be displayed 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: Matias Singers

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 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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  • Anup

    Awesome

  • Nic Simons

    Very nice picture, not sure if the colours are quite right, but im probably not the one to say being colour blind :s

    Ah Manchester! Me too! Knutsford!

  • http://danbowles.com Dan

    For me, the composition doesn’t really do much for the photo. I’d like to see a more dramatic sky (and more of it).

    Perhaps lightening the snow/ground a bit would help the exposure. As for color, I’d just go for B/W :)

    All that said, I like this photo – very quite and peaceful.

    • jink

      agreed, we end up seeing too much plain snow on the botton of the image

      • gpilotino

        I agree with whiter snow, it’s the first thing that came to my mind.

  • http://www.jemelinphoto.net Stephane

    Hi there!

    It’s difficult to deal with the high dynamic of this scene. One should have tried to add a graduate filter to diminish the amount of light of light coming from the sky near the sun. It would then have been possible to expose a little more the rest of the picture.

    Another solution would have been to use bracketting and play with a software to benefit the extended dynamic this technique provide. But It’s not easy to get something that looks natural with this solution…

    Finally, I think that the line created by the trees could have been higher or lower in the picture (I don’t know how to say that in english, sorry), but to let more space for the snow field or more space for the clouds.

    Ah and I would add some vignette because It would work well with this kind of images. Oh yea and as the color doesn’t give a critical message in this photo, I would try put it in Black and White.

    That’s it :-)

    Have a nice day

    Regards,
    Stephane

  • Dena

    Nice picture. Would have zoomed in a bit on the house and the reflection of the sun on the water. A bit less of the snow covered ground

  • MoJo2600

    I think it is a very nice picture.

    Things i would suggest:

    The line with the street and houses, lead the viewer into the image. But because the horizon is in the in the middle of the image, it gets split in two halfs. I think i would place the horizon a little bit lower (1/3 snow and 2/3 sky).

    the color is very nice, maybe it’s possible to bring out the shadows of the houses a little more and add a little more contrast to the clouds with photoshop.

  • http://rinehart.wordpress.com Stephanie

    I like the composition and the lines, but it’s a little dark. I feel like it could benefit from a little more post-processing. Maybe a bit more brightness/contrasting

  • http://punz.posterous.com Paolo Bosetti

    Although the tone is a lil bit too warm, I think it mitigates correctly the cold landscape.
    I’d only would prefer having the horizon line along the upper 2/3 of the frame, giving more place to the snow field.
    Finally, I suspect that a high contrast B/W version of this picture would result more dramatic and fascinating.

  • http://punz.posterous.com Paolo Bosetti

    Very inspiring subject. Although the tone is a lil bit too warm, I think it mitigates correctly the cold landscape.
    I’d only would prefer having the horizon line along the upper 2/3 of the frame, giving more place to the snow field.
    Finally, I suspect that a high contrast B/W version of this picture would result more dramatic and fascinating.

  • http://tinygiantstudios.co.uk Riaan Knoetze

    I wouldn’t put the horizon line in the centre: rule of 3′s after all. Instead move the line till it’s roughly a third from the top (or bottom if you prefer). I would also definitely play around with the colour balance (to warm for such a snowy scene in my opinion).

    Furthermore, I would bring up the contract a tad more, to get some more detail out of the clouds. Finally I would also crop the picture to just after the house ends… there’s little more in that keeps the eye there (it being pulled away to the large tree to the right. With cropping and the rule of 3 (notwithstanding the colours) being applied, I think the tree would draw the eye even more towards the sun (and clouds?) making it a pretty good shot.

  • http://www.mceown.net Geek Girl SF

    Two suggestions…

    1. The angle of the shoreline along with the one very tall tree placed exactly at the edge of the photo is making the right side of the image feel a little heavy. If the shot had been taken such that the tree had just a little more breathing room I think it would have been more aesthetically pleasing.

    2. In this picture I am finding the over exposed area where the sun is distracting. I think the image could benefit from a multiple exposure/photoshop combined approach to add a little more definition.

    Positively, I like the ambiance. The image ‘feels’ like winter.

  • http://www.imageserenity.com/blog Amandalynn

    I sort of feel that the image could benefit from a cooler tone – winter scenes lend themselves very easily to blues and purples and I think that might be a good way to go with this image. Of course, you can certainly go the other way and push the warmth instead – but this yellow tone is not quite right, it almost needs a more rusty color for it to work for me.

    Also, the composition could be improved – landscapes tend to be more interesting to me when there is either more sky or more land, but this one has the shoreline cutting it right down the middle. When I look at it I focus more easily on the houses than the really great dynamic going on in the clouds. I would crop it up and get rid of some of the empty space in the foreground to draw the eye to the sky.

  • http://www.peewee1002.co.uk Peewee1002

    Good: I love the colours and the quality is fab. I think the shutter times was spot on. Nice to see the horizon is nice and straight though.

    Bad: I think the left hand side of the photo is rather dull and boring compared to the right hand side.

    Improvements: If I had taken the photo I would have focused in on the buildings and sunset/rise as this seems a lot more interesting.

    A simple improvement now would be to crop it slightly, personally I believe their is slightly too much snow shown, and more sea should be shown.

    Overall awesome photo. A panoramic would have also been cool to see.

  • Paul Raidch

    Not 100% sure the white balance is correct however it can be tough in fading light. I don’t know what is in the scene to the right but I would have tried to shift a little camera right to bring the tall tree further into the shoot thus better utilizing the rule of thirds.

    Nice capture though

  • http://www.flickr.com/photos/gafields/ gafields

    Oh, I like this picture. Maybe you can work more on post-production working on white balance and contrast And the sky can be more dramatic. Good work

  • Kathryn

    Overall I like the photo but it does sort of convey a desolate feeling with all of the snow leading up to the house and the long icy road to the left offset by glimmer of hope with the ray of sunshine coming through on the water.

    If the user wanted to give it a more hopeful and friendly look, they could crop off some of the left and the bottom of the photo.

  • http://www.youtube.com/drekw2 André

    Great photo! I relly love it! However, watch this tutorial (my last one here on phototuts), and propably it will help you to get a little bit more warm colors.
    Great work! :)

  • jpizzle

    A few comments on the technical side: for a landscape, i’d put the camera in aperture priority and shoot at f11 or higher (you shot at 4.2), the trees are fairly soft at 100%; may require a tripod as the shutter speed is going to be longer.
    The horizon is straight (good!) but rather close to being right in the middle, it may be more interesting to make the photo more about the sky, or the land.
    You’ve got a big dynamic range here, parts of the sky/clouds are blow out, and the foreground is underexposed, a good candidate for HDR if you are into trying it out. It feels a bit flat, I’d push this a bit more in post.
    I think the color balance is an artistic choice in this instance, I kinda like the contrast of the warm feel and the stark white snow, you’ve made a vast empty space of winter feel sort of cozy.
    Compositionally I think there’s a bit of a lack of focal point, I don’t know what I’m supposed to look at, and there isn’t a whole lot to hold me in the photo.
    Overall it feels like there was an opportunity here that just missed the mark a bit… IMHO of course… and most importantly, keep on shooting!

  • http://www.phillipjacobs.com Phillip Jacobs

    The snow in the foreground could use some brightening and you could cast more shadows with the trees. The sunset is really nice with the water behind the houses. Great contrast between the trees, houses, water, sky, and snow. Very beautiful. I love the photo. You could also add some shadows to the sky to add to the drama of the scene.

    Very nice!

  • http://jantimmons.net JanT

    Good to see the sun in the upper third quadrant. I think cropping the snow so that the horizon is not directly in the middle would enhance this shot considerably. Perhaps crop from the left and bottom, to keep the ratio, as was noted earlier.

  • earthrokk

    Hey Guys,

    I have to say that I am not fond of this image. Kathryn made the point that it made her feel “desolation” and I agree. The image lacks focus and a interesting subject. I think you should either set up closer to the buildings or take on a different perspective. I don’t have an immediate solution, but consider more dynamic setup for better comosition.

  • Dave

    I think b/w wouldn’t work very well at all. Actually, I like the subtle colour here.

    3 things I would do: A) Flip the picture horizontally, so that the steet leads to the upper right (and your view is moving from bottom left to upper right then…)
    B) even more enhance the colour by adding some tonal contrast
    c) crop the pic so that the last bush on the right (after flipping) is cut off.

    I did these things to your original and I think it works.

    By the way: I defenitely like the mood (someone said “desolation”) in here…

  • http://isingers.info Matias Singers

    Thank you guys so much for the response. This is the first time I’ve really received this much critique and it’s great.
    I can definitely see what you are all saying about the foreground/snow making the photo a little dull. I didn’t really do that much post-processing on this photo but I’m always up for a challenge.
    If I’d have more time setting the shot up with a tripod then I would have framed more towards the right.
    I’ll try to work on it and post a revised version of the shot.

    Thanks again for all this great critique.

  • http://www.nowheremanphotos.com Mike Wilson

    All in all this is a pretty decent image compositionally. A lot of people have commented about the warm colors and said you should have gone with a cooler color scheme. Maybe it’s just because it’s starting to get on towards spring, but I get that sense of “the sun is coming out and melting the snow”, so the color works for me. It’s really about the mood YOU want to invoke, and you don’t always have to go with “it’s a winter scene, I want it to feel cold”.

    I agree that what the scene needs is a bit more punch and drama in the sky and a bit less of the snow but I love the gentle curve of the shoreline going up to the horizon.

    Nice job!

  • http://eminov.info/ asif eminov
  • http://www.willpeach.com Will Peach

    Love the photo, how about something like this for post-processing:

    http://www.flickr.com/photos/willpeach/4327932082/

    Took the aforementioned advice of cropping, adjusting the hue, saturation and levels.

  • febio

    awesome…