submission 001

 

General Comments:

The photograph is an impressive combination of big landscape, water and focal point interest (the kayak).  My comments are aimed at maximising the impact of these various factors, as the most successful photographs tend to do this, to make them stand apart from “average” photographs. 

The slope of the high peak in shadow looks unusually blue, not entirely natural, but it does work to offset the yellow kayak by providing colour contrast (yellow and blue are complementary colours).

I tend to look for a great background (the mountain within the v of the treed slopes) and then a subject to put in the foreground (to create depth).  The kayak is a great subject and its relative small size helps to create height in the mountains…more important here than “depth” by which I mean the sense of something close to the camera as well as something in the distance (to create the illusion of 3-dimensions).   

 

Comments related to numbers on the photograph:

 

  1. The kayak is definitely the focal point of this photograph (the point to which your eye moves and rests on), and if you had waited a bit the kayak would have been at the position where the left hand treed slope meets the water, and this would have helped lead the eye to it and thereby strengthen the focal point.  In general terms you basically want to place the subject where some lines meet to increase impact.  I’ve done this on the modified photograph to demonstrate the effect.  I suggest that everything around the focal point should benefit the picture in some way, and that you try to simplify photographs by cutting out as much busy-ness as possible, and by searching out clean scenes (which you have done well here).

Examples of items contributing to busy scenes are power lines, arbitary poles, anything distinct but not recognisable, cut-off subjects, areas of shadow and light…the list is potentially long!  But again, this is a good example of a clean image, whereas photograph002 is not as good from this point of view.

 

 

  1. This is more a technical issue, but it looks as if there might be a touch of camera shake (the details (eg in the trees) lack crispness…but I realise you have sized the image down so I can’t confirm).  If so, then this requires that you use a higher shutter speed than you did here, or support the camera better.  I would be tempted to fit a removable tripod head on my kayak for these sort of opportunities, but getting your arms in a good stable position is generally sufficient (on flat water…).

 

  1. Changing the format of the photograph is in my opinion the biggest single difference you can make here.  Holding the camera vertically and zooming in slightly accentuates the height of the mountain in the back…whilst still retaining the steepness of the treed slopes down to the water.  Again, I have cropped the modified image accordingly. 

 

When presented with any landscape the biggest challenge is to select what to put in the photograph, and what to leave out.  The more you leave out and still say what you want to with the image, then the louder it will say it! 

 

I hope this helps.  It is easy to over-analyse and become unnecessarily critical, so I try to concentrate on the main aspects of a photograph.  Let me know if you have any questions, and best wishes for continued enjoyment of your photography.

 

Bruce Mortimer.

8 July 2010.