Old Mill

[Bren]

Today we went up to this old mill in Colorado, I have attached 3 photos of the same mill, but with diffrent looks and feels, not sure which one I like, but had so much fun taking all kinds of pics. Let me know what you think and why.

I did resize them and corrected the color a bit they looked too yellow.

Thanks,
Bren

[Chunk]

Today we went up to this old mill in Colorado, I have attached 3 photos of the same mill, but with diffrent looks and feels, not sure which one I like, but had so much fun taking all kinds of pics. Let me know what you think and why.

I did resize them and corrected the color a bit they looked too yellow.

Thanks,
Bren

Very nice shots of an interesting location. My first thought was of Al Capp and the cabins he liked to place over cliffs in his Li'l Abner cartoons. Can you imagine how HARD building this mill would be?
I like the tighter shots that show more detail in the building, but I think the strongest of these is the wider shot that places it in it's beautiful surroundings. That nice pine and the stream flowing down keep the eye moving through the picture and back up that ladder looking structure ti the building and around again. I like this vertical crop out of it.

Nice work.

[shutterman]

I like the 2nd b/c the sky is a little more dramatic and the crop that Chunk did brings some more focus to the subject. The 1st is nice too and how the branches on the right frame the mill but at the top they cover it a little too much. What a great location! Good find and good pictures!

[kerriann85]

I like the first one with the "hidden in the trees" look to it.
I also like the crop by Chunk. Interesting how someone elses eye sees things. (I could see that as a nice print over someone's fireplace.)
Nice location!

[gahspidy]

Bren,
What a great subject. I like them all, but the second one is the better in my opinion. I like the crop Chunk did but I feel just taking an inch off the left and creating a square crop does it nicely. It leaves more of the surroundings to add to the scene and yet brings out the focus on the mill. I don't usually prefer square crops, but i think it works here.

[Clicker]

Nice subject, and lots of good angles and framing options! Funny how it looks like its about to fall backwards.. yet Its straight ( i think)

Here's my take on it ---

[Elysian]

I don't think that we should focus too much on what we can fix about this photograph now, but what could have been done better when these shots were taken, at least that's my view on this.

Cropping these images doesn't change the fact that there are a few other things that need some attention, like the lack of depth.

You'll notice when you look at the first image and you compare it with the second one, that the first image looks less flat. This is because the colors and sizes of the leaves in the first image make all the foliage less monotone and gives the image more depth. Also notice in the first image that foliage is covering the mill, which creates the extra illusion of depth.

Image #1 could have had more depth of field, by decreasing the aperture, not much, just a little bit. The other thing that makes these images look flat is lighting. I notice heavy cloud cover and too much clouds create very soft shadows and highlights and that's the reason which the lighting will look flat and the colors dull.

Placing the main subject in the middle has in general the tendency to be boring, so Chunk's crop is in my opinion the best one composition wise, it also has the better sky, but it does lack that depth that I was talking about and some really strong elements in the foreground would have improved it a lot.

Thanks for sharing this beautiful place with us Bren

[Darren]

Bren, first let me say "thank you" for the fall color update visual! I have heard things are really coming along over there, but it's nice to actually see what it's doing. I'm possibly going to head out that way this weekend.

As for your pics, I have one real good surefire way to improve them: go back in a week/week and a half when it's solid gold! No doubt you'd enjoy those a LOT more.

I agree that the sky in 1 and 3 is rather hot, but real nice in #2. Being that you took a number of pics, I'm assuming you took ones from the side on the road. You can eliminate the sky altogether there, which may have turned out nice.

I also like the first cropping suggestion over the original, though I think it could stand to have the a bit more foliage on the bottom. The second crop is unbalanced to the left.

As for Elysian's comments, I'm not sure about the lack of depth thing. This is not a place that lends itself to great foreground ops from anywhere other than stream level. I generally don't like foliage framing things, in the foreground, incuding here, but I realize that is a subjective thing. And there should be no doubt that shooting here in overcast skies is NOT a bad thing. It gets REAL contrasty in sunny conditions. But dull because of the overcast? Hardly. We all know that you had the ideal light for photographing the fall foliage, it just isn't conducive to including much sky in the scene. There appears to be a distinct amount of compression which probably caused a loss of saturation in the process and I'm sure the originals are a bit better.

Thanks for sharing!

[Bren]

Thanks everyone for your replies and suggestions. I just learn so much from everyone everytime I am on here.

Chunk, I like what you did with the crop, it does stand out more, and the pine on the side does make your eye flow eaiser.

Kerriann, your right it would look nice over someones fireplace, this mill is called Crystal Mill, if you look it up on the internet, it is one of the most photographed place in Colorado. I have seen pics of this mill for abot 10 years now, and always said I would have my own and now I have about 50 LOL.

Clicker, I like what you did with the photo. Your right it does look like its falling back. It was built in 1890, I did straighten it up a bit

Elysian, when we started out for the day it was very sunny, and the drive up to this Mill is only 4.3 miles from Marble Colorado, but it is a 4x4 road all the way, very slow going and took 1 1/2 hours for us to make it to the top, most spots we crawled over the rocks and dips in the road with my full size truck. By the time we got to the top it looked like it was going to start to rain, so your right it would have been better if there was a little more light. But that didnt stop me from taking all the shots I could.

Darren, I wish I could go back in a week, it was so beautiful out there, but this was the only weekend we could go well for a few weeks anyways. The next few weekends are tied up with Soccer games. I think we will make it back up in early summer when the snow has melted and the run off is strong. Here is another photo. that does not show the sky and it is offset a bit.

Thanks everyone who replied.

Bren

[Elysian]

As for Elysian's comments, I'm not sure about the lack of depth thing. This is not a place that lends itself to great foreground ops from anywhere other than stream level.

Color, shapes, lines/patterns, distance between objects, aperture, light, shadows, framing, etc, there are so many way to increase depth in an image. The fact that you might not be experienced enough to know how to increase the illusion of depth even in images like these, doesn't mean that there aren't many techniques that you can use.
Depth is not always needed to make a strong photograph, but if lighting and color is already working against you in an image like this, then you need to find ways to compensate, otherwise it will lead to a flat image and that's exactly what happened.

And there should be no doubt that shooting here in overcast skies is NOT a bad thing. It gets REAL contrasty in sunny conditions. But dull because of the overcast? Hardly.

I never said that he should have taken these shots in sunny conditions, that's what you make of it. All I was talking about was "heavy cloud cover", read "heavy" and how it leads to flat light. A good example is shown in Ben's image in the previous post; look at the trees.

But dull because of the overcast? Hardly

No Darren, again, please read carefully. I never said that the image looks dull, I said the colors will look dull when there is heavy cloud cover. Now you can agree with me on that or not, but it's a known fact that colors lose some of their intensity when there is heavy cloud cover. The question only remains; is this the effect the photographer is going for?
Dull colors doesn't automatically mean dull image, let me get that straight.