Distraction

The lighting is dramatic highlighting the grass across the street. Great sidelight. Side? Back? I know… because the sun is directly to the left. Ha!

The point and shoot has an electronic zoom. ?? what do I know or care?! It shoots telephoto. I would never know how or why it is enhanced. Magic! Meanwhile, what I did not notice till editing the shot – there are tree branches distracting the foreground. This shot is otherwise a failure. Hey! What do you expect from a shot thru the window glass from across the street?

Hurricane

 

Technical: Nikon D90, 1.200 sec, f4, focal length 18

Well you can at least tell that this is a stormy day. The lighting belies the storm. I didn’t check but presume you used fill flash as usual. This helps the exposure. But it takes away the gloomy mood of an impending storm. It’s another decision you make as to whether to get a good exposure or to play to the mood of the day. With all those colorful clothes this would not have been a shot to convert to black and white.

Stormy

Technical: Nikon D90, 1.200 sec, f4, focal length 18

Hurricane…not so close to the water as it looks! I like the light here…sand…white caps – Susan

Susan, it’s perspective. A photo is a 2D image and depth of field cannot be accurately gauged on a flat image. So yes, the waves looks closer and the effect is nice. There’s not much texture in the sky, but one can’t complain. You have a good shot of the kids. I presume the wind was not to fierce to be a danger.

Cacti

 

Technical: Canon DSLR

Jennifer went to the zoo and sent me some early edits of her trip. It was the San Diego zoo. I’m a sucker for deep blue sky. The cactus in the foreground is the main subject. The shadows are a problem. Once again the bright background sky is too much for the foreground shadows. It’s otherwise a nice graphical image. And yes, that bright blue sky….

Sky

 

‘Halloween Walk Night Just started to edit…liked the sky!’

Technical: Nikon D90, 1/30 sec, f4.2, focal length 36

Susan, you have mixed light at twilight. It’s a difficult time of day. You have incandescent light and you have sunlight. The sky is too bright so it overpowers the image. It is blown out. To lower the exposure for the sky you would lose the foreground into deep shadow. It’s beyond the capability of the image sensor. Here’s where you might shoot raw or you do a bracketed series of exposures and use HDR. I know that this is too technical. But there’s no practical way to make this image work in one shot. Aim to the left and let the bright sky go. Or move to the right and get a silhouette.

Gloucester, Perfect Storm

Technical: Nikon D90, 1/200 sec, f14, focal length 200

I believe this is the lighthouse from the movie of the same name. Susan got out of the box and racked out to 200mm on the zoom. Still too far away, huh? The image at this distance is a challenge to compose. This is where you crop and take your chances. I would play with contrast and saturation. And then it looks like a good shot to make panoramic. The waves in the foreground are not strong enough to keep. Get a little more punch in the sky and pull in the lighthouse and the boats more. Thanks for sending me this shot. You know I have a soft spot for lighthouses.

 

David, Sarah

Technical: iPhone 4s, 1/913 sec, f2.4, focal length 4.28

I’m not sure if this is a self portrait or it was done by a friend. David’s right arm could be holding the phone. There is background flare which highlight’s Sarah’s hair. The exposure is low in the foreground and probably could have used a fill flash to brighten up the colors and detail. Otherwise for the moment it was a shot of two happy people at a wedding.

Ryan and the Gull

Technical: Nikon D90, 1/400 sec, f10, focal length 70

RYAN CHASING SEAGULLS HE JUST FED THEM GOLDFISH CRACKERS…SO THEY WERE EVERYWHERE!

That’s one way to get the gulls excited. Action! So there’s a choice, Susan. The image is about Ryan flying and copying the gull. If you crop the image and keep just the sand, Ryan, and the gull, it would be a sweet isolation shot. I’m not sure you need the boardwalk or the overexposed sky. Give it a try.

Susan shot Ryan chasing the gulls. Funny, they never catch them. If we could keep up, I’d have shot this one from face on. That would have been a good one. The joy of the moment is represented, though. I wish you could have run a little faster than the kid and the gull. But I doubt I could have done it either.

And before I posted the original, Susan sent me her cropped version. Isn’t it wonderful that she read my mind. Yes, indeed, it’s a stronger image. Good. It’s a real coincidence that her email arrived just moments before this post came out.

Blackfish

Technical: Canon G11, 1/250 sec, f4, focal length 18

We were in a holding pattern at 15 feet to decompress before surfacing. No dice. I popped straight to the surface and couldn’t get my butt down for beans. So I hovered and shot this image. The light is brighter so the shutter speed is faster. There was just no way to coordinate and pose this feeding mass of black fish. Something was tasty on the reef. There’s not too much to love here. You can see an eye or two. The composition is … ugh. There’s not to much detail or color except for the blue edging. I have a lot of these images. I thought to show some mistakes, lest you believe everything comes out great.

Matilda

Technical: Nikon D90, 1/125 sec, f3.5, focal length 18

I like this portrait Susan shot of her grand daughter. The lighting is sweet. There is enough blurring of the background to make it pleasing. Yeah, it could be tweaked a bit. But mostly this is fine. It’s good as a horizontal image. I might crop/zoom closer. But the trade off is to loose the doll. I think it’s an important element. It’s something to think about. What to include or exclude? This is the decision of what the photographer sees to be important to their image. Again, I would encourage experimenting in the camera. Take a couple more images rather than think that you can compensate in Photoshop.