Photography thread (closed thread, see first and last post)

[Livinwright Farm]

LOL
Okay, the "thing" in the bottom left hand corner is the arm for a construction crane... there was no way to get the awesomeness of the clouds that day without having that blight down there... and I too wish that tree wasn't right there... once the people who live down there decide to take it down, or maybe this winter it will just come down, I will go back and take a new pic



I just couldn't not get a picture, the cloud seemed to be surreal, like someone had them hanging by wire and if you could only get up high enough, you would be able to wrap your arms around one

Okay, it's pretty self explanitory as to why I thought it should be in a picture by now, yes?

My eyes start at the top and slowly drift from cloud to cloud, reliving seeing them that day, slowly down and down until I see the mountain, and then because my brain doesn't like that scraggley tree, it just hits the shadows on the mountain and goes back to the top of the clouds I have always been one to watch the clouds

 

[Livinwright Farm]

Okay lets see if I can answer the same questions... :/

WHY I took this pic?: The rare stillness of the lake that day... it was just perfect for getting mirrored images in the lake's surface. I could PM you or post some REALLY good examples of exactly how still it was that day.
What made me think that should be in a picture?: It just looked too beautiful to not capture it
What exactly was I trying to "show"? The majesty of Mt. Chocorua behind Chocorua Lake.

Where does your eye fall first? The peak of the mountain.
Where does it go next? Down the mountain to the trees on the right.
where does it stop to linger? The reflection of the mountain on the lake.
And where does it go last, before going back to the beginning? To the reflections of the clouds and the top railing of the bridge.

 

[Livinwright Farm]

Okay, my mom wanted me to post her picture for critique

 

[redtailgal]

You said:
"Where does your eye fall first? The peak of the mountain.
Where does it go next? Down the mountain to the trees on the right.
where does it stop to linger? The reflection of the mountain on the lake.
And where does it go last, before going back to the beginning? To the reflections of the clouds and the top railing of the bridge."

Ok, this is a really nice shot.

Re-read your "eye journey". See how with this pic your eye makes a complete loop, takes in the whole pic and then goes back to the beginning. There is nothing to interupt the eye.

Why is that?
Why does it start at the peak of that mountain?
Your eye goes to the peak, that is the focal point of this picture. It may be different if there were more clouds in the sky, but since there are not, the peak is the "beginning".

Then it does to the trees...........the "line" of that mountain guides your eye to the trees (eyes naturaly tend to follow a line). The eye doesnt want to go the other way, because the line will take it off the picture, so it goes down the lien to the trees.......much more interesting than the end of the picture.

Then you have the same line of the mountain in the reflection, only this line leads to the railing.

Now, that railing has more lines to guide the eye, this time up to the side of the pic, but instead of it being the end, the eye pics up the line on the other side of the mountain..........that line that leads back to the peak.

The use of lines in a picture help guide the eye around, "leading" it as an almost guided tour. This picture is a wonderful example of this. (good job, btw)

The person viewing this pic gets to visit the whole scene, instead of being "stuck" on just one part of the pic. Since you were capturing a scene of beauty, you want this, you want the viewer to take in the whole scene. Just the peak or just the trees or just the rail would be a rather boirng flat image.

Also, having the railing in the foreground, gives the eye a better sense of depth. The "layers" help alot too, the first layer is the railing, the second layer would be the trees and the final layer would be the mountain itself, thus giving this picture wonderful depth.

I had to look hard to find room for improvement, but I did find it. At the very bottom the railing is crooked, but this could be corrected by an ever so slight crop (the horizon is straight, so I would crop, not adjust).

Also, It looks like this pic was taken in automatic mode. If you have a point and shoot, then thats what you will have. If you have a SLR, and you want to capture reflections on the water, trying raising your shutter speed (you may need to adjust your F stop as well), to "freeze" that water in place. This will give you a very crisp reflection.

This first pic is not a great shot, but a good idea on what a quick shutter speed can do for reflections. I was learning about shutter speed here and was just playing around. I dont like this pic, because I had my shutter speed too high and got too much reflection.

The second pic is a good example of what a slower shutter speed will do, giving the water a silky appearance.

 

[Livinwright Farm]

I think I got too much reflection in this one

Just joking, if you haven't noticed it yet, I took a trick photo. Chicken Little was right! the sky was falling!

 

[redtailgal]

Okay, my mom wanted me to post her picture for critique
http://www.backyardherds.com/forum/uploads/3120_moms_pic_of_the_sandwich_mtn_range.jpg

I like this picture as well.


The coloring is nice, but I think that the proper crop would work wonders for this shot. There is alot of "wasted space" at the top of the picture. The top half of the pic are the clouds that are very similar to the snow cover on the mountain. The eye tends to get lost in the top half of this pic and just falls back to the mountain. This takes away from the drama and magestic beauty of the peak.
I would have to crop out most of the sky and also crop out the road at the bottom. The road makes a "fence" and stops my eye from traveling any lower. Cropping out the sky would encourage the eye to drop until it came to the diagonal of the second closer mountain side that leads down to the valley. Cropping out the road would take away the abrupt stop, and allow the eye to roam across the trees and back up the other side.

I also think that she could have traveled a little further left and angled her camera into the mountain, getting some of the depth between the larger and smaller mountain (the little one on the left side). This would have added a little more depth to the picture.

 

[Livinwright Farm]

Okay, my mom wanted me to post her picture for critique
http://www.backyardherds.com/forum/uploads/3120_moms_pic_of_the_sandwich_mtn_range.jpg

I like this picture as well.


The coloring is nice, but I think that the proper crop would work wonders for this shot. There is alot of "wasted space" at the top of the picture. The top half of the pic are the clouds that are very similar to the snow cover on the mountain. The eye tends to get lost in the top half of this pic and just falls back to the mountain. This takes away from the drama and magestic beauty of the peak.
I would have to crop out most of the sky and also crop out the road at the bottom. The road makes a "fence" and stops my eye from traveling any lower. Cropping out the sky would encourage the eye to drop until it came to the diagonal of the second closer mountain side that leads down to the valley. Cropping out the road would take away the abrupt stop, and allow the eye to roam across the trees and back up the other side.

I also think that she could have traveled a little further left and angled her camera into the mountain, getting some of the depth between the larger and smaller mountain (the little one on the left side). This would have added a little more depth to the picture.

My mom said, "I wasn't aiming to have that much sky/clouds, but I didn't want the road in the picture."

What you saw as road is actually part of a lake .. a very cold and choppy lake. My mom's mental thought of what she was seeing, was the difference between the choppiness of the lake and the stillness of the mountain.

Unfortunately, she wouldn't have been able to get an angle much different from what you see in the pic, since there is a runway to the right and a big old line of swamp trees and a house blocking the view of the mountain to the left. :/

We both really appreciate your input We have never taken any classes, we just enjoy taking pictures, and have mostly hoped for the best

 

[redtailgal]

You are both doing very well, esp to not have taken any classes!

I"d love to help you get the eye shot that you were referring to earlier, it sounds like a cool project! Can you tell me what sort of camera you have?
Is it point and shoot or SLR? If slr, what lens are you using and what settings?>

What do you know about macrophotography?

 

[Livinwright Farm]

You are both doing very well, esp to not have taken any classes!

I"d love to help you get the eye shot that you were referring to earlier, it sounds like a cool project! Can you tell me what sort of camera you have?
Is it point and shoot or SLR? If slr, what lens are you using and what settings?>

What do you know about macrophotography?

Point and shoot, though someday I hope to have an slr.
Uhm... I assume it doesn't mean really tiny photos...

 

[Livinwright Farm]

I think our Canon has a button for macro... Is that the one used for close-ups on flowers(the flower symbol on the side of the lens barrel)?
I can get really good flower images, I can share some if you want, but it never seems to focus correctly on the eye. :/