Late Night Bridges

[>JJ<]

Here is a second one from a different part of the city. (Storey Bridge).

Please critique, I personally think it is to dark, I have tried to make it lighter but to no avail, any help would be great!

JJ.

[gahspidy]

It is undeerexposed and raising the levels will only bring out the noise and grain. When I was shooting my bridges at night series that I posted here, I found for me that overexposing with the cameras meter by 1/2 to 1 full stop brought out a good exposure and less colorcast and noise. Also, the tops of the buildings being cut off by the span does not make for a great composition. Try keeping the span below the tops or completely above them.

[Clicker]

I find the reflection in the water very interesting, probably more interesting than the bridge itself! I know this was not your intention, so... I would suggest a different composition - one that leaves us with no question where our eye should go!

you could even crop this image and get a more compositionally dynamic photo, my suggestion if you wanted to do this would be to get rid of the right half... keep the Three Blue reflections in the water and crop right after those / so you see a little sky under the bridge and right after the tall building.....does that make sense? lol

[>JJ<]

Thanks guys,

Gahspidy, your right about it being under-exposed, I only had a 2second exposure period, I have a crap digital camera, and thats it's maximum time. I will have to get myslef a better camera.

Clicker, I did your crop, it does look good!, but you dont get the hole 'panoramic feel'. So its good but bad.

[PuckJunkey]

Yep. The first is good except that there's no gradation of "sorta dark" to "pitch black". Seems most of the details go from brightly lit to not lit at all. The second crop does work better in that regard, but you can tell it's a crop IMO. Composition of the first one is good but I might swivel the lens left a bit, and crop in tighter unless you're going to get closer to the grass to really make it an integral part of the frame (silloutte).

[Clicker]

Thanks guys,

Gahspidy, your right about it being under-exposed, I only had a 2second exposure period, I have a crap digital camera, and thats it's maximum time. I will have to get myslef a better camera.

Clicker, I did your crop, it does look good!, but you dont get the hole 'panoramic feel'. So its good but bad.

Yea, I agree that you lose the Panoramic - but I think that this image lacks enough interest to be a panoramic, so with the crop, well, its mostly a crop to "salvage" the image, I think it turns the photo on its "toes" by changing the main subject to the reflections and the composition.. Instead of the bridge as a whole..
Ya know?

For a pano, i would reshoot..

[>JJ<]

PuckJunky; I agree about the light dark comment. I need a longer exposure like Gahspidy pointed out. I like your idea of getting closer to the grass. When I was there the grass was actually quite beautiful, soft wind, it was very nice.

Clicker; Thanks for the honesty, I have great respect for people who tell it how it is, these are accurate comments and you are right about the image having to be 'salvaged' because the right hand side isnt strong enough for the image to work as a whole. I will do a re-shoot!

Thanks for the comments guys!

[GB1]

Nice color.

I like the 'blackness' of the dark area, but agree there's a slight loss of detail overall. I wonder if making it lighter would wash it out though?

Some technical observations:

- the photo seems slightly titled. You can see it were the building meet the water. You really have to watch for this sort of thing in any landscape where the horizon will betray it. You should be able to correct for this in printing, so no serious harm.

- The pic seems a bit cramped at the top, like there's not enough negative space between the top of the bridge and the top of the photo. Did you crop some (too much) out? I guess this is subjective, but I would increase it a bit so not to cramp the photo.

The colors are beautiful. Overall, there seems to be a lot more stuff happening in the left side than the right. The right side isn't as interesting, but if someone used this for a brochure or postcard etc, the right side bottom black area could be where the text is written.

Overall very pretty shot.

[Clicker]

Clicker; Thanks for the honesty, I have great respect for people who tell it how it is, these are accurate comments and you are right about the image having to be 'salvaged' because the right hand side isnt strong enough for the image to work as a whole. I will do a re-shoot!

Thanks for the comments guys!

I appreciate the compliment and you are welcome, honesty is very important in critiques, and It's exactly the way I want to be treated as well ! *blushing*

I look forward to seeing your Panoramic!