In the Moment:
Michael Frye's Landscape Photography Blog

Weekly Photo Critique: “Pacific Waves” by Jenna Beth Fender

by Michael Frye | May 13, 2010 | Critiques

“Pacific Waves” by Jenna Beth Fender

This week’s photograph was made by Jenna Beth Fender at Manhattan Beach (or maybe Hermosa Beach) in southern California. By having her image chosen for this critique Jenna will receive a free 16×20 matted print from Aspen Creek Photo. To learn how you can submit photos for this series, and possibly win a free print, see the end of this post.

We’ve looked at several images where slow shutter speeds were used to blur the motion of water, but here a fast shutter speed of 1/400 sec. effectively froze the water’s motion, preserving the curling shape of the waves and texture of the water.

Those waves, along with the pier, provide the structure and design of this image, creating three long, slightly diagonal lines running across the frame. The overall composition is clean, simple, and strong, with some interesting details added by the spray, figures, and structural posts underneath the pier.

It was the waves, with their strong lines and almost palpable texture, that originally attracted me to this image. Jenna timed this well, catching both waves as they were curling over. Of course she may have simply held down the shutter button and picked the best one later, but that’s a perfectly valid technique—it’s what I would have done!

While the composition is strong overall, one thing that bothers me slightly is the bright spot in the lower-left corner. Since it’s on the edge it pulls my eye out of the frame. I’d rather see more room along the whole bottom edge of the photo, as that would give more breathing room to the foreground wave, which is such an important part of the composition. As it is, just darkening that lower-left corner would help.

Technically, the exposure looks good overall, although some areas of white water lack detail. The fast shutter speed worked well to freeze motion, but the trade-off was that the short exposure required a medium aperture, f/8, which didn’t provide enough depth of field to keep everything in focus (in a larger view you can see that the foreground wave is slightly soft). This image was captured at 100 ISO; by pushing the ISO up to 400 ISO Jenna could have used the same shutter speed, 1/400 sec., with an f-stop of f/16, getting both the motion-freezing short exposure time along with a small aperture to keep everything in focus. The tradeoff would have been more noise from the higher ISO, but I think the increased sharpness would have been worth the small increase in noise. Also, it would have helped to focus closer to the foreground rather than on the background. I don’t have space here to describe proper focusing technique in detail, but I do so in two of my books, The Photographer’s Guide to Yosemite and Digital Landscape Photography.

There are some hints of magenta/purple along the left edge of the image that seem unnatural and out of place. Jenna told me that she didn’t use any filters or do anything else to the photograph except use the Topaz Adjust filter with the “Photo Pop” option. I haven’t used that software, but I suspect that “Photo Pop” was the culprit in creating those strange colors. In general I’m not a big fan of automated options like this, whether from software plugins, commercially available Lightroom presets, or whatever. Every image is different, and it’s hard to create a standard set of development adjustments that will work on more than a few photographs. While pre-made settings can serve as a starting point, each image must be evaluated and adjusted based on its own unique characteristics.

With that in mind, I took this image into Lightroom and removed some magenta and purple saturation to get rid of the unusual colors. Then I added a lightening S-curve to brighten the photograph and increase the contrast, and also darkened that lower-left corner. While the improvements weren’t dramatic, every bit helps. Here’s the result:

With the magenta cast removed, the lower-left corner darkened, and a bit more contrast added

The great thing about digital technology is that it’s given photographers tremendous control over the appearance of their images. The bad thing about digital technology is that it’s given photographers tremendous control over the appearance of their images. The tools can be used for good or evil—to enhance the expression and meaning of an image, or to ruin an otherwise perfectly good photograph. For better or worse, learning the software tools—and, more importantly, learning the judgement to use them wisely—has become an essential part of photography today.

Having said all that, the slight magenta/purple cast in this image is a minor problem, easily fixed, and overall I like this photograph very much—it has a clean, strong, graphic composition, great texture, and captures the feeling of a southern California beach quite well.

Thanks Jenna for sharing your image! You can see more of her work on Flickr.

As part of being chosen for this week’s critique Jenna will receive a free 16×20 matted print courtesy of the folks at Aspen Creek Photo. If you’d like your images 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 be posting the next critique on May 18th or 19th. Thanks for participating!

Weekly Photo Critique: “Chino Hills SP 1” by Robert Bruns

by Michael Frye | Apr 28, 2010 | Critiques

“Chino Hills SP 1” by Robert Bruns

This week’s photograph was made by Robert Bruns in Chino Hills State Park, California. What initially attracted me to this image was its strong composition. It’s simple and clean, with a prominent focal point—the central trees. It’s full of diagonal lines and triangles: a large, long triangle in the lower-right corner, another in the middle left, a small one behind the trees, more within the trees themselves, and subtle triangles in the negative space of the sky in the upper-left and upper-right corners. It’s very well seen.

I could go on here about another successful violation of the rule of thirds, but I’ll just refer you to previous critiques here and here.

Last week I discussed the conflict that photographers often face between finding a strong composition and conveying a sense of place. Robert managed to walk that line pretty well here—the design is exemplary, and we get a feeling for the kind of area this is, with its dry, grassy hills. Robert said that this area had burned the previous year, and “It was nice to see it coming back to life.”

Technically this is well executed—the exposure looks perfect, and everything appears to be in focus. The white balance looks neutral, but I might prefer something a bit warmer. More contrast would also liven up the image a bit. Here’s a modified version with both warmer color balance and added contrast, plus lightened a bit overall:

Lightened version with warmer color balance and more contrast

Despite the strong composition, and the changes I made, this image still seems to be missing something. I enjoy contemplating the design, but it’s not the kind of photograph that makes you stand up and say “Wow!” Yet it’s hard to find ways to improve it. One issue is the subject. A strong design can sometimes overcome an ordinary subject, and nearly did here, but not enough to completely captivate me. The other problem is the light—it’s rather bland. Some warm, low-angle sunlight would be perfect. I think low frontlight would be best, but sidelight or backlight might also work.

Of course you can’t always catch perfect light, but I suspect that Robert lives close to this spot, since not many out-of-state visitors put Chino Hills on their itinerary. And while Chino Hills may not be Yosemite, any natural place—heck any place, period—has its charms. And proximity is a great advantage—you can return repeatedly, learn where some of the best locations and subjects are, get to know the weather patterns, and plan to come back to certain spots when the light and weather are right.

I think we all make better photographs of places and subjects that we know well, and that we’re passionate about. Sometimes I hear people say that it’s easy to take good pictures in Yosemite: ”Just point the camera anywhere.” But if you’ve tried to make good photographs of this park you know how untrue that statement is. It can be very difficult to convey the beauty and grandeur of such a place in a photograph. If I’ve had any success at it, it’s because I know Yosemite well, and I’m passionate about it.

The New Jersey shore might seem like a far cry from Yosemite. But one of my online students last year showed many beautiful images of that coastline. They had great color, and a wonderful feeling of space and light. He knew the area well, loved it, and it showed.

Another student once showed me a portfolio of landscape photographs. They seemed rather ordinary. Then, almost as an afterthought, he showed photographs of his kids—and they were great. This was clearly a subject that he was passionate about.

So photograph places and subjects that you know and love. Your passion and knowledge will make the mundane seem magical. And it helps if you can work close to home, and visit your subjects again and again.

Thanks Robert for sharing your image! You can see more of his work on Flickr.

I’ll be taking next week off to teach a workshop, but will post another critique on May 11th or 12th.

As part of being chosen for this week’s critique Robert will receive a free 16×20 matted print courtesy of the folks at Aspen Creek Photo. If you’d like your images 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 be posting the next critique on May 11th or 12th. Thanks for participating!

Weekly Photo Critique: “Rock Creek—Beautiful Stream” by Steve Williams

by Michael Frye | Apr 21, 2010 | Critiques

I’m pleased to announce that, beginning this week, each person who’s image is selected for a critique will receive a free 16×20 matted print courtesy of the folks at Aspen Creek Photo. Aspen Creek was created by Rich and Susan Seiling, the founders of West Coast Imaging. I’ve used West Coast Imaging for all my drum scans, and know they set high standards and produce great results. Aspen Creek Photo offers excellent prints, similar in many ways to the high-end work produced at West Coast Imaging, at very affordable prices.

Now, on to the critique… This week’s photograph was made by Steve Williams along Rock Creek, on the eastern slope of my home mountain range, the Sierra Nevada. The small cascade is an intriguing subject, and the slow shutter speed (1/2 second) that Steve chose works well, giving the water that silky, flowing look, and creating a contrast in textures betweensmooth, ethereal water and solid rocks and grasses. There’s a nice, quiet, intimate feeling to the image; it seems like a peaceful place that I would enjoy spending time at.

A small aperture, f/20, kept everything in focus. At first glance the exposure seemed a bit dark to me, and the white balance looked too blue—the white water, or what should be white water, has a distinct blue cast. Using the eyedropper tool in Lightroom, I clicked on the white water, and that made an immediate improvement. The photograph seems warmer, the colors livelier, and the scene more inviting. This color temperature change also boosted the red and green channels, making the image appear brighter as well as warmer. The exposure now looks perfect.

How you handle white balance (or color temperature, or color balance) depends, to a great degree, on whether you’re shooting Raw or JPEG. With Raw the white balance isn’t set in the camera, so it’s easy to adjust later in software. I always shoot in Raw, and usually just leave the camera set to automatic white balance, because it’s a simple matter to make corrections later in Lightroom with the eyedropper or color temperature slider. If the color balance might be tricky, as when photographing flowers or fall foliage at dusk, I include a white or gray card in one of the frames, then click on that card with the Eyedropper later in Lightroom and apply that same white balance setting to the other images made in the same light.

With JPEGs the white balance is set in the camera. While you can adjust it later in software, big changes can be problematic, so it becomes more critical to get it right in the field. You’ll need to set the white balance manually more often.

When you do need to adjust the white balance of a JPEG in software, it’s much easier to do so in Lightroom or Camera Raw, using that Eyedropper tool and the Color Temperature slider, than in Photoshop proper. (To open JPEGs in Camera Raw, select the image in Bridge, then choose File > Open in Camera Raw.)

Changing the white balance in this photograph made a big improvement, but the composition still seemed a bit messy. Edges are always critical, and there are a number of objects here that are half-in, half-out of the frame, including the tips of two branches on the left edge, a rock just above them, and a rock along the bottom edge. The lower-right corner also seems a bit cluttered.

With that in mind I cropped this into a vertical, including just the cascade and the far bank. This was better, but it still seemed like there was something missing. When in doubt I ask myself what catches my eye the most. In this case the answer was easy: the flowing water. So I made several other, tighter crops, picking out interesting sections of the small rapid.

While Steve’s original composition is not exactly a wide, sweeping landscape, it does capture enough of the scene to give us some sense of place—a quiet, grass-lined creek. While I think my tighter crops are stronger designs, they lose some of that feeling and sense of place. This points to a dilemma that photographers often confront. We may prefer to capture a wider view, one that shows what an area looks like. Sometimes we can do so and make a clean, strong composition in the process, but often that wide view includes extraneous clutter. If we pick out a detail, a small piece of that scene, we can often make a strong design out of it, but then lose the context and sense of place.

So what do you do? Capture both. Take the wide view, but then keep looking, and find those interesting details.

When evaluating the images later, you’ll probably find the abstract close-ups more compelling. In photography, design always trumps subject. There’s something about interesting lines, shapes, and patterns that catches our attention and intrigues us as viewers. A photograph needs an incredibly compelling subject—like an exploding volcano, or a wolf dragging down a caribou—to overcome poor design.

One more thing: By making these crops I’m trying to show alternate compositions, things that might have worked better than the original image, and trying to give you ideas for finding better compositions in the field. But I don’t mean to suggest that it’s okay to be sloppy, to capture a wide view with the intention of cropping later. Removing large sections of an image throws away too many of those megapixels you’ve paid so much for, leaving you with a low-resolution image that can’t be enlarged. While minor trimming is fine, it’s always better to frame the scene as precisely as possible in the camera, and keep as much of that precious resolution as possible.

Fourth crop

Thanks Steve for sharing your image! You can see more of his work on Flickr.

As part of being chosen for this week’s critique Steve will receive a free 16×20 matted print courtesy of the folks at Aspen Creek Photo. If you’d like your images 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 be posting the next critique on April 27th or 28th. Thanks for participating!