Utrecht Night

Hey all. I just went down to Utrecht, Netherlands last week and finally brought my camera. It's one of the most beautiful cities in this country and I have been there many time but this was one of the first times I had my camera and had the time to use it. Being the amateur that I am I forgot the tripod attachment so the tripod was useless. Still the ground made for a stable platform and some of them like this one turned out to be pretty fun. Cant wait to see what you think.

http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8207/8...a02da0a9_z.jpg
Utrecht Moss by N+C Photo, on Flickr

Noob here too... I love the colors, the lights, and the composition (mostly). I just wish the camera had been pointed up a bit to capture more sky, stars, and that tree to the left - and less of the moss. The out-of-focus foreground is a bit distracting (I just had that same comment delivered to one of my shots). Try cropping up to about that stick and leaf and see if that works better?

Love the moss and d.o.f. Wish the light flares weren't quite so bright. Can't believe how placid the water is.

Excellent shot. I don't mind the out of focus foreground. I actually think it ads to this. Amazing reflection with controlled light. Composition is pretty good also.

As for critique to make this better, first thing I think of is I wish you moved a bit to the left to block that light on the right side. One of the most important aspects to night photography is hiding light sources as best as you can. right now there are two light sources to the left and right of that big tree. I wish the tree was used to hide one of those lights (the one on the right).

Another critique might be the colour temperature. I think a bit more on the blue scale might have helped this. Right now it's very yellow/orange. But it is still pleasing to the eye. The lush green foreground is helped by this colour temperature for sure.

Other than that, everything is pretty much perfect. Love your composition and go at this subject. You've done an awesome job :-)

Dancer - A worthy subject. When I was in Europe, I found the place a Utopia for photography, and this image reinforces that viewpoint.

As for the image, not sure about the out-of-focus foreground, but it's hard to say it would definitely be a better image if it were sharp: one would have to see both side by side to tell.

One issue I do have here is that there is no definite subject, so I find my eyes bouncing around looking for it. The center building is obviously it, but maybe there's too many other things competing for one's attention: the text to the left, the foreground grass, the various lights, etc.

This one may look even better BIG ......
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Great shot, everything looks spot on and love the light flare, only thing that would have made it better would have been moving camera a little more to the right maybe geting less of the tree on the left and more of the canal and tunnel opening. Great shot tho

This is a beautiful photograph. I probably would like to see more of the sky though and less of the out of focus foreground, this is a personal thing though, I just never quite liked that in photographs. Well executed shot of the building though!