Critique #44 *Landscape* 5 Participants

Thanks for the opportunity to comment on these wonderful shots.

remrf, Tucson from A Mountain -- This shot really "pops"! I like it very much. The details apparent in this image are amazingly clear, and the beautifully rendered mountains in the background really stand out in contrast to the city in the foreground. It's a great study of city vs. nature.

I wonder what format and focal length was used here? It may also have been interesting to include some other foreground object or structure to show even more "depth" in the landscape.

raid, untitled -- Beautiful symmetry and lovely, calming colors. This is a great piece of abstract art that also happens to show the very real beauty of this location.

I wonder how this shot would look with a touch more contrast and color saturation. Perhaps it would change the feeling of it too much.

samdj1210, windy day on the seawall -- I really like the blur of the plants in the foreground to show the wind. I also like how the two trees are arranged to show perspective and relative distance. The placement of the subtle green colored plants also work nicely to balance the dramatic blue sky.

I'm not sure if its my bad eyesight, but the middle part of the shot may not be as sharp as it could be. Maybe applying a little more sharpening to that region would help since the eye naturally tends to focus there.

ampguy, the lake -- This could very well be Raid's location on a different day and under different conditions :). It's interesting how colors cause certain feelings, and as expected, the blue tint of this image gives a feeling of coldness and foreboding, like the feeling you would get from an incoming storm. I am curious as to how you made this color in your picture. You also captured some very dramatic cloud patterns in the sky, very nice.

The objects in the upper left and lower right are a little distracting. Perhaps cropping those out, and lowering the horizon (out of the center) and showing more sky would add a little more impact.

Thanks again, folks.

--Warren
 
Raid Amin - I'm a big fan of the mirrored sky on the lake. The colour of the sky are wonderful. Classic sunset photo.

remrf - This is my favouite of the 4. It looks like a toy town, the mountain in the background really sets off the colour of the forground.

ampguy - I love the blue of this photo. The sky with the clouds on the right of the photo are great, it may have been better at a lower angle to get more of that big sky in?

Warren T - The fog looks great in this, I like the way the background just disappears in the fog. My only criticism is the pole sticking up on the left. I find my eyes been drawn to it.

Great photos people
 
Sorry I was stuck at work. I'm not a big fan of work!

Thanks for the comments, great set of photos people. pat on the back from me
 
Hey Raid, I think it would have been fine for you to leave that comment :). I don't think any of us would have minded. No big deal. It's all for fun :D.

--Warren
 
Thank you for your comments on the photo. It was shot using a Mamiya 645 w/ a Mamiya f-2.8 150 mm lens on Ektachrome 100 asa. There was no foreground to include. Where I was standing with my tripod was about three feet from the retaining wall beyond which was an almost straight drop of several hundred feet.

"A" Mountain was a favorite place to take your honey to look at the city at night when I was in high school and after. There is enough room along the fairly narrow road for about 30 cars to park in line to view what you see in the photo. Unfortunately gang violence on a regular basis caused the city to shut the road down at night. When I go up there now at any time I go armed.

Just above and behind where I was standing is a huge concrete "A" which for years was repainted white by the incoming freshmen class at the university. And occasionaly painted green by persons unknown on St. Patricks Day. Of late it is painted red,white and blue. A little further to the north on the road is a spot where people fly radio controlled gliders in a canyon area not quite as steep as the view in the photo.

The top of "A" Mountain is where July 4th and New Years fireworks are displayed by the city. A pretty good show .


I just remembered that I had at least one shot of A Mountain at night. From slightly higher and pointing more to the south. I shot this night shot in 89' along with the young lady in the photo. I printed the composite using a daylab. Both images were shot on a Minolta 7000.
 

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I took this photo at Ding Darling Wildlife Refuge in South Florida. I may have used either a Rolleiflex 2.8D [square format] or a Canon F1N 35mm camera,and then cropped the photo square. The film was the old type Fujichrome 50 (not Velvia) on a tripod and with cable release.
I like patterns since I think mathematically, so that's what drew me to this scene.

Thanks for all the comments.


Raid
 
I appreciate everyone's comments on my picture. Thanks for taking the time.

The image was cropped in-camera. Lake Merced is a challenging place to shoot because there are no real standout features there. It's just a nice, pleasant lake where you'll find people fishing, and a few boaters. On my photo session that day, I was shooting with my Nikon F2s w/Ilford XP2 and Nikon D100 bodies and interchanging two lenses between them, an AF 24mm f2.8 and a MF 105mm f2.5 (the classic one).

The D100 does not meter with the MF 105mm, but it really doesn't matter to me as i often shoot my MF Nikkors with that dslr body.

Also, the af 24mm didn't have a prong (meter coupling) for my old F2, but that didn't stop me from metering via stop-down method :).

This picture was taken with the 105mm f2.5 on the D100, giving an effective field of view similar to a 160mm for the 35mm format. I find it interesting to occasionally make landscape photos with a telephoto perspective.

Ampguy, the patch of white on the lower left of the picture is the lake, not a road :).

remrf, after seeing the incredible quailty of your picture, I'm inspired to dust off the cobwebs from my Hasselblad and take it out for a spin :D.

--Warren
 
the lake -- details

the lake -- details

this image was on my first or second outdoor outing with the pentax *ist DL. It's a lake in eastern WA, where we tried to fish, but didn't get any bites.

Since it was bright, I took off the indoor 35/1.9 manual vivitar I usually use on it, and slapped the kit 18-55 zoom on (f4-5.6), I'm pretty sure I shot at around f16-f22 at iso equiv of 200 handheld at the wide end of the zoom (equiv 35mm of ~ 28mm or so)

The blue was at first accidental, I left the silly white balance setting on tungsten, then after previewing thought they looked interesting, and I immediately set the white balance to daylight and re-took a whole set of shots as the family was getting impatient in the car...

attached are 2 shots, one of the natural color that day, and another blue one with more sky, less lake.

Thanks for all the comments and great feedback. I do agree that there are objects at top left and lower R that would be better cropped out.
 

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oops

oops

Yeah, now I see it, sorry, I need new eyes :eek:

Warren T. said:
I appreciate everyone's comments on my picture. Thanks for taking the time.
...Ampguy, the patch of white on the lower left of the picture is the lake, not a road :).
...
--Warren
 
Ampguy, I hope you don't mind. I took your 2nd blue shot, and did a little additional work to it. I've attached it here. This what I meant when I suggested to lower the horizon to accentuate the sky.

--Warren
 

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wow!!

wow!!

Incredible, thanks Warren, it's like a new photo!!

Warren T. said:
Ampguy, I hope you don't mind. I took your 2nd blue shot, and did a little additional work to it. I've attached it here. This what I meant when I suggested to lower the horizon to accentuate the sky.

--Warren
 
The sky looks great, Warren. I always take vertical and horizontal shots since each may have a different flavor to it.

Raid
 
Hi Warren

Hi Warren

Hey, what could I trade you for or offer you to take my original JPG (I didn't shoot this raw) of ~3MB and do what you did to the small one through email or ftp so I can make some 8x10's or bigger costco prints?

Warren T. said:
Ampguy, I hope you don't mind. I took your 2nd blue shot, and did a little additional work to it. I've attached it here. This what I meant when I suggested to lower the horizon to accentuate the sky.

--Warren
 
What happened after exchanging the pm?
I am sure that Warren will help you out, ampguy.

Raid
 
Hi Raid

Hi Raid

We're going to meet up for coffee soon as we live pretty near each other. Warren is being very generous and is working on the large image. I like his crop and cloud magic work a lot, but never would have done the crop myself, because you can't find square frames as easy or cheap as rectangular.

I think these critiques that Ray setup are very good for seeing things in different ways. I always welcome re-works of my photos, and strong criticisms. It is very helpful for me if several folks come out and say that my photo does nothing for them, then I know it's a keeper for me, but not necessarily one for a gallery post.

raid amin said:
What happened after exchanging the pm?
I am sure that Warren will help you out, ampguy.

Raid
 
ampguy said:
We're going to meet up for coffee soon as we live pretty near each other. Warren is being very generous and is working on the large image. I like his crop and cloud magic work a lot, but never would have done the crop myself, because you can't find square frames as easy or cheap as rectangular.

I think these critiques that Ray setup are very good for seeing things in different ways. I always welcome re-works of my photos, and strong criticisms. It is very helpful for me if several folks come out and say that my photo does nothing for them, then I know it's a keeper for me, but not necessarily one for a gallery post.


Hi,
You may have noticed that I have not made any suggestions to anyone's photo in this critique session, which is very unlike my comments on earlier critique sessions. Recently, someone complained bitterly against my suggesting different perspectives or on my suggesting other ways of taking a photo. He insisted that this was against the rules.
I still believe that constructive critique of an image is more valuable than praise alone.


Raid


Raid
 
Huh?

Huh?

Something doesn't seem right here, I believe the rules basically state we are to say what we like about it, and then offer some constructive criticism.

There have been a few where I could find nothing to do different, and I've simply posted that, but that's rare.

Ray, do you want to weigh in on this?

I want feedback, anything from "it just sucks" to "next time try x,y,z", etc.

raid amin said:
Hi,
You may have noticed that I have not made any suggestions to anyone's photo in this critique session, which is very unlike my comments on earlier critique sessions. Recently, someone complained bitterly against my suggesting different perspectives or on my suggesting other ways of taking a photo. He insisted that this was against the rules.
I still believe that constructive critique of an image is more valuable than praise alone.


Raid


Raid
 
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