landscapes Folly Beach Lighthouse

Here is yet another picture of the Lighthouse. I don't get to go to Folly Beach

often unfortunately. This time it was overcast. Please let me know does this

photo look boring? Does driftwood add to the picture or take away? Thank

you for your time and help!

Oksana, you have some wonderful beach photos in your portfolio, unfortunately this is not one of them—yet. It is an interesting photograph especially when coupled with your question about the driftwood. There are a couple of ways to approach—one brighten it up to make it look like a more pleasant day on the beach or to darken it to emphasize the atmosphere of a dull, lifeless day which the lack of shadow suggests that it was. The choice is the photographers.

There is an overall flatness to the photograph—partly because of the lighting conditions that day, partly because it needs a little post processing. The easiest “improvement” you can make is to open Levels or wherever the histogram is located in your software and pull the “white” slider, the one on the far right usually, over until the vertical line that moves with the slider just kisses the edge of the upward slope of the graph. That will lighten the photograph considerably—make it much brighter, less depressing. But it does not solve the flatness of the light. The lack of shadows robs the photograph of the suggestion of form and depth—everything is on the same “surface” of the photograph. A slight increase in overall contrast will bring back a little but there is no real substitute for shadows to create depth in a photograph.

I am attaching an example that takes the opposite approach and needless to say it may not be the approach you would prefer. I have worked the image more toward the dullness of the day by darkening even more, especially the beach and the driftwood, removing some of the color from the sky and lightening the lighthouse to bring it back to the center of attention. This is simply one approach.

You asked specifically about the driftwood, what it adds or detracts from the photograph. There again are a number of ways to look at it depending upon how much you want to make the photograph to be about the ighthouse. The first thing is to follow the lines of the driftwood, they are very interesting but not a single one of them ends up anywhere near the lighthouse. In every movement along the driftwood the eye is being drawn away from the light house. Because the driftwood is larger in the photograph and because it has more interesting shapes, the driftwood really overpowers the lighthouse. If you want the emphasis to be the lighthouse, that is not good. On the other hand the “Y” creates a nice frame for the lighthouse. In the revision I am attaching I have darkened the driftwood because things that are darker tend in most cases to recede and to become less important. Darkness is a great place to hide the non-essential or less important elements in a photograph. Since, in the original post, the lighthouse and the driftwood are about the same tone and things that are larger in a photograph garner more attention, the lighthouse seems more an extension of the driftwood rather than something being framed by the driftwood. To counter that when darkening the driftwood I have slightly lightened the lighthouse to help bring it more forward, give it more interest than the now more featureless driftwood. The last change I made was to reduce the saturation of the entire photograph to play even more to the dull, lifeless light of the day.

David duChemin, one of the best current writers on photography says that there are three stages to a photograph; the one you saw at the time of exposure; the one captured in the camera (rarely ever the same), and the one you create in post processing.

Gary, thank you very much! It is amazing how different this image looks after you worked with it! I appreciate you taking the time to teach me!

Oksana, you are welcome. I am just pleased that you found it of value.

Gary, I have to admit that when I first viewed your revision...it wasn't so much to my liking. But...with the passage of less than five minutes, my whole perspective had changed...and you won me over!

Oksana, I must say that I love the composition of this picture. So much...that I think it's a stroke of pure genius! Not sure how I would have framed the shot had I been there...but I doubt I'd have done it as well as you!

Regards,

John