Howe Sound #2

This picture was taken with my Canon 60D and worked on with

Lightroom 3.2. It shows the derelict dock and boathouse against

the backdrop of the Howe Sound and Coastal Range mountains in

Brittania Beach. I intend to enter this shot into a Black and White

competition with B&W magazine and would really appreciate any

and all feedback people may have on this picture, its stengths,

and its weaknesses. Thank you.

Hi, A breathtaking view is great, the light across the snow covered mountain is also great. My only concern is the extreme darkness of the mountain on the right, unless viewed larger it reveals little or no detail. The FG is fine as is the overall composition. This is only MHO and stated with the intention of helping. Take care.

Sincerely,

Holger

Hi Cory,

The snow-capped mountains are indeed breathtaking and teh boathouse makes a great foreground but - as Holger said - the area in between that's a bit of a black hole for me too. At least on my uncalibrated laptop screen. In fact even the boathouse/poles are on the darkish side

My suggestion would be to find a way of bridging the two lighter areas. The line of poles lead the eye to the ship moored at the shore. Logically, if the left flank of the right mountainside were lighter, this would lead the eye up into the snow.

I don't know how you did the BW conversion but perhaps it's possible to bring up some of the the dark area a bit more. If not during the conversion then by selectively increasing the exposure in LR (and then decreasing the added noise!).

Hope this helps,

Mike

My initial thought is in agreement with the two previous comments:  portions of this photograph should be much lighter.  That includes the clouds, portions of the snow, the hillsides, the boat, the water, and especially the pilings.

Dear Critics,

Thank you for your feedback, I greatly appreciate it.  I've shared the photo with a good friend of mine (who knows a ton about photoshop) and he concurred with the need for much more light and much less digital manipulation.  I have since gone back to the original colour picture, changed it to black and white, and done the bare minimum of manipulation to keep some contrast, define sunlight, and keep the texture of the glacier as it is.  The result is still, IMO, a striking photo; but it is much lighter and much less messy (in terms of manipulation).  I'm currently bouncing that incarnation off of a bunch of my photographer friends and asking what they think.  The feedback has been good so far.  I've got until the end of June to fix this image up for the contest; so I hope by then I will have a well-balanced and striking photo to run with.  Thank you so much for your feeedback!