Lucky Ducks

[Coastal Flyer]

I know, another bloody sunset. But I wanted to share. This is a lake very near my home here in San Diego.

David

[armando_m]

I like it very much,
I would crop the bottom part where the water starts to get dark

[Lava Lamp]

The next good sunset picture I take will be the first one...

Most of mine are missing something and I'm not sure what. I feel like that about your photo. It needs more color, or more structure/geometry, or something. Maybe if you find it, you can tell me so mine can get better, too.

Thanks for sharing. I put up a new photo of mine below, should you care to offer a comment.

[Coastal Flyer]

Armando/Lava:

Thanks both for leaving the comments. I left the dark bottom on this image as a frame. The edge of the lake, with the trees/bushes is a frame for the bottom of the image. Sunsets are so very hard to take, like flowers and cars, because there are so many images floating around. Who wants to see one more bloody sunset/car/flower picture? I really hesitated to upload this shot, or any sunset shot because of the really high risk associated with it. But, as I said, I just wanted to share. Thanks again.

David

[BlueRob]

That is a nice sunset David and very well achieved IMO.
I agree with Armando all the way...almost half of the picture must go..bottom half that is of course. Crop and just leave the upper "half", that will make a more pleasant proportion and will make the sky the obvious focal point of the composition.

[Coastal Flyer]

Thanks, Blue. I appreciate the careful eye.

David

[daq7]

This is a very good sunset photo, but it is an established fact that I want to kill silhouettes. Even just a touch of brightening of the dark parts would make me happier. Easy to do if you have raw and can do a bit of level painting. You don't want to overdo it, which I usually do.

[Shebang]

Gotta go with the majority on the cropping. I looked and came back. This time I really noticed your title. I'm thinking Ducks?? What ducks? The sunset is the star here, so you ought to play it up.

[Coastal Flyer]

Shebang,

Thanks so much for the comments. I fully understand the cropping suggestions, do not disagree, but my thought was it would be better to have the bottom edge of the lake to provide a boundary to the photo than a seemingly endless behind the viewer. But, again, I appreciate the suggestion; that was why I posted the image.

CF

[BlueRob]

Shebang,

Thanks so much for the comments. I fully understand the cropping suggestions, do not disagree, but my thought was it would be better to have the bottom edge of the lake to provide a boundary to the photo than a seemingly endless behind the viewer. But, again, I appreciate the suggestion; that was why I posted the image.

CF

I see your point there CF....the thing is that having such a strong horizon with the nice silhouettes and colors inevitably dulls the rest of the composition (bottom).
If you want to keep that frame maybe you can "enhance" a bit the bottom with some PP work ....just a thought :thumbsup:

[draymorton]

Fantastic sunset. I actually like what's going on texturally in the lower third.

[daq7]

I have to echo Dray in saying that the texture on the water is really satisfying.

[MarcusK]

Hey there... for some reason I see it as a tad over sharpened... not sure if it's me or the image...

I agree with you I like the dark bottom... it think it's better with it... but that's probably due to the fact that I think it would an amazing HDR photo!!

nice location too!