Need Critiques On Work Photos (56k warning)

[Xia_Ke]

So this is a series of shots I'm working on for use on our website and/or brochures. The owner does not want to clone anything out. Just wants nice accurate depictions of the property. How am I doing color, lighting, and composition wise?

[dwaugh]

They look good for a description. I think the second, third, and last image may be slightly too shaded or dark, and you can probably fix that easily on the computer. Overall, I think it looks good.

[jkriminger]

number 2 is nice composition wise..you showing what you got. I like number 3 excepttt...that big building on the hill over shadows. In realty pics you do your best to eliminate outside distractions...is there any way to shoot this more from the right shooting out towards the water where you can naturally take out building on the hill?

[GB1]

# 1 - crop out a little of the foreground.

# 2 - Perhaps crop out a little of the sky, but like Dave, said it's really too dark.

# 3 - I would have liked a little more of the foreground to show off the water view. May also be too dark

# 4 - Don't like it that much. There's nothing there, really.

# 5 - Ok but too dark. Add 1/2 f stop or so. Too bad there's no seagulls in the upper left part of the photo

gb

[Xia_Ke]

Thanks for the input everybody. The shadows I should be able to cut down on with a little editing. The sun was pretty bright and combined with my need to always play with contrast levels, probably doesn't help the situation. As far as shooting from a different angle to take out the building in the background, it's not going to be possible. The beach, across the river is where the shots were taken and I can't go any further over to take it out. Next closest angle to take it out would have the Victorian House block out the motel style building in the background. Maybe if I were to burn in the sunny side of that other building a little just so it doesn't pop so much? GB, for #3, it was shot from the beach across a river inlet, unfortunately I can't add any more water to the foreground on that one Shot #4 was to illustrate the view from the rooms in the motel style building. Thanks again everyone. I'll play with the editing some more when I get home and have a better monitor to work with.

[Xia_Ke]

Okay, went through and redid the original edits. Shot #1 I've decided to try and reshoot again. Not a huge fan of the angle so I'm going to see if maybe I can try retaking it while on a large stepladder to give a better angle. Here's the edits of the rest though...

[GB1]

Xia - There are some small differences here, but overall, they really seem pretty similiar to the last batch. Hope you dont mind, but I DL'd one and did a slight adjustment to see what I could do... just reduced contrast a tad, increased the brightness a bit, then sharpened. Not sure if I went far enough with it though.

gb

[jkriminger]

Nice edit.

[Xia_Ke]

Thanks GB I don't know what it is. I dunno if my "eye" has just gotten used to darker, more contrasty images. When I first went to go through and reedit, I went just as bright as you, if not a hair brighter. Sat back though and just couldn't help but feel I had gone a bit overexposed. When I first saw your edit, I thought the same until I really looked at it. Does this make sense to you? Is it possible I have gotten so used to the pics and edits I normally do that I have gotten to the point of having a hard time identifying a properly exposed photo? Sorry for the rambling, feeling frustrated with myself

Aaron

[GB1]

Thanks GB I don't know what it is. I dunno if my "eye" has just gotten used to darker, more contrasty images. When I first went to go through and reedit, I went just as bright as you, if not a hair brighter. Sat back though and just couldn't help but feel I had gone a bit overexposed. When I first saw your edit, I thought the same until I really looked at it. Does this make sense to you? Is it possible I have gotten so used to the pics and edits I normally do that I have gotten to the point of having a hard time identifying a properly exposed photo? Sorry for the rambling, feeling frustrated with myself

Aaron

Aaron - Oh yeah, that makes sense... been there! I think there's the artistic side and the technical side of photography. I look at the art side as a path or viewpoint and the tecnical stuff the implemenation / icing on the cake. It's possible you've decided that a certain saturated/polarized look is good and are using that on the next x shots you take, straight ahead, no stoppin... It could be because you saw a really smokin' shot that used dark, saturated colors, .. so good that it made a very lasting impression. But the dark saturated look doesn't work every time, esp (I think) for vacation-spot type photos. I sometimes find it hard to tell when something might be too much or when a technique might not be completely right for the context or whatever.

Anyway - looking at the edit with a better monitor here it almost seems to be still a bit too contrasty, like the blues in the foreground are pasted in the picture (?) Maybe you could try posting your edit and smoothin out the contrast a little farther than I did, see what you get....

GB

[Tyson L. Sparks]

You ask how they,,,, I ask how do I get there...... Looks good to me.

[Xia_Ke]

Okay, so long as I know I'm not completely crazy :crazy: Here's the other edit I came up with. Bumped up the exposure a hair, toned down the contrasting of the sky and lawn, and sharpened a tad. Am I getting there or at least in the right direction?

[Frog]

I think these are quite good. I do think 3 and 5 are a bit dark on your main subject and perhaps you can fix that in editing but I think a reshoot when there is more even light would be better.
#2, if you could move left and have a more looking toward the ocean view, I think would be better. Then your building would also block out some of the ones on the far shore.

[GB1]

Hey, the edit you posted looks good! But I think I know what's up with the blues-look-pasted-on-the-green thing: it can be fixed by reducing the saturation! (I think..)

GB

[Xia_Ke]

Thanks Frog Problem is we've had so many cloudy or foggy days lately it's been ridiculous. Then combine that with when the sun does come out, we're slammed in the office so I can't get out to shoot or there's a bunch of people out and about on the property or there's no vacant rooms for me to have balcony access to to take pics. Most of the shot angles and lighting are more a matter just what's available when I can shoot

[Xia_Ke]

Hey, the edit you posted looks good! But I think I know what's up with the blues-look-pasted-on-the-green thing: it can be fixed by reducing the saturation! (I think..)

GB

LOL... Yeah, since I got Lightroom, the Vibrance and Sturation sliders have become my best friends