Mystic River

Great shot of the river, and I love your stuff on your page. Do you live in Mystic? I work at the museum on the right end of your photo, and recognize some of the other locations. I haven't gotten shots as nice as yours of those places though!

Mark Starr

The subject area cuts right across the middle of the photograph and the result difuses the visual impact. Either there is too much foreground or too much sky. You have to decide. Right now, while technically very good, visually there is no point of focus. If your objective is to draw the viewer to the reflections of shoreline buildings, the bottom crop should start a quarter-inch under the left house reflection.

All the darkness that takes up 1/3 rd of the photo should be cropped out. If this dark area is intended to balance the shoreline and draw the eye to the buildings as well, then there is far too much sky area.

To see the difference either top or bottom cropping makes, it is very easy to move this photo on your computer screen so that the foreground or the sky is cut off to produce a stronger image

presentation.

Very few photographs work when the main intended focal point is at or very near the center. Cropping either the sky or the foreground will greatly improve the "tranquility" feeling the photographer seems to be trying to capture.