Fishermen at Chowara beach

I like this composition, especially the "V formation" of the people. And the people on the right provide a lot of movement that leads the eye towards the boat being launched. It's almost a decisive moment. In a perfect world, the boat in the distance would have moved to the left just a little, to provide separation from the man in the foreground. But by the time that happened, the arrangement of people would have been different, so perhaps this was the optimal moment.

I'd be tempted to dodge some of the shadows to open them up a little. The information is there, even in this JPEG. I've taken the liberty of doing so myself in the version below, and cropping slightly from the left, which makes the composition look more balanced to me. Do you think so too?

It was a difficult shot with the harsh light, heavy shadows, and glare on the sea. I think you got the exposure just right. With a little more darkroom work (or a better scan, only you can know which), it should look great.

Hi Gerry,

Thanks for drawing a parallel to the "decisive moment" concept. I bought there a beautiful photography book called "Henri Cartier-Bresson in India". I was stunned by the selection of the works and thought i'd rather not touch the camera again :) Luckily enough, I liked the outcome of the travel so I think we are moving on.

I also wish the boat in the distance have moved to the left, but the men work very fast there and the scene changes every moment. You have done some fantastic work with the shadows! How did you do that? I'm not very comfortable using computer image processing tools and I don't know how to open up the shadows without affecting overall image brightness/contrast. I will make a more balanced print in the darkroom one day.

I like the cropping: you have cut the image just along the border of that foamy wave crest. Besides, while I was there a faultiness developed in the rear curtain of my Leica and right edge of this photo is quite unsharp. Many thanks for your critique and I really hope you are watching this thread because I would really love to know what magic you have done to the shadows :)

Hi Andrew,

I'm pleased you liked the crop and the more open shadows. Let me explain what I did in Photoshop (I was using CS3, but it's the same in all recent versions). And you would be able to make a better job of it because you have access to the TIFF or whatever you originally scanned it to. Basically, what you need to do is to create a Levels adjustment layer and then to mask out certain portions of it so that they do not take effect. Here's how to do this:

1. At the bottom of the Layers palette, click on the Create New Fill or Adjustment Layer icon (it's a circle that is half white and half black).
2. From the context menu that pops up, choose Levels.
3. In the window that appears, use your mouse to grab (i.e., click and hold) the triangle that appears in the middle of the histogram (just above the box containing the number 1.00).
4. Using your mouse, drag the middle triangle to the left until the shadows look how you want them to look. Ignore the fact that you are blowing out other parts of the photo, we will fix that shortly. Just focus on the shadows that you want to open up.
5. When you are done dragging, click OK. (In other photos, you could also have adjusted the left and right triangles in a similar way, to adjust the white and black points, but in your photo this is not necessary because you already have pure whites and pure blacks).
6. At this point, your photo looks awful (overexposed). We will fix this in the steps that follow.
7. Notice how, in the Layers palette, you have now created a new layer called Levels 1
8. In the Layers palette, click on the white square that is in the Levels 1 layer.
9. Type Control-i (i.e., the letter 'i' while holding down the Control key) on a PC, or Command-i on a Mac.
10. Notice how your photo goes back to how it originally looked and the white circle in the Levels 1 layer turns black. Technically, what you have done is to invert the mask. When a layer has a mask (as this one does), only those parts of the layer that are covered by white parts of the mask have any effect on the photo. And you have made the entire mask go black. In the remaining steps, you will selectively make the areas covering your shadows turn white (thereby exposing the detail that you revealed in the steps above using the Levels tool)
11. Press the letter 'b' on your keyboard. This selects the brush tool (you could have just clicked on the brush tool in the Tools palette).
12. Holding down the Shift key, press the '[' key (left square bracket) four times. This gives you a soft brush so that the edges of what you are about to do are feathered.
13. Your cursor should now be a transparent circle. if it is not (if it's a cross), turn off the Caps lock.
14. In the opacity slider at the top of the Photoshop window, select an opacity of 20%
15. Press the 'd' (letter 'd') key. This ensures that you are painting with a white brush (you can now toggle between white and black by clicking the 'x' key).
16. Click and drag on the shadows in which you want to reveal detail. You will need to control the size of your brush and you can do this by using the '[' (left angle bracket) key to make it smaller and the ']' (right angle bracket) key to make it bigger.
17. By painting over each shadow in this way, you will reveal detail. If you overdo it, use the 'x' key to select a black brush and paint the shadow back out again. It's a nice way to work because adjustment layers are non-destructive. If you go too far, or get lost, you can always delete the adjustment layer (the Levels 1 layer) and start again.

I hope your Leica is back in working condition now. Let me know if you need any more information. I hope you have access to Photoshop, by the way. I was using the full CS3 version, but this type of thing should also be possible in the later versions of Photoshop Elements.

Hi Andrew,

This is an amazing photograph, I don't want to repeat all the words which have already been said by others above. But the composition, tone and suject matter really make this photo attractive, I am really keen to see the rest of your folio now,

good work,

nic :-)