Boats

Boats in the small port of Camogli.

Appreciate your feedback!

non so...il mio occhio continua a cercare un soggetto che non trova...E' la mia modestissima opinione, ma altri ruoi lavori mi sono piaciuti molto di piu'. Saluti, Roberto.

Roberto, ti ringrazio per il tuo commento aperto e onesto! Sono contento che altre mie foto ti siano piaciute :)

La mia intenzione fotografando era quella di riprendere delle macchie di colori, soprattutto la barca blu e arancione e i riflessi dei palazzi in primo piano. Se la composizione ti sembra troppo "affollata", forse avrei potuto isolare meglio la barca con il 200 anziche' usare il 105.

This image is nice colourful but a bit too busy for my eyes. To me there is no main focal point but plenty of little details, and I dont know where to look at. The waves are too strong so the reflection is almost unrecognisable. I'm sure the harbour gives a lot of photo opportunities, but maybe try to concentrate on some simple compositions. Cheers, Uwe.

Uwe, thanks for your valuable comment. As a beginner, I appreciate it a lot.

I can't agree with Roberto, because I don't know what he said, but Uwe has a point that I agreed with on first sight of the shot, that it is potentially too busy at the top. What you have here is not bad, as far as the whole good vs bad thing goes, because the business of the top flows out at the bottom, as if the ripples and the reflections are smearing out from the collection of boats.

 

However, If you take a cropper's tool, and apply it all over the scene, you can come up with several alternate compositions that use the same materials, but offer different results.

 

Mind you, the picture isn't bad, and having the busy parts melting into the water is a nice effect, but that would be a complicated interpretation. The views I'm attaching are simplified and more basic, and not necessarily better. You will need to decide which version, or versions, you like better.

 

 

Doug, as you commented in the other picture of mine, it looks like ripping my compositions is becoming a favourite sport around here ;)

More seriously, I appreciate the effort you've put in analysing this shot of mine. Clearly, B is the cropping which is closer to what I had in mind when I took the picture (see the low res image which I am attaching - shot with my digital camera from roughly the same vantage point - which provides a "bird eye view" of the whole scene). Instinctively, it is the one I prefer. A and C are variations of cutting what was the main subject in my mind (the blue/orange boat). They sacrifice a bit of the reflections, especially A which has an interesting diagonal of water though. On the other side, D and E are all about reflections. Between the two, I would choose D since E has a blue reflection on the top side which seems to come from nowhere.

P.S. Roberto was also complaining about the lack of a single point of main interest.

you should be congratulated that the scissorhands are coming this way. They seldom invest time in mediocre images, perferring to refine the better ones.

 

Pattern is sometimes the main subject, and that's how I looked at this. The orange and blue boat is competitive with the pattern, and so the image seemed open for interpretations based on either the boat, or the ripples. The problem with the boat, in my view, is that it is too close, and too similar to the other boats, whereas the ripples and reflections are stronger in the sense that they are many, and easy to see. I didn't try any burning or doging with the variations, but I bet some careful darkening, maybe even a little desaturation here and there could render your original posting less controversial. The important thing for me to observe between this shot, and the other one of the girl walking by the zig zag wall, and the scene over looking the red tile roofs, that you are seeing with a good eye.

Doug, thanks a lot for your encouraging words.