Untitled

Nicely done.

 

Strong composition. The coloring is effective.

Nice shot George.

I'm always looking around for nice reflections, but in this case it is definitely the colours that drew my attention. Great image!

I can't say other that perfect !

this is an incredible shot !

If you didn't work this over in PS I'd call it a 5 star image.

Yes, I PS it heavily. Curves, layers, blend modes etc. However it is the "original" shot, not a photo-montage.

I think it doesn't really matter whether one applies a bit of PS or not to its images. If the image strikes people, then it deserves to be rewarded. It's all about fine art, folks. Your photo is great, George. You've done a good job both as a photographer and as an artist. Congrats.

Very Wonderful Image. Well Done

I like the almost sepia tones and the mood in this shot. The composition with half sky half water works very well here.

PS or no PS...this image is very good. I like the composition and the quasi sepia tone...Congrats!

I'm sorry, but I fail to see the magic of this image. The composition is reasonably ok, though I would disagree with Juergen here, meaning that the half sky composition isn't warranted here given the poor level of detail in the top part of the image. I also find the first boat too central in the frame.

Now, about the colors. This makes me want to see the original, really. I could certainly like a shif it hue on this picture, but as it is, it's all very muddy to me. As a result, no detail and contrast in both the water and the sky. Add to this that what gets emphasized here is the boats - which is fine - and the land - which is to me the least interesting part of this image.

Conclusion: I could have liked the original quite a bit, I could have liked a PS version that would keep clarity, detail, and contrast in waters and the sky, but I really don't like this image as it is. Sorry for that, but that's just one man's honest opinion. Best regards.

Great Shot George

I agree with Marc above. It has composition, of course, but it is too balanced in my book. To me there is not enough visual tension to be really interesting. It is a technically competent image. I find the artist's choice of making the clouds and mountains grey more distracting than not and I wish there was more real color.

George has a great shot here, but not the best print possible, I don't think. I agree with Marc that this image has more potential that actual value and agree with his assessment in just about every respect, except that the middle placement of the first boat doesn't bother me. I see the string of boats, all 5 of them, as one subject, and so their placement in that respect is not troublesome to me. The horizon across the middle also doesn't bother me because it reinforces the peacefulness of the still water and the silent boats and land.

 

The under-burned corners on the left bother me more than anything and I think burning them about 30-50% would make a big improvement. Also, I think the overall impact of the image is lost in the abundance of middle gray to light gray tones. The Photoshop default sepia tone, which is a supplied command in the Actions Palate, is, in my opinion, not very attractive. I used it on my End of September series, the first 15 or so images, and I don't like it: Too yellow. For that matter, I don't think sepia tone really looks so good on this subject. It's mostly water and sky, two subjects that rarely appeal to me in brown. The boats and the land look good in this brown, very good in fact, but not, in my opinion, the water and the sky. The composition, overall, is strong, I think, and the mood is very nice. I've posted some alternative images, all of them chemically possible. The middle image is the most like the original and, I think, maintains more closely the mood of the original. The other alternatives affect the mood somewhat and are basically different pictures, like adding more spice to a recipe.

 

 

There's a technique where you can use rubber cement to paint over the part of the image that you don't want to tone, and then you tone the print as you normally would. After treatment in the chemicals you can remove the rubber cement and you have a two-tone image. The part under the rubber cement is black and white, the rest is sepia. Doing this in a sink is probably acceptable to most of the membership here, but doing it in digitally is evil, to some. The effect can be corny, but is as often as not, attractive.

To my eye 1/2 composition (half water, half land or sky) works best for reflections than 1/3. Thats why I tend to shoot all similar subjects in balanced composition. Of course others might disagree.

 

Doug, your versions of my image have blown me away. Im going to start playing with my photo all over again. Unfortunately I dont have access to a chemical darkroom; its going to be digitally. As a matter of fact the low contrast and the nearly orange hue was applied in the picture because I wanted to print it in my inkjet which doesnt handle highly contrasty B/W images very well.

 

Thanks everybody for your comments.