"Subway 1" by Jason Chinn, original version
Thanks to all of you who continue to submit photographs for this critique. The Flickr pool keeps growing, and many more outstanding images have been added to the collection.
This week’s photo is by Jason Chinn from the Subway in Zion National Park. I chose it because it’s a beautiful photograph, with many lessons to impart, and also because the Subway is a special place to me. My wife Claudia and I hiked to the Subway back in 1988 when hardly anyone knew about it. Four miles of thrashing through brush and sloshing up the stream led us to this unique and beautiful place—a slot canyon that widens at the bottom into a tube (hence the name). I still have a couple of 35 mm slides from that day.
I like many things about this image, but let’s start with what’s not there. In his comments on Flickr Jason says that this was made on a cloudy day, and he was disappointed that he didn’t find the “Subway glow.” (Here’s one example of this, or go to Flickr and do a search with the words “Subway” and “Zion.”) Personally, I don’t miss that glow in this photograph. The swirling yellow leaves in the water make this image more interesting than most of the other Subway renditions I’ve seen, and the “glow” might have been just be a distraction here.
Jason’s photograph has an appealing color palette, with yellows, rusty oranges, and greens. The composition also has a nice rhythm and flow; the stream coming in from the left leads your eye to the yellow leaves, and then to the tube of the Subway, plus there are many circles and curved lines that echo each other throughout the frame. The swirling leaves add a nice sense of movement.
I appreciate the fact that Jason didn’t try to pump up the color too much. I see many over-saturated, over-manipulated images on Flickr and elsewhere, but here I think the saturation seems just about right, and the photograph looks natural.
One thing I noticed is that the color balance, or white balance, seems a bit too blue. There’s a bluish tint to the water in the lower-left corner, as well as a hint of blue in the rocks near the top of the frame. Also, the bright rocks at the top-center of the photo pull my eye away from more interesting things in the middle of the picture. To a lesser extent this is also true of the bright rocks and water at the left edge. In this next version (Version B) I’ve warmed up the color balance and darkened the top and left sides of the image. (I did this in Lightroom, but you could easily do the same thing in Photoshop.) To me the result seems more coherent:
Version B, with warmer color balance and top and left edges darkened
The top and bottom of the frame still bother me though. The bright rock above the Subway at the top-center still grabs attention, and the image needs more room at the bottom, as the base of the little waterfall in the lower-left corner is cut off, and I’d like to see more of that circle of swirling leaves along the bottom edge. A wider lens would’ve helped, but looking at the EXIF data tells me that this was made with a 17 mm lens, which was probably as wide as Jason could go. Still, just pointing the camera down slightly would have lessened the space devoted to the distracting rock at the top, and shown more of the waterfall and circle of leaves at the bottom. I wonder if it would also have been possible to take a step back. Given what we have to work with here, I’ve cropped this image to eliminate some of the rock at the top of the frame (Version C). I think this works a little better, but I’m not sure. What do you think? And while you’re at it, what do you think of the other changes I made?
Version C, with the top edge cropped
Jason says that he used a polarizing filter to cut some of the reflections on the rocks and slow down the shutter speed, allowing him to blur the motion of the leaves (the polarizer cuts two stops of light, so acts like a neutral-density filter). The shutter speed was 2 seconds at f/14 and 100 ISO. A slower shutter speed would have added more motion and accentuated the swirling effect in the leaves. This could have been done by stopping down the aperture to f/22 and lowering the ISO to 50, cutting 2 1/3 stops of light and allowing a shutter speed of 10 seconds.
Despite my nitpicks I think this is a very nice photograph. In landscape photography we often set out with an idea in mind, but frequently the light and weather don’t cooperate. Rather than bemoan what’s not there, look around and ask yourself what is there. What’s special, unique, and interesting about this particular place at this particular time? Jason did just that. He was hoping to see the Subway “glow,” but clouds prevented that, so he looked around, found these pools filled with yellow leaves, and made them the centerpiece of his composition. He may have been disappointed, but personally I like this result better.
We often edit our own images with these preconceived ideas in mind. After spending time and energy to bring a concept to life, it’s easy to believe that the result is better than it is. On the other hand, we’re likely to overlook a photograph that’s didn’t match our expectations. Time and distance help. Days, weeks, or months later we’re better at judging our images objectively.
Thank you Jason for sharing your photograph! You can see more of his work on Flickr.
If you’d like your photographs considered for future critiques, just upload them to the Flickr group I created for this purpose. If you’re not a Flickr member yet, joining is free and easy. You’ll have to read and accept the rules for the group before adding images, and please, no more than five photos per person per week. I’ll post the next critique on February 9th or 10th. Thanks for participating!
Tags: critique, Landscape Photography, Michael Frye, Photography
I like the small changes you made. It is a difficult scene to compose, I would have tried a lower placement of the camera, if possible even a few feet, the tried to get more of the lower pool and yellow leaves making them the focal point. Not able to that I would be tempted to crop even more off the top and a bit more off left side Trying to focus more on the yellows and the water flow.
All too often, as you observed we travel to a place and end up disappointed because of the hype generated from someone’s image. It takes time to walk to a place for a chance to grab a chance a specific image. Often we rush by other places and miss them. The lighting and composition of the landscape changes from minute to minute and is never repeated identically again.
Michael,
Thank you again for your critique on my Subway picture. I can’t tell you how invaluable this critique is to me improving my photography and taking it to the next level. I thought I would briefly comment on some of the critiques.
The first comment, regarding the waterfall being cut-off is spot on. I can’t tell you how much this bugs me as well and almost didn’t submit this shot for that reason alone. However, if I remember correctly, if I tilted the camera down anymore, I would’ve included a bit of the rock ledge I was standing on and thought it would be distracting. If I extended the camera out more and then tilted down or panned left, the picture wouldn’t be wide enough for my liking and weird stuff would creep into view in the lower left of the frame. I totally agree that it would’ve been nice to include the whole falls in the picture along with more of the spinning leaves however I couldn’t find a way to do it.
Also I wanted to slow the shutter more such as decreasing aperture, however I’m kind of freaked out (maybe obsessed) with the laws of diffraction and didn’t want to go more than f/16 on a full frame sensor. Maybe I obsess too much about this and shouldn’t worry about such things.
The comments such as distracting bright rocks on the top and the blue cast are duly noted and probably a factor of my novice post processing skills. I much prefer your final version (C?) to the original I posted on Flickr.
Again thanks so much for taking the time out of your busy schedule to critique a stranger’s photo. This is such tremendous help to us amateur’s and I encourage others like myself to submit your pictures for critique.
Best,
Jason
Thanks for chiming in Bob and Jason.
Bob, you have some interesting ideas about the composition. You’re right, it was a difficult scene to compose. Your thought about cropping more off the left led me to thinking that this could have been a vertical, actually eliminating the small waterfall in the lower-left and focusing on the pools of leaves. That would have been a very different photo — not necessarily better, but different.
Jason, you’re welcome, I’m happy to do it, and your photo worked very well for this. Thanks for explaining some of your composition dilemmas. We’ve all faced situations like this, where no matter what you try there’s something not quite right. Sometimes there really isn’t a good solution, and you do the best you can. As for the aperture, I don’t know what lens you were using. My Canon 17-40 f/4 is actually sharper in the corners at f/22 than any other aperture – maybe a little softer in the middle, but I’d rather have sharp corners and a slightly softer middle than sharp middle and fuzzy corners. In any case I wouldn’t be afraid to lose a little overall sharpness to gain something more important, like a better blur on those leaves. At the least you could try it both ways and decide which compromise works best later. Don’t forget that your camera can go to 50 ISO too. And thanks again for sharing this image!
BTW there’s an interesting comment from Sudhi K on my Facebook site as well:
http://www.facebook.com/pages/Michael-Frye-Photography/251891706022
Beautiful image, Jason, and wonderful critique, Michael. I agree with the edits you made, Michael, esp. “warming” up the overall pic. I also like the crops, though the idea of taking it a step further does have merit. I played with a square crop in LR and uploaded the pic here:
http://picasaweb.google.com/AlphaGAHoo/MFWeeklyCrit?authkey=Gv1sRgCNnt_5XW8Yr2nQE&feat=directlink
The original image is such a visual feast that I can see why Jason might’ve struggled with the composition. As Bob implied, “oh if we were all so lucky to struggle like this on a routine basis!”
Thanks Lou for your comments. Your square crop is interesting. This is similar to what I had in mind when I talked about a vertical composition in my previous comment. But seeing that, I think it loses something without that stream and waterfall on the left.
This reminds me of something I meant to say in my last comment, which is that since that waterfall in the lower-left corner is so problematic, one way of dealing with it is to darken it, especially along its bottom edge. That goes for the circle of leaves along the bottom of the frame as well, since there’s a bright reflection on it. I didn’t try this in the variations I posted in the blog because I was thinking that I’d like to see more of these areas, but if we can’t see more, and if they can’t be cropped without losing something, the other solution is to darken them.
A word of caution: Although I doubt Jason will mind in this case, his photo is copyrighted. I have his permission to use it on this blog, but that doesn’t mean that anyone is free to use it. As someone who makes his living from copyrighted photographs, I make sure I respect other’s rights in this area. I think most photographers would not want their images used without their permission, and can understand and appreciate other’s rights and wishes. So in the future, if you want to try cropping or otherwise altering someone’s photo featured in these critiques, or elsewhere for that matter, please ask their permission first.
Jason, I often give myself a little kick in the pants about not extending the f-stop as well. But what I’ve told myself is to make sure I fully explore the scene and that also means trying other exposure combinations while I have the shot on the tripod and my composition made.
Rosemary
Thanks for the additional insight re: options on Jason’s image.
Thank you too for the reminder re: the copyright.
Jason, the link in my post is to a private album so only readers of Michael’s critique blog would see it. If you’d prefer that I remove the photo/link entirely, I’ll take care of this pronto. As I hope people will respect the copyright on my images, my intention is to do the same.
This article was helpful in a paper I am writing for my thesis.
Thanks
Bernice Franklin
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