peter_lawrence

Congratulations Ed!

 

I just saw this photo of yours on the cover of the December issue of the Popular Photography magazine that I received in the mail. I also read the very nice article about you too.

 

(Too bad PopPhoto choose a cover shot of the Canon 40D for their newsstand editions, your photograph is superior!)

 

Keep up the good work.

 

 

As a study of two worlds (man and nature), this photo doesn't work for me because the world of man in this photograph dominates (with its bright colors and its foreground and middle ground placement) the world of nature (with its muted colors and background placement).

 

A stronger compare and contrast relationship between the two worlds could have been made by photographing the scene farther back with a longer (more telephoto) lens to help compress the depth between the foreground people and the background hills.

 

As it is (and I understand that this is just my very subjective opinion) the people (and their catch and boats) are far too prominent in the photograph for me, the viewer, to make the visual and mental leap to see the abstract relationship between man and nature that you want to establish in your photograph. If that were your intent, I would have balanced the people (and their belongings) more with the bay and the karstic hills.

On one hand, I admire you for trying to do something different, a shot of fisherman with most of their faces obscured, but ultimately, I find this photograph too disjointed to fully enjoy.

 

The bright straw hats could make for an interesting abstract, but they are scattered in too much of a haphazard manner to make it a stratifying abstract for me.

 

Because a lack of a clear centering point (or points), I find that my eyes have no place to rest while viewing the photo.

 

The photo works, sort of, as a slice-of-life photograph, but it would work better as a slice-of-life photograph if the straw hats (especially those in the lower right-hand corner) weren't so bright.

All I can say is Bravo! I love the photo just as it is. All the other suggestions, IMHO, make

the photo less dramatic and more mundane. I agree with the previous poster, Kenneth,

you have a great eye. Keep up the great work.

James: This photo is actually a shot of Mt. Watkins with Tenaya Creek in the foreground (near Mirror Lake). You might want to change the caption title of the photograph.

A winner! Now this is great shot. Well composed and executed. I actually enjoy the out-of-focus grass. It adds a nice depth, making this photograph of a very famous landmark more intimate.

 

Congratulations for a photograph well done.

 

This photograph would have been better if you waited until late afternoon to take the shot. Even though you title that shot "Yosemite Dusk", from the placement of the shadows of the trees and Half Dome, it looks more like you took this shot in the late morning or early afternoon.

 

For landscape shots, especially landscapes shots of famous landmarks like Half Dome, the lighting is extremely important. You can't have a great landscape photograph without great light -- no matter how good your composition is. So you need to try to shoot a landscape when the lighting is at its best. For this Half Dome shot, the late afternoon and evening light is the best.

 

In regards to the composition of this photograph, unless you had something of interest in the foreground (like two kayakers paddling down the river), it would be a stronger photograph if you cropped out the bottom 30% of the photo.

 

Kristin,

 

This is actually a photograph of the Upper Yosemite Falls located inside Yosemite National Park (not Sequoia).

 

Steve,

 

It would have been extremely difficult, but if you could have used a very precise spot light with the proper filter attached to the spot light so its light would match the hue of the ambient light, you might have been able to shine the spot light just on the top rocks so the brightness of the top rocks would match the brightness of the sunset sky.

 

Simply one of the best sunset photos I've seen on photo.net. Excellent in every aspect.

Nice "somewhat abstract" shot

There's no strong focus of attention to this image. One's eye's wonders all over the photo not being able to settle on any one part.

This is my favorite photo of your cat photos. Very well done - nice sharp focus, good color, very pleasing to look at. A great expression on the cat's face.

Nice composition and execution but not too original. Still, its a very nice photo.

A very uninteresting photo of a cat. IMO, underexposing the cat does not work in this photo. Also the whole photo looks like it's out of focus.

An excellent shot of a sunset.

The nice colors on the sunlit slope contrasts appealingly with the cool shadowed slope of the snow clad mountain. Well executed.

The juxtaposition of the two photographs doesnt work for me. The photograph on the left is very good on its own, but the photo on the right seems impersonal, gimmicky, and too distant for my taste. One reason I find the beach photo disconcerting is because it is the violin, not Erikas face, that is sharply in focus. Also, I find Erikas eye in the photo on the right to be an unappealing smudge of white.

 

The photo on left is not without a flaw too. The white shirt on Erika is too indistinct from the background. A slightly darker background would have improved the photograph.

 

 

I found this photograph to be just a bit too saturated. The sky is a tad too dark, and the red/orange color of the earth almost overpowers the fine aesthetics of the photograph. The over-saturation detracts from the realism of the photo, giving it a bit of a "fake" quality to it.

 

Besides this one reservation, I think this is an excellent photograph.

 

I like the colors in this photograph - very realistic and satisfying. What's not satisfying for me is its composition. My eyes randomly wander around the photo with no focus or interest to anything in particular. It leaves me feeling kind of flat -- pretty colors but not much else.

Nice concept, but the execution missed the mark. First the hand is overexposed. The knuckles of the two smaller fingers and a side of the index finger are just too white with absolutely no details retained in the photograph. Neither the hand nor any part of the uniforms seems to be sharply in focus. This photo, IMO, would have worked great if you could have at least had the hand with the peace sign and the shoulder patch of the closest CHP officer in sharp focus.

Scott Eaton, you boast that you have no less than a dozen shots identical to Jay Beckman's but that yours are in focus. Well, where are they? The image that you attached to your comments is no where close to being identical to the shot that Jay took. IMO, Jay's image captures the power and excitement of a Blue Angels' precision formation much more effectively than the photo you presented. I'll give you the benefit of the doubt and assume you accidentally uploaded the wrong photo with your comments. Please show us one of your nearly identical shots of the Blue Angels that you claim to have taken. Any of the 12+ shots would do.

 

BTW, I don't think Jay's photo is out of focus, but has a very slight blur due to the shutter speed being too slow to completely freeze the action.

 

Great shot Jay! You make some people jealous

 

I don't want to sound too harsh, but I don't think this photograph is any sort of special picture of Half Dome. I think Velvia made the colors too saturated. Also, IMO, this particular cloud formation is just an added distraction to the overall photograph (unless you are a Star Trek fan like POW elves seem to be). This photo looks just like a typical snapshot of Half Dome that many tourists take (which of course, it is). Nothing particularly special about it (I'm not a Trekkie).

 

OTOH, the rest of Richard's portfolio, IMO, is EXCELLENT! I wonder why the POW elves did not choose any other photo from Richard's portfolio as a POW. I think Richard's shot of Lake Matheson before sunset is a far better landscape photograph than this shot of Half Dome. Also the Lake Matheson shot, IMO, makes a very effective use of Velvia's increased color saturation.