mathias_graf

Great picture and title. And I love the execution.

I like the bright colours and the idea behind the picture.

The subject of the image is plainly meant to be the girl, but speaking personally I don't think the picture quite pulls it off. This is mainly due to her position in the frame - it allows a large flattish expanse of red to dominate much of the image, whereas the girl feels a bit pushed out to the right hand and top edges. There just isn't quite enough of her in the picture.

My suggestions would be:

• Keeping the existing picture, you could crop off the bottom part of the picture from just below the elbow. This I think would balance the composition a bit more
• Alternatively, you could reshoot in a landscape format. This might allow you to have the girl a bit more centrally in the frame, rather than out at the edge.

 

Bet you had to get up early. I don't think I have anything constructive to add other than that I notice all the images in this folder have a certain softness, even when viewed "larger". This, I think, detracts somewhat from their otherwise obvious high quality. Is this deliberate, or simply a lack of sharpening after scanning?

Top half is OK, but the foreground doesn't do much for me I'm afraid. Just not interesting enough to be a part of the picture.

A closer shot with just the water and the tree might work better?

Image is a bit flat - I think a little more foreground interest might help this. Nice sky though.

But a little unbalanced perhaps. Including more on the right hand side might help?

Think the grass isn't green enough though. Might be worth shooting in spring or early summer?

But somehow not quite satisfying - maybe a slightly tighter crop would help?

...but do I detect a little softness on the stakes?

...looks like you got up early (for a change!)

I think that's reaaly nice!

I think this is nearly a very nice picture! Two comments though: you don't seem to have got the verticals quite straight, and on any architectural picture in this style I think this is crucial - it's only minor in this case, but it was the first thing I noticed. Secondly, I find the tree branches obscure the tower just a little too much - again, only minor, but a lower viewpoint would have reduced this (and may have improved the foreground a little too?). Hope this is useful, Mathias.

Beautiful picture! The only question I have is about the bright strip across the middle - to me this is out of keeping with the rest of the picture. I'm not saying it shouldn't be there, just that I find it a bit strong. Perhaps sliding the grad. filter I assume you used down a touch further might have reduced this a little? Hope this is useful, Mathias.

Love the colour and the sparse composition. I'd agree with Ward about the crop - it's fine as it is. Rules are meant to be broken, and when it's done as well as this it can work really well.

Spectacular!

Nice colours - the bottom part is a bit dark for my liking though, I'd like to see more detail in the stones.

Great idea and beautifully captured colours.

 

For me, however, the quietness of the right hand side of the frame is out of keeping with the business of the left hand side. The more even colour and form on the right detract from the wonderful graphical quality of the left, and I think this weakens the picture.

 

My suggestion would be to crop off the right side of the image, at least up to near the first tree, maybe even between the two trees to give a square format.

 

Sorry - it always irritates me when people on PN crop other photographers' pictures, but in this case I can't help it - I think a more cropped image would be so much stronger. Sorry, sorry, sorry...

Very original, and well seen.

Don't normally go for sunsets, but - wow!

I think this picture has great potential. For me, however, it would be vastly improved if the left side was cropped out, around the centre line of the arm. This would make it a picture of the model's face, whereas to me at the moment it looks more like a picture of her arm.

This has the potential to be a really good shot, but for me the rocks and the sea are too dark and contain too little detail. Quite a few of your pictures are like this, and one some it works well, but on this one I feel it doesn't.

 

I think it has arisen, at least partly, because of the limited dynamic range of digital cameras (but also through slight underexposure?). There are ways of countering this - one is to use a graduated filter, of course. Because digital cameras tend to capture much more shadow detail than they generally let on, however, you can also handle it digitally. I've had reasonable success using methods such as digital blending and contrast masking. See http://www.luminous-landscape.com/tutorials/digital-blending.shtml and http://www.luminous-landscape.com/tutorials/understanding-series/u-contrast-masking.shtml for info.

 

Hope this helps, Mathias.

I sort of agree with Etan, but I think that's the fault of the title more than of the picture, which I think is wonderful.

Wow - what hidden depths there are if you only bother to ask! Too subtle for me I'm afraid - still, one out of four... Thanks for the explanation,

 

Have fun,

 

Mathias.

Fantastic. I don't think cropping would improve it - it would make it a different picture that was still good, but I prefer the original.