USS Arizona Memorial

[yakkosmurf]

The memorial with the USS Missouri.


The flag on top of the memorial.


Flowers floating in the water near the memorial. Notice the oil still leaking from the hull of the Arizona.


Comments welcome. The last two shots are some of my first attempts at taking something other than basic shots (like the first one).

[Photo-John]

I like the last one the most. I think the oil slick and blossoms are pretty. And this is oil from the sunken ships, right? So it has meaning, too. I think I would have tried to frame it more tightly so it was just two or three blossoms and the oil on water. But I think this is nice and I like that you're stepping out of your comfort zone to be creative. That's an important part of the photographic process. I commend you for doing it and sharing it here.

The first one is tough. First of all, it needs more contrast. It's much too flat and needs some more snap. The clouds should have at least a bit of real white in them. There's no white at all in the image. Every image should have some white and some black. If it doesn't, then it needs to be adjusted. I also think that the image is too busy. I realize that this is a tough scene with a lot going on. Sometimes we just have to accept that we can't show it all. It just doesn't work. With this I would have tried to select a couple of elements, along with the water, and kept it simple. There's also wayyy too much water. It's just wasted space in your composition. I like the sky and clouds. But you don't need anywhere near this much water to tell the story.

Glad you shared these. I hope my criticism is useful to you. I like the oil and flowers and it's nice to see you experimenting. Good job.

[yakkosmurf]

You are correct the blossoms are floating in the water contaminated with oil still leaking from the USS Arizona after all these years. That's what I though made it interesting. Thanks for the good suggeston of getting closer to something like this next time. I was trying to capture the river-like flow of the oil trail rather than the details of the flowers (just to explain my thinking).

Yes, I do need to play around with things like contrast in the first image. It was taken around 8:00 in the morning, and the sun is rising above the mountains directly behind me. There were a lot of clouds, so the sun wasn't fully out, and there was a pinkish glow to everything. I think that might effect why there's not much white or contrast. I will play with that photo a little to give it more snap. I was also trying to get some reflection off of the water, but it was way too choppy for that, and I was at the end of my zoom capability with the lens that day. Therefore, lots of uninteresting water.

Thanks for the feedback. I've only been taking pictures with more than a point and shoot since May, so the feedback is good.