Fence Frame

[anglarna]

Message of at least ten characters.

[SmartWombat]

I find my eye roving all over the photograph looking for a subject.

The fence leads right to left, a very strong element in the image.
But it leads to nothing except a patch of lighter green on the hillside.

Some of the clouds look overexposed to white, you've got a very wide range of brighness in that scene and I think you did the right thing.
But without a strong subject in the frame of the fence, the sky competes for attention with the fence and what it isn't framing.

I was hoping for a whitewashed cottage, or a farm, or something in that frame.
I feel there's something missing.

[anglarna]

Thanks for taking the time to reply!

I'm new to all of this. The sky was really bright that day and I think it confused my poor light meter because the landscape ended up very underexposed. I used photoshop to try and bring out the darker areas. Consequently making the sky look over exposed.

I was trying to make the cow the subject by using the fence to frame it but I can see now how much the fence leads your eye left.

Plenty for me to think about, thanks!

[opus]

OH! I didn't even see the cow, sorry! Maybe if you had waited till the cow moved into a more identifiable position, hopefully more to the right, right about where the two stray pieces of grass are sticking up into the frame. You could also have broken those two pieces of grass off or tucked them under so that they wouldn't be so intrusive on your space.

[Peter_AUS]

There's a cow in that picture, where, is it what looks like a tree in the middle of the frame.

Seriously is there a Cow there.

[mjs1973]

There's a cow in that picture, where, is it what looks like a tree in the middle of the frame.

Seriously is there a Cow there.

I had to look at this a few times to figure out where the cow was too...

Michael

[anglarna]

Thanks all for looking!

I took another picture in which I liked the position of the cow better but it didn't have the same 'eye-leading' effect from the fence.

[opus]

well, I guess it's more obvious that there's something there, but it's still not terribly identifiable as a cow, without either being there or being told that's what it is. Could you have whistled to get the cow to raise its head and maybe look your way?

I actually like this one better, as far as the fence goes. I like that you can see more of the fence, and I like the angle of it, it still leads your eye and it leads it right to the cow. Now to just get the cow to look at you and it would be perfect. Well, maybe a bit less sky, but maybe not. And I like that the grass isn't really sticking up into the focal point. It's a much cleaner shot.

Can you try again on a brighter day?

[anglarna]

I was shouting at the cow and everything. Which, I can guarantee you, ain't such a good idea at calf season. The mothers are AWFULLY protective of their calves. You wouldn't think a cow would have a blood lust.

The day was so sunny and bright but because I'm still learning about photography (this is my second roll of film I've had developed, EVER) I made a poor choice of lense/filter and it caused the pictures to come out really dark. Also because it was so bright in the sky I tried to compensate with aperature (?) settings but in doing so, the land/ground came out really underexposed. So in these respects, it was a learning experience.

[Peter_AUS]

Next time take the sky out of the exposure setup of the cameras metering, use a circular polarising filter for the sky, smaller f/stop f22 and longer exposure time.