Into the Light

Your comments and suggestions (especially about the tonal range and

composition) will be much appreciated.

Jerry, I'm a big fan of your work. I've noticed that you have jumped into B&Ws lately. The composition is superb. The shutter speed is excellent. It's made the water look silky smooth. The tonal range is, well a bit flat. I think it lacks depth. In my opinion, there's not enough differential in the tones to distinguish between all the elements in thsi shot. Now, keep in mind that I'm new to B&Ws too so take my comments with a grain of salt.

Thanks for your comments. I do think the midtone is a bit too dark but I really don't want to burn out the bright areas. I will try to ajust curve/level using multiple layers later. Thanks again for your input.

Jerry, I don't think you'll have to burn the light areas. What I usually do is change play with levels until I reach a desired range. I definitely think this photo is worthy of making sure it looks great. How did the color version turn out?

Here is the colored version.

 

http://www.photo.net/photodb/photo?photo_id=3159315&size=lg

Jerry, now that's a masterpiece. Truly breathtaking!

Thanks for your compliment but I will not call that a masterpiece. I personally like this one (http://www.photo.net/photodb/photo?photo_id=3159346&size=lg) better which is taken at the same location but from a different angle.

Excelente composicion en B/W, perfecto encuadre, un cordial saludo...http://www.hectorbrandan.com/images/julio-carmona.gif

 

The colored version takes the cake in my opinion. The part I love about the B&W picture is the lower half. You can make out the leaves and the smoothness of the water is almost theraputic. Also it is slightly ambigious of what you would be looking at, but the top half or third is a bit too busy and flat for B&W.

 

The bottom half scores a 6/6 for me, but the picture as a whole is lesser.

Thanks for your input and I have to say that's great analysis. I too also feel the top third is way too busy and kind of 'redundant'. I do have a better BW candidate which pretty much fits what you have described. Check the url link below.

 

http://www.photo.net/photodb/photo?photo_id=3818728