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Early last week, Connecticut was blanketed in a thin layer of snow, followed by rain which quickly froze. Ice was on everything! Everywhere you looked, everything was coated in ice. Although it wasn’t optimal living conditions (we had to bang through ice to get into cars and house, etc.), we saw some of the most dazzling sights we’ve ever experienced! 🙂 It was a true winter wonderland. It’s times like these that your breath is taken away in the wonder of our God and His creative beauty.
But, how to capture it in camera? I had perhaps the most invigorating, yet frustrating photo shoots those few days. It was so pretty – there were little sparkles of rainbows in the ice one day. I think I somewhat captured the sparkly feel in close up shots, but sadly I don’t think I quite got it in the “big picture” shots.
So, critique away! I took sooo many pictures, but here’s a small sampling of some of them. Specs included in filenames.
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Incredible!
Feel free to ask me more about these photos in the webinar later this month, but here’s what comes to mind with the shots you’ve shown us here!
1. Neat composition for adding text to the image up in the sky. The blown out whites in the ice give the positive impression that the ice is sparkling. Sky feels grayish on my screen. Maybe edit to saturate it more and maybe make the highlights glow a little (by reducing Clarity a touch or something).
2. Love this shot! Well composed. Such an amazing scene!! I notice the incredible amount of ice. And the many branches on the ground contribute to the story and don’t look cluttered, almost look more like a pattern in the snow. May have tried to do what I could do to make the eye be more attracted to the end of the “tunnel”.
3. An interesting shot because of the ice again, it’s nice and noticeable. Not sure what subject takes first place. Maybe go vertical looking straight up any one of the two trees.
4. My absolute favorite! I think the best I’ve ever seen you’ve submitted! So sharp and clear and bright and contrasty all at once! I want this one as my desktop background. Great choice of aperture to get the background blurry and the light kinda sparkling like that.
5. Great same concept as the previous shot but not as bright. Neat composition, different than most branch pictures where the arch normally bows upward instead of downward. Background feels “blank” and not as good contrast against the subject like #4.
Really, REALLY impressed with your shots, @bennett-family. Great work!
Thank you for your very encouraging critique, @jamesstaddon!
Some follow-up questions and comments:
1. In editing, I was not always sure how to determine what saturation or what temperature the picture should be, other than just eyeing it. Also, how to know how much blown out highlights are fine to have in the picture. Any tips on that? And how would reducing Clarity help the highlights glow?
2. I’m glad you notice the ice in this picture! When I look at it, it looks blah because I remember how overwhelmingly dazzling it was in person, and I don’t particularly feel that in looking at the picture. 🙂 In what ways do you think I could’ve led the eye through the scene better (like to the end of the path)?
3. A crop something like what I’ve attached?
4. Thanks! I was super excited about that one – I couldn’t believe the way the sparkles came out! (Go ahead and use it as a desktop background if you want :p)
Actually I submitted a bunch of these to Lightstock, and I was surprised that some, like this one, weren’t accepted. I wasn’t quite sure why.5. Similar to what I asked about #1, is there a good way to determine how bright or dark the picture should be, other than just eyeing it?
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Actually I submitted a bunch of these to Lightstock, and I was surprised that some, like this one, weren’t accepted. I wasn’t quite sure why.
Quick update: I found out why! I had trouble uploading a bunch of my photos, and many of them had failed to upload. 🙂 So I just have to retry that. Also, I figured out where I can see which photos they rejected and where they say the reason they rejected them.
@bennett-family If you go to “Your Dashboard”, click “my photos” you can filter your results and select “declined”. You can see which ones they declined but they don’t say why. Hope that helps!
@elianafranzenburg, yes I discovered that last night. Actually you can see why they declined them; if you click on the individual photo, below it says “Reject Reason:” and then whatever the reason was. That was super helpful to discover!
Great followup questions. Will reply in the webinar tonight (https://www.lenspiration.com/photo-critique-with-lenspiration-feb-12/) and if I don’t get around to it then I’ll just type out a reply here.
Fantastic discussions last night, @bennett-family! Here’s a replay link to the webinar if you ever want it: https://www.lenspiration.com/video/webinar021219/
It was an excellent webinar! Thank you again so much! I think that it was one of the most insightful webinars yet for me as far as actually learning new technical information in an extremely practical way. And perfect internet was a plus, too! 😀 I had a lot of questions answered, so I’m really grateful for that!
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