Evening light at Crail

I’d made screen shots of the four images you’d posted so I could look at them together to comment on them, and by the time I got back to the critique page they’d disappeared—sorry I’m late in getting this to you. Bottom line is that I really like these images a lot, and they work both individually and as a suite. Of the four, I like this one the best because of the warm light on the rocks, the interesting foreground, and the interesting variation in colors in the water and sky. The color combinations, tonality (light rock surfaces, dark sky), and saturation aren’t ones I’d necessarily expect to see in the wild (or maybe that’s the difference between your part of the world and mine), but that just makes the image more resonant—the silky sea has already taken the image to a delightfully surreal place. I think your shutter speed for this works perfectly. I’d be interested in seeing the image with less vignetting—it makes it feel just a bit claustrophobic to me, when I should be taking in the expanse of the sea and sky. Part of that hemmed-in sensation from the vignetting may be due to the vertical orientation (vertical feels narrow even before applying a vignette) and part of it may just be my own tendency to hold vignetting down to a point where it isn’t noticeable unless someone is actively looking for it. And I really like the vertical orientation for all of these—I can’t image these working as well as horizontals.

Nice light.  There's a lot of noise along the edges (sea/sky, sea/rocks, rock/sky) which can likely be cleaned up in processing.  Initially I thought the fence was going up and over the crag in the upper left, but I see that's not the case when I viewed this larger.

Thanks to you both for the helpful and thoughtful critiques. There is much to consider here and I am grateful to you for taking the time to give your comments. I think the points made are valid although I am sure that any noise is due to the small jpeg file used here. I also appreciate Leslie's comment about the vignette and agree that this is an area of potential improvement. I think that the effect is increased by the fact that the lightest tones are in the middle of the image.

Thanks again for your input.

Regards,

Brian