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Photo Critique #132

Photo Critique #132

on Apr 13th 2012 with 10 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!

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 Details & Inspiration

  • Nikon D3100
  • 22mm
  • f/3.9
  • 24 seconds
  • ISO 100

I took this shot behind my house on the Banana River. I wanted to capture the silky water look while shooting the sunset over the river. This was the first photo I took with the [neutral density] filter to achieve the shot without washing it out and I was very happy with the result, I hope you are too!

Photographer: Brandon Pettersen

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. Interested in submitting your own photo? You can do so here!

 
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By

Rollover to read this author's bio or click through to see a full list of posts by this author.

I was raised in the suburbs of Cincinnati, Ohio. After high school, I left for Western Kentucky University where I obtained degrees in photojournalism and cultural anthropology. I am currently employed by CityBeat, an arts and entertainment weekly in Cincinnati. The work I am doing here is very rewarding and I suspect it will continue to be. I am available for freelance work in all areas of photography.  

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  • http://www.evejam.co.uk Dafydd Eveleigh

    Hey Brandon

    Lovely tones in your photo and love the water, what ND Filter did you use? was it a 0.3? On my screen which is not calibrated the sun light does seem very bright and seems to lose detail. Also I notice the telephone wires stretching across the picture which is a bit distracting.

    Possible improvements
    - Use Photoshop to remove the wires.
    - Bring the hut to a more central location? I know that go against the rule of 1/3 but there is a lot of dead space on the right hand side
    - The photo seems to have been taken at eye level, I wonder if crouching closer to the floor could have given a more interesting perspective to grab the viewer.
    - You obviously used a tripod, but wonder if the tripod was securely grounded as there seems to be a bit of blur, maybe it is my computer screen. But to reduce the blur you could have hanged a camera bag from the tripod to give it more weight and robustness.
    - Use a rear curtain off the camera fill in flash to lighten up the hut.

    Having said all that I doubt I could have taken a better photo. It is a lovely photo, well done.

  • http://frymanfoto.com Bill Fryman

    Let me start by saying I really like this photo. A beautiful scene.

    There are two things that, at least to me, detract from the overall effect. First is the really burned out area of the sky. A graduated neutral density filter might have helped avoid this, particularly with the long exposure. The second area is not as bad but on my screen there appears to be a set of power wires just below the burned out area. They seem to extend all the way across the photo other than where they are behind the building. I would try to remove these.

    If you have the opportunity to visit this location again, I would try a couple of alternative approaches to the scene. In both cases, my idea would be to move the end of the pier and the building to the upper right “rule of thirds” intersection instead of the upper left. One way to do this would be to shoot from the same location but turn slightly to your left. The problem with this is you lose a lot of the peacefulness of the calm water. Another idea is to move to your left and shoot more parallel to the pier. This might allow you to keep more of the water in the photo. The idea here is to add even more emphasis to the leading lines you have introduce to this photo with the pier.

  • http://www.acstanley.com/500px Aaron Stanley

    Beautiful image, nice choice of shutter speed to create a fantastic calming effect with the water. That said, I would have to agree with Bill on this one. By removing the power lines and using filters to correct the blown out portion of the sky, your viewers attention can be focused solely on the subject of your photo without distractions. Currently, the power lines fight where my eyes want to go, to the horizon.

    As far as composure, I am seeing a piece of coral or perhaps a rock in the bottom left corner. I would return to this location if possible and take maybe 3 or 4 steps to the left and angle the camera so that the piece of coral becomes part of the foreground. From this angle, the pier will have a greater sense of depth as well since the lines will lengthen due to the shift in perspective.

    Great capture.

  • http://cameraguyzack.blogspot.com Zack Jones

    Agree with the others — beautiful scene thank you for sharing it with us. I didn’t even notice the power lines at first nor the blown out sky. What I noticed first is the partial rock in the lower left hand corner of the photo. If it were me I probably would have tried to crop that out. Great job especially since it was your first time using the neutral density filter.

  • Roberto Rivera

    Hello everyone.

    I like the idea of this image, but I think it can be improved in this points:

    .- Sky is clearly burned out. (Graduated ND FIlter can help you to avoid it)
    .- Horizon is leaning to right side.
    .- The image do not have applied the lens correction.(I can see distorsion and cromatic aberration in the roof line).
    .- For my liking, I would remove the rock at the bottom left corner, and the power lines.
    .- May be, I would crop the sand area. (16:9 ratio image)

    I hope my comments can help you, and many thanks to share your picture.

    Bye

  • http://www.cgvector.com cgvector

    I like this photograph but there is one think that should be i think left that the white cloud shadow in water now showing.. there is some other problem but after all it’s nice …

  • earthrokk

    Nice attempt, great location.

    1. “Rent” better glass. The Kit lens is not doing you any just. Chromatic Problems.
    2. Better tripod.
    3. You shot at f/25. This is not the sharpest part of lens. f/11 – f/16 would have better results in this case.
    4. Exposure is to long. At sunset, 1-8 seconds is ideal. Wind was blowing so more chance of blur, which happened.
    5. Recompose. Sand is distraction. Just give water, dock, and sky.
    6. Put the composition of dock in right 2/3 of image. Crop to 16/9 composition, cine style.
    7. You shot your image too early. Wait a little while for sun to get lower.

  • http://www.flickr.com/photos/xelfdev/ Xelf

    Nice idea of course, and nice image, but I would improve a bit.

    - Little bit different framing, with dock taking 2/3 of the frame, and to remove this rock or add it to the frame completely.
    - A bit of lens correction, as mentioned in comments before, it can be done in software easily.
    - I would go as wide as possible with this lens and scene, so 18mm, and as I remember this lens is sharpest at 18mm.
    - I would not go beyond f/16 with aperture, to make it sharper. I think there is no need for f/25.

    Sky is over exposed, but not a big deal to me, it brings some drama to the image :)

  • Daniel

    I’ve to say that I like the photo.
    All the things you can do better the next time have been already said. But there is one thing that is disturbing me.
    It’s the third pole from the right.
    It’s not from the building. There is something behind (maybe a pole in the water). The problem with it is it’s reflection. It is not connected to the dock and so it is “floating/swimming” around (because it’s not part of it).
    I’d try to hide that pole behind a pole from the dock.

    And of course a lot of things (wires, burned out sky, …) can be changed/fixed in PS.

  • http://deweypix.com Daniel Lee

    Great photo, if that is the Banana River off of Cape Canaveral, I live just north of that. After everything said about what could be done differently it turn out really well for the first time , not knowing what you might end up with. By the way the third pole is the power pole in the middle of the river, it also is visible on the top side of the dock it just blends in well.