looking for advice
- This topic has 5 replies, 4 voices, and was last updated Jun 24, 2007 at 4:27 pm by
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Posts
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Great first effort. The tilted horizon is a real distraction and I would prefer to see more of the fish. Other than that, very nice!
Thanks Richard….I tried to straighten out the horizon with photoshop but when I did it I cut off the top of the rod.
Hi Connor,
That’s a good start !
I love wide lenses for fishing photography, they put the viewer in the picture.
The other thing you need to cover in fishing stuff is the detail, like pix of flys and fish close up, a good lens for that is a macro from 60 – 100 MM depending on your frame size.You should learn as much as you can about Photoshop, it’s the industry standard.
A great website with heaps of tutorials:
http://luminous-landscape.com/Have fun!
www.dsaphoto.com
A picture is thousand words that takes less than a second while a thousand words is a picture that takes a month.
By know means am I great landscape photographer so please, take this more as an offer of opinion with a token grain of salt: opposed to any standard set of rules for landscape photography.
The greatest thing about landscape photography is the fact that the composition for the shot is already there. All the photographer has to do is find the best angle, lenses, lighting and camera settings to capture it. Much more difficult than just the simple words may imply. I can tell by looking at all of your photographs that you do have a very good eye for this but as I stated above, capturing it onboard the camera is and can be very difficult. As Richard stated and you noted, the landscape horizon is tilted and due to this, it does create a distraction from your subject.
With the mention of subject, you must really look at your photography and define the elements of it properly as there are many different types of disciplines. Not only are you doing landscape photography, you have also incorporated people photography and action photography into your compositions of landscape photography: 3 different disciplines and one is not necessarily the best for all three, it is a blend of rules here and you are doing well. It is easy to see what you were going for and simply need some tweaks and additional rules with tips and techniques to reproduce what you saw and wanted when you first snapped the shutter and/or to better reproduce a better subject focal point in your compositions. Remember that some of the best photographs are taken from broken rules but I feel it is important to know the basic rules so that they can be broken and controlled purposely. Tips and techniques are priceless as they do help tremendously, like the one David mentioned of using fill flash, in your other photograph of the person sitting on the bow of the boat, in broad daylight.
Apply the rule of thirds to setting up your photography, not so that you get caught up into a cookie cutter style of photography but so that it helps you to study and analyze all components of your compositions. Again; you have landscape, people and action in this one shot. The landscape is amazing but the image, as noted by Richard and yourself, is tilted and distracts from that element. People: I think that you did a great job and placed your arm and the fly rod in a captivating placement for this photograph. Action: The fish is lost as it is to close to the arm and end of the fly rod. As Richard stated, it would have been much better to see more of it and perhaps closer to the cross bars of the lower 1/3 to the right of the photograph. Also, I must mention that I really like the composition and placement of the ice in this photograph: That is so cool!!!!
You will find that professional photographers will take many pics of the same composition, on purpose and by plan. If there is some sort of action involved and if the opportunity alows, they will click as fast as they can and not move the camera until several have been taken. Think of it as one chance to capture that perfect memory and are you willing to leave it up to a one shot deal. Luck is far too important if one only sets the composition into frame and snaps one shot. By looking at this photograph, I cannot help but feel that if you were going by a multiple shots per planned composition that you would have caught one image that would have had the fish in a much better position and perhaps a better aligned horizon. Important to mention that this practice of multiple shots is not a way of handicapping an amateur photographer as it is much more that a professional knows better than just capturing one or a couple of shots. It is much better and more advantageous to pick the best from multiple images of the same composition. Never leave the memory to chance with limited choices.
Study your finished and final selected photograph for a long period and analyze where your eyes want to wonder in the composition. Question yourself as to rather it distracts your eyes from the intended focal point and takes away from the composition or not. If it does, remove it through cropping or cloning in Photoshop.
Learn to use the manual enhancements in Photoshop; the automated features should never be used for several reasons. 2 of them are the fact that in many cases they can really mess up a section or the entirety of your image and 2nd, you are enhancing a photograph the way that a programmer wanted it and not you. Also learn to use the adjustment filters in layers, this is where all of your enhancements should be made as it is far more forgiving to making mistakes and over correcting. Use the crop tool or selection tool to capture the completed image in the best crop possible, this is another place where you can again apply the rule of thirds.
As I stated, these are all just opinions and not an application of stoned advice. If it was all easy then photography would be a real bore. Much more complicated than what I have written but one of the most rewarding things that a person can do in this life. Photography is much like fly fishing where one really celebrates that perfect catch from a perfect cast and presentation. As they are limited moments, a better average in quality can be achieved through application, planning and remembering what was wrong in the last catch…
I have to say this as well… I really do like your photography as I can see the types of shots that you were going for in them.
“Sorry this was so long”
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