Fire at the lake's edge

[dwaugh]

I took this last night... let me know if it is a good shot or what.

[gomm]

Nice shot except for its unusual ratio! This shot looks twice as high as it is wide probably due to cropping. My best advice is to never crop, get the composition right in the first place and then you avoid such unusual ratio as in this photo. This rule can be broken for effect however, but there seems to be no reason in this photo to have such a ratio.

[dwaugh]

I wish I didnt need to crop it, but I realized how crooked the original shot was and I had to rotate it and crop it to make it a normal shape again. I was just wondering how people liked it.

I guess I could also crop it again to make it shorter. The contrast would stay about the same with the red and blue...

[GB1]

Interesting colors. I do like the sky, but if you crop it out you see you lose almost nothing. I like the expression on his face, seems to be contemplating. Somehow I wish he was wearing a better outfit than just the t-shirt. Might want to sharpen it just a tad and see what you get. I like the complementary colors between fire and sky also.

GB

[dwaugh]

Thanks for the review. My main point for taking this picture was to capture what I do with my friends on summer evenings, we make a fire at the beach and sit around. Toward the end of the night, this is pretty much how it looks, no one talking and just staring into the fire. True, he could be wearing something better than a t-shirt with The Who on it.

[molaselake]

Put me down as liking the complimentary colors as well. However, one thing you might want to think about...and this probably isn't as easy to do in photography as it is with paint; bring blue into the orange area or orange into the blue area. That way it would hook the two halves together a little more seamlessly. I don't use photoshop, but maybe you could employ that? I think the shadows in the orange area might benefit from this the most.

[jbaldocchi]

I like the elongation of this image. The sky adds much to this composition. You just need to get the size right for viewing on a computer monitor in PS. I think it would look good as a print too. As for never croping that's fine if the image happens to warrant that but there's nothing wrong with croping in my book.

Cheers,

Jim B.

[dwaugh]

Thanks again for more reviews. I didnt do any editing on this pic except for rotating and cropping. I try not to edit them at all if possible.