docks

Please help me learn! I can use all the help you can give... looking

for exposure and printing advice. For example: would this have been

better with Delta 400 rather than Tri-X? How could I have made the

sky more textured? Thanks for any and all comments.

Let me guess ! (if I can), you wanted to increase the contrast of the docks, but you also overexposed the sky...The sky needs more details, but it's still beautiful.

If there was anything to be had in the sky, a yellow filter might have brought it out, separating the sky from the clouds. Other than that, you could try burning in a bit more gray, and dodging the lower half. But all in all, it's an excellent, moody image otherwise.

I don't know quite what you were trying to get so I'll just give some general advice:

 

1. If you wanted more detail in the sky, you could have tried red or yellow filters.

 

2. If you wanted a more even exposure between the sky and the lake, you could have tried a graduated neutral density filter.

 

3. You may still be able to get something of more sky or more foreground by dodging the sky and burning the lake area.

 

It looks like a nice area for a picture but my impression is kind of bleak and blah.

Thanks for your comments!

I agree that some sort of filter might have helped. I'll investigate the suggested yellow filter and maybe even try the exposure again.

My main concern is the lack of balance; it seems that the highlights are blown out and that the dark areas are, well, really dark. It was around 5am and there was absolutely no texture in the sky at all. There was a lot of beautiful fog that does not appear definitively in the image. Would the yellow filter have helped to improve that detail too?

In any case, please keep the comments coming. They're all very helpful!