Northumberland Coast

First post. I hope I'm doing it right..

 

 

My colour vision is appalling so I'm naturally drawn to black and white, and I try hard to work to the principles of black and white meaning exactly that, rather than just mostly grey. Interested in people's thoughts on this one; it's around 15 or 16 stacked 30 second exposures to create an effective 7 or 8 minute period. Black sky is a result of knocking down the blue channel in a faux-infra-red style.

Good work, but perhaps the camera was a little low to the ground, the out-of-focus weeds at the bottom are a little distracting and unnecessary IMO. The "black and white meaning exactly that" is very well achieved in the sky creating a dark mood which complements the ruinous look of the stone structure. The "movement" of the clouds gives the scene life as well, it's hard to the take one's eyes off the pic.

I love the sky, but not so much the grass. Given the extremely long exposure, I'm surprised that the grass isn't even more of a mess. The wind must have been almost totally still. I don't think you're too low, but I'd crop that closest area out. Cutting 15% to 20% off the bottom would fix kmac's objection, which I share, for slightly different reason.

 

I love that you go to black in the sky, but I would prefer a bit less of the black. The clouds have great features and really make the image for me, but all the black just looks blank in contrast. So, I'd like a less of the black.

 

I like the deep shadows on the structure, giving it form and depth. I can see this printed at over 50" hanging on one of my walls, well, almost, with the adjustments to my taste.

Excellent work! This technique is not something I was aware of but it's very effective. I love the way the horizontal lines in the sky echo the horizon. I wouldn't have noticed the slightly blurred grass in the foreground had @kmac not mentioned it. I don't find find the 'soft' foreground distracting. But it does occur to me that you have more than enough grass and black sky to play with. I wonder how a more panoramic format would look.

 

Thanks for sharing this!

 

Mike

Hey all

 

Thanks a lot, appreciate the feedback. The low viewpoint was a stylistic choice as the low hill this castle sits on is not so very interesting, unfortunately. I wondered if the increasingly out of focus foreground would attract comment. My original crop was indeed much more panoramic and contained very little grass (and my second contained only the sharper grass) but I actually found the image less interesting that way, so I thought I'd go with almost the full frame just to see what sort of comment it received (so thanks for the feedback).

 

@mikemorrell: yes, it's the first time I've really tried the stacking technique properly. I've done it for star trails before but for some reason I'd never considered using it to make it easier to do daytime long exposures too. I do love a "real" superlong exposure but the apertures required cause havoc with dust (this was shot at f/4 which goes a long way toward explaining the out of focus grass at the front). Additionally with this technique, you know your exposure is going to be right and you can really just leave your intervalometer clicking away for as long as you like.

 

I post this next partly as a companion piece but mostly for context - I don't like this one as much, but you can see the slope underneath the castle which I was on when I took the one I posted - there isn't a great deal of interest there.

 

 

This one was also shot telephoto at around f/9 and immediately displays more issues with dust.

I'm surprised you prefer the first picture. I much prefer the second, the foreground interest complements the castle and sky really well. I can't see any dust at ordinary viewing distance. It must be bad to be visible at F/9. Edited May 22, 2020 by John Seaman

Interesting. The second view emphasizes the, IMO, overused technique of blurring moving water. Also, the balance is pretty well destroyed for me, with too much emphasis on the water and not enough on the structure and sky. If the objective is to show the water, then the structure is distracting. If the objective is to show the whole scene, then the balance is out of wack. Once again, I think that balance would be improved if much of the rocks and wave action were removed. The clouds in this version turned out blander, further weakening the balance. I think that the first image is much stronger.

Yes, I think the second is a little too generic, a viewpoint I've seen dozens or hundreds of times. It's a great location, though, and right on my doorstep, so maybe I'm just overfamiliar by now, but yes, I also prefer the first image.

 

Dust is always more of an issue when you're working with big washes of tones like this, I find. It's not so much that it's really bad, it's just extremely visible against skies like these.

Thanks again, by the way. This is all useful to me. My years of street photography spoiled my compositional eye a bit, it's proving difficult to recover. My technical chops have improved, but all the technique in the world won't fix a dull image :)

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Dust is always more of an issue when you're working with big washes of tones like this, I find. It's not so much that it's really bad, it's just extremely visible against skies like these.

 

Easily solved these days, either in post or by cleaning our sensors.

 

That said, in the first image, on the ridge line, to both the right and left of the structure, there are bits of trees and such. You might prefer to leave them there for "accuracy"; however, I'd remove that, particularly if I were going to print it in a large size.

Thanks again, by the way. This is all useful to me. My years of street photography spoiled my compositional eye a bit, it's proving difficult to recover. My technical chops have improved, but all the technique in the world won't fix a dull image :)

 

I'd say that your "recovery" is off to a great start.

I like both shots. I don’t necessarily think the stark b/w processing plays well with the content. It feels like it’s giving the contents a false sense of austerity where I think the content alone, in a less contrasty evocation, could really draw me in as a viewer. The processing seems to add on a layer of drama that feels more stylistic than organic to the entire photo. The scene has a refinement and earthiness that the high contrast drama seems to work against.

 

I like the first for its perspective and the distance it suggests to the structure which, though somewhat dwarfed by the environment and point of view, has a lot of presence in part due to its scale relative to the scene.

 

I like the second one as well though, as David mentioned, the blurred water feels cliché and the blacks of the water really pull at me eye too much. It feels like the foreground on this one needs a lighter touch.

Thanks Sam

 

The b&w is in no small part due to my extremely defective colour vision, but I know what you mean - a high contrast treatment like this adds a bit of drama that's not strictly necessary given the scene. I might work up a colour version (I usually compensate for my colour vision by desaturating orange, yellow and green channels by around 20%, just in case they're overdone and I haven't realised - I leave the reds alone because everybody likes red and it's very rarely a dominant colour).

 

The second had much less thought given to it because i didn't like it as much, and your criticisms are absolutely fair ones. The first one is almost exactly the shot I set out to take, which is nice (and quite rare for me). The sea is always used as a feature in shots of this castle, I was interested to see how it would fare with an interesting sky instead.

Certainly, give color a try if you like. Just for clarity, I wasn’t trying to talk you out of b/w per se, just wondering about this particular high contrast approach to b/w for this scene.

No indeed, it's a very fair point you make and one I had never considered before (which is exactly what critique is for, and exactly what I was looking for). It's the opposite of gilding the lily, I guess: dramatising the dramatic. Overwrought passion is something I try to avoid, and I hadn't even considered it in photography until the last 20 minutes.

 

I really appreciate you (and others) taking the time.

B&W is very interesting to me. I too also tend to overcook the Contrast. I don't view it as offensive as over-Saturation, but maybe I should start thinking of it as such. Thinking out loud now, but maybe I should start asking myself, "Is this unrealistic contrast really adding to the image." When I look at Adams' work, I see his emphasis on contrast and range of tones, but I think that inspires us to go too far. I need to be careful not to make it a "photographic Effect". It's so easy to do and it can generally be pleasing, but shouldn't I try to make my image work without resorting to effects?

 

This is a struggle that's common, along with color accuracy or over-saturation in color photography, or smoothing water, just because we know how to. Can we make an image that works with a stop-action wave, normal contrast and normal sky? That's when photography gets hard.

Quite so; with a little experience it's not too difficult or expensive to pick up the equipment and technique required to make an image like this and it does get seductive, you find yourself thinking that nothing will be good enough without that bit of blurred movement or that just-so pushing of the image in post. A perfectly natural looking but still compelling photograph is perhaps becoming a rare thing indeed, in the age of Instagram and snapseed. I personally blame HDR, it all started to go wrong when people gave up on contrast altogether for a while.

 

Will definitely reflect on that post too, thanks :)

No indeed, it's a very fair point you make and one I had never considered before (which is exactly what critique is for, and exactly what I was looking for). It's the opposite of gilding the lily, I guess: dramatising the dramatic. Overwrought passion is something I try to avoid, and I hadn't even considered it in photography until the last 20 minutes.

 

I really appreciate you (and others) taking the time.

Thanks for the response. I agree with you on overwrought passion. Gilding the lily is a bit tricky, I think, or dramatizing the dramatic. I think these have their place and some do it really well. Take Baroque architecture. Often very gilded for no apparent reason other than to do it. Yet, when done well, it seems organic, like the gilding grows out of the architectural space, or into it as the case may be. I sometimes like over-the-top stuff. Generally, I tend toward over-the-top that has a particular relationship to the content. So, for instance, I like Moriyama's use of high contrast and it so often seems like it comes out of his compositions and subjects, even when he, himself, imposes it. It's that working together of content and style that I think often moves me, even when the style is extreme.

 

So, I'm in no way discouraging a heavy hand in some work. I just like it when the heavy hand seems as if it were meant to be or even demanded by elements already there ... or puts a spin on the elements that seem congruous ... or incongruous in a self aware way.

First off I'm not a professional photographer, artist, or art critic. That said, any critique is that critiquers opinion, and at the end of the day the most important critique about any artist's work (and a photograph is in fact a piece of art work) is the one provided by the artist him or herself.

 

Between these two images I like the second one better. I think it would be even better with the first images sky.

The image reminds me of a book I recently finished reading "Arthur, The Bear of Britain" and no it wasn't one of the usual King Arthur stories.

It was written more as a historical novel. The novel takes place in the 6th or possibly early 7th century. Rome is gone and England or what will eventually become England is an assortment of tribes. Each with its chief, and each jealous of the other. Lots of squabbling. The country is being invaded. Saxons, Jutes, and Angles from the East. Picts from the North. Arthur is one of those chiefs, has served locally as a legion commander in the roman army, and now commands an army of former legion members.

His goal is to end the squabbling, unite the tribes, and drive out the invaders. He manages to do that, but it doesn't last. The tribes fall back to squabbling and the invaders take over.

 

I don't know if that's the image you were going for but I do think the second image with the first images sky would give it that brooding look, supposedly depicting that period of history.

Hmmm. I clearly missed this back in May!

 

I have an interest in longer daylight exposures, so both these images hold a certain appeal for me.

 

I agree that the first would be better served with a bit of judicious cropping. I believe that if you lose the blurred foreground grass and reduce the amount of black in the sky- the former seems to distract or detract from the overall image; the latter just come off as negative or dead space- you would make a pretty cool image even better. I like the fence that is clearly visible on the right, but on the left side of the castle there's nothing really of interest. A crop has to be done well and with purpose, I think. IMO its best to stick with (or as close as possible to) an establish aspect ratio, otherwise things just get weird. But in general, this is a stunning shot and I REALLY like it. The fact of the stacked exposures seems to help a bit maybe- knowing you put a lot of work into it and plenty of thought, which is really just background that an average viewer wouldn't necessarily ever know, adds a bit of allure, probably from our perspective here, more than anywhere else.

 

The 2nd shot, again with the longer daylight exposures has its interest for me. I agree that the "blurred water" thing is somewhat overdone, but in general the textures and tones are really nice, no more or less so than with your 1st shot. However, if you know that this is THE angle from which most folks shoot this castle, that alone is enough to drive me off of it, because I don't really tend to appreciate seeing thousands of the same exact touristy photos of any given place. With this 2nd image tho, there is too much sky, too much foreground. Yes the primary subject is compelling, but overall the effect is that the castle is diminished somewhat by all the stuff above and below. Again, the top just feels like negative space and the foreground is distracting, and the castle is much less dramatic as seen here.

 

One thing of note in both shots, however, is the lack of people. That simple factor, by my way of looking at either image, makes a massive difference. It's subtle, and not everyone thinks about what's NOT in a photo. But seeing zero other people here adds quite a lot. Not having the distraction of throngs of tourists really lets the mind wander into the scene and opens the door for the imagination to run, unhindered. Even just a few people in a scene such as this detracts from the feeling of the place, so bravo.

 

Oh and you all were talking about being heavy handed. I don't mind a heavy handed approach along as its a "light" heavy hand! :) Too much is too much. Aside from a couple minor points here, you've done very well. These are killer. As a good friend of mine says: I wish I took that shot!

 

In the end, I pretty much agree with what folks have already said, but there's my 2 bits worth.

Cheers!

Just back here after a period away. Thanks a lot for the additional comments @Ricochetrider and @MrAndMrsIzzy , they're very much appreciated.

 

Apologies if there's a forum rule about bumping old threads with no new content, I won't be offended if this is deleted :)

Photos are awesome change nothing!