Critique #2 - 2013

[Andy]

Here is a little different "vision" for me. I spent a week up in the Michigan U.P. in October, 2012, with James Moore, who is a very accomplished landscape photographer. His critique and suggestions made me look inward a bit and "stretch" the way I normally "see" and photograph. One afternoon, we concentrated on what he calls "sectional" images. It gets away from the "grand landscape" where we are looking for foreground, middle and background elements and balance of composition. I find this very challenging - trying to pick out "the image" from "the forest."

I will post a couple here (in separate threads).

[deaner1971]

Andy,

I actually spent part of last fall trying to get myself away from seeking the grand vista and focus on the trees rather than the forest. It is hard as, I think, many of us landscape types walk around with our eyes on their widest setting and only snap on smaller pieces of the whole when something really grans our eye (i.e. the unusual).

Your composition here is great. It leaves me not wanting to peer above or below the section you selected.

There is something with the light that I want to change. Maybe more light on the gorgeous colors up front, just to break the subject from its background. Or maybe a thinner focus to also isolate it? I think I am feeling it gets a bit lost in the busy background.

[Andy]

Dean: Thanks for the comments. I actually took several frames of this composition as the light was changing. I wasn't sure which one "worked" best. You are right though, as I reflect on it. This light is pretty much one-dimensional. Great for color, but not some much for depth and dynamism. I am not near my archive right now, but maybe over the weekend, I can upload one of the others.

I like your thought on the DOF. That's exactly what this image is "missing." Blurring out the background with some pleasing "bokeh" is probably what the Doctor ordered. Maybe I will "fiddle" with the "blur" function in PS and see what I can come up with. But obviously, in the field, I need to be thinking about those things. Wide open aperture and maybe telephoto lens with a further back shooting perspective may have been a better approach.

[Andy]

Interesting comment, Carol. I am reading a book called "The Art of Photography" by a California pro named Bruce Barnbaum (Rocky Nook Publishers). His primary influence is B&W film, but much of the book is about composition, line, form, shape, tonality, etc. He makes some really interesting observations about how human eyes "see" photographs, including their "progression." One of his assertions is that as photographers, we have an opportunity through composition to "direct" that progression. Wish I could say I thought of that and composed this image with that in mind. But it does have a way of making you jump from cluster to cluster in a bottom to top, left to right back to left circular motion, now that you mention it.