A day at the beach...

[ravencrew]

I took quite a few photos today. The swell was quite large today and I got a few pictures of some surfers enjoying it. The was quite a bit of sea spray which made a hazy look to most of the photos. I did like how these three turned out though. Here they are.

[shootme]

Very nice series. For the first shot I'd have cropped a bit more off the left side and taken a bit of the foreground away, you must have been some distance from the surfer, is it early morning sun? For the 2nd shot I'd crop down to just below that bird or whatever that is in the sky, for me its distracting and this might help lift the horizon to 1/3rd from the top. The 3rd shot, not sure, probably take out the small wave to focus on the large one, but this messes the horizon or try to crop just before the small wave?. Overall very nice. S

[ravencrew]

The photos have not been cropped yet, These were all shot around 4:00pm. Thanks for the insite. There were a lot of people and birds out on the beach. The swell was over 30 feet, so I didn't want to get to close to the surf. I shot all of these shots with just a small lens.

[jetrim]

For the most part I agree w/ shootme's assesment. I believe photos 1 & 3 are stronger than # 2. I believe # 3 would look fantastic as a panoramic focusing on the top 60% and adjusting levels to bring out the colors of the sky.

[caleb]

1 is an excellent shot, I agree it needs to be cropped a little and a little adjustment, I'd like to see it reposted afterwards, really good shot

[ravencrew]

Okay so where do I crop the picture from the first pic. I don't want to crop to much and have the subject smack in the middle of the shot. I was thinking of maybe taking off about a 1/4 of an inch from the left side. As for adjustment should I try and use a curve adjustment with rgb?, Or just stick with the saturation slider? I like the color of the rocks and how the subject tends to glow a bit.

[GB1]

Raven - Good shots overall. I think you succeeded in getting interesting subjects together. But not sure how they all play with each other... Seems like the sand and rocsk are just too dark and undetailed in the first and third, respectively. I would crop out some of that pebbley sand area on # 1, but you might want to try lightening up the dark area first & see what you get. # 1 might be a tad oversatured also. # 2 I would crop out the very bottom wave for certain, but maybe 1/3 to 40% of the bottom.

The bottom one is somewhat frustrating to me since you have all sorts of good elements here: the rocks, waves (foreground and middle), and some really great fade out of the big, distant rocks. But the angle seems too flat for me, and there's really no specific area or subject to look at here.

btw, I know the issue with # 1. It's a dilemma for me too - I see everything together and the entire situation looks great but then try to photograph it and it just doesn't seem to match up with the original impression I got. It could be the inability of film or digital sensor to reproduce the shades, or the lack of a super wide angle that our eyes produce. Or it could be that the viewer lacks the other sensory info like smells, etc that make the beach what it is........ When they figure it out, tell me.

G

[ravencrew]

Okay photo #1 cropped and adjusted see what you think.

[caleb]

I really like it, you could try GB's advice and brighten the beach

[ravencrew]

Okay I lightened the beach and added a little color to the background.

[caleb]

again, awesome shot, i dont know if i like the dark or light beach better, either way it looks like a printer to me