Hi Graeme,
I'll leave the serious critiquing to the landscape experts but I rekon it looks pretty good and your blending technique is way better than mine
I think the shooting height is pretty good as it has allowed some seperation between the main foreground rock and the smaller one in the middle distance.I also feel that the lone foreground rock helps emphasize the vastness and,I guess, bleakness,of the place,at times.
It doesn't look as if the foreground rock is that close to your camera so perhaps choosing a larger aperture such as f11 may have been all that's needed to keep the foreground and distant hills in sharp focus. This would have had the advantage of squeezing just a little more detail and sharpness from the scene (not that it looks unsharp) by avoiding the effects of diffraction softening the image slightly.
All in all a pretty good shot of what looks like quite a tricky place to do justice too.
Posted by Andy Astbury on October 27, 2007 at 7:56 PM
Well there's a line of rocks leading the eye into the image, we've got a sweeping landscape, we've got a fairly dramatic sky and hell we've even got GODRAYS - well one at least
The only nit I would have Graeme is the tiny copse on the right - for me it looks a bit distracting because its a feture that runs out of the frame - but that's just me being picky
Posted by David Kjaer on October 28, 2007 at 5:46 AM
Hi Graeme
Great sky but I agree with you that the image is a little flat and I feel the FG interest is not strong enough!
David
Posted by David Clapp on October 28, 2007 at 7:01 AM
It has the right elements but it does look a little flat. It doesnt look like it was a particularly inspiring day, the blend has definately worked ok, its just the subject matter that is a little empty. Could badly do with some web sharpening though...
The moors are a weird place to photograph. You need bold composition and visual anchors to hold your focus but these can be haphazard and difficult to compose. I went up there on Thursday, walked about 5 miles took about 30images and threw them all in the bin besides three and they are crap. The problem is actually saying "Dartmoor" in an image. There are some choice places to visit that have a better chance of success, but this place that you photographed (I know exactly where it is) is a wide and baron expanse of land that is a wonder to behold but would require some very different thinking behind the camera.
You need to bring what is in the distance closer to the viewer, I would suggest cracking open that birding lens if anthing and concentrating on the tor in the distance. A wider angle shot like this doesnt work so well as it pushes everything on the horizon further away. The only options I can see would have been to choose a greater focal length and bring the distant tor into the shot. The other option would have been to use the bird lens to make a panorama as your eyes will lend themselves to this horizontal format wherever you look. Not too far from here is Merrivale stone row, thats a good wide angle composition worht trying and its only 300 paces from the car.
I agree with all that David has listed, some good ideas. For me the main thing here is that it really does need much stronger foreground interest. I'd also suggest possibly loosing the colour in situations like this - b&w can be very powerful in desolate places such as this so is worth exploring. Tristan
Posted by Graeme Lee on October 29, 2007 at 1:18 PM
Thanks for the comments. If I am going to achieve the type of images I want, I need to think a bit more behind the camera. It's a whole different ball game to my other stuff I do, and it doesn't come natually, that's the problem. I had a look on the net at some Dartmoor images and I found a lot that were very uninspiring and these seem to be due to the reasons you've stated. So thanks again. But at least it's improving....arguably slightly
Graeme, Dave steer you in right direction with his critique. Since you are bird photographer your "photographic field of view" is probably quite narrow. For long time I was unable to see a composition wider than 200 mm and I still use 500 mm for landscapes quite a bit. It's just my way of seeing. So don't try to force yourself into doing something that's out of your comfort zone right now. Landscape photography needs to get under your skin like bird photography did some time ago.
Cheers,
Marko
Posted by Graeme Lee on October 30, 2007 at 7:45 PM
Thanks Marko. I know what you mean.... I'm very interested and inspired by this landscape business but it doesn't come naturally like you say.... i'll persist as it does really interest me greatly
Discussion
8 repliesAgain interested in the composition and any help would be appreciated
Graeme
2 images blended (Thanks David Clapp! for blending advice - shame I can't execute it properly
I'll leave the serious critiquing to the landscape experts but I rekon it looks pretty good and your blending technique is way better than mine
I think the shooting height is pretty good as it has allowed some seperation between the main foreground rock and the smaller one in the middle distance.I also feel that the lone foreground rock helps emphasize the vastness and,I guess, bleakness,of the place,at times.
It doesn't look as if the foreground rock is that close to your camera so perhaps choosing a larger aperture such as f11 may have been all that's needed to keep the foreground and distant hills in sharp focus. This would have had the advantage of squeezing just a little more detail and sharpness from the scene (not that it looks unsharp) by avoiding the effects of diffraction softening the image slightly.
All in all a pretty good shot of what looks like quite a tricky place to do justice too.
The only nit I would have Graeme is the tiny copse on the right - for me it looks a bit distracting because its a feture that runs out of the frame - but that's just me being picky
Great sky but I agree with you that the image is a little flat and I feel the FG interest is not strong enough!
David
The moors are a weird place to photograph. You need bold composition and visual anchors to hold your focus but these can be haphazard and difficult to compose. I went up there on Thursday, walked about 5 miles took about 30images and threw them all in the bin besides three and they are crap. The problem is actually saying "Dartmoor" in an image. There are some choice places to visit that have a better chance of success, but this place that you photographed (I know exactly where it is) is a wide and baron expanse of land that is a wonder to behold but would require some very different thinking behind the camera.
You need to bring what is in the distance closer to the viewer, I would suggest cracking open that birding lens if anthing and concentrating on the tor in the distance. A wider angle shot like this doesnt work so well as it pushes everything on the horizon further away. The only options I can see would have been to choose a greater focal length and bring the distant tor into the shot. The other option would have been to use the bird lens to make a panorama as your eyes will lend themselves to this horizontal format wherever you look. Not too far from here is Merrivale stone row, thats a good wide angle composition worht trying and its only 300 paces from the car.
Hope all this helps!
Cheers,
Marko