Landscape and a thought.

Kodak 14N and Nikkor 28-105D

I seem to be entirely incapable of landscape photography.

I had a thought, with most of the UKNP daytrips the main aim is usually one or two main species, how about a landscape daytrip? I think i and maybe a few others who dont usually do landscape would be interested in some help?

Well Paul you could start with this image by chopping off much of the top to just above the trees. The sky is not helpful and the fog/low cloud is to far away. Up the contrast to give it some punch trying USM at 40.40.0. I know that may come a s a shock but believe me the difference is unbelievable

This image has potential. Hope you repost as I don't edit and post the work of others.

I cannot repost, but here is a link to the reprocessed image. Any better?
http://images.fotopic.net/dl-v2/size=100/quality=90/yr2kfc_5cb4f97af6bec98d.jpg

The 40 40 0 seems a little ott to my taste?

Oh one thing i didnt post about the image. ISO6

I took this a few minutes later which, works for me, but is it a landscape?

http://images.fotopic.net/dl-v2/size=20/quality=90/yr2hp8.jpg

Will do a Landscape day next year ---

T

Hi Paul,

No expert either. But agree with suggestions/recrop. A landscape day next year is a great idea, this is an area of my photography that I really want to expand upon.

Regards

Rob

Compositionally, this feels OK with some good diagonal lines from the hill and the stream. It could do with a stronger foreground focal point. The recropped version is better but it is always going to be a struggle with this one because of the available light when you took it - all that grey cloud has led to a lack of contrast in the scenery and hence a muddy looking image. If it were mine and I wanted to do more to it, I'd run Photomatix on it using the detail enhancer - this would enhance the local contrast and bring out the detail in the grasses and rocks in the stream (you can do this manually in photoshop but it takes a lot of time to get in looking as good). I'd cut a fraction off the bottom to lose the couple of half pebbles bottom left and to get the clump of grass properly in the corner and I'd make the contrast high on that grass detail to make it a focal point. I'd also burn the sky in as a band just along the very top of the image so that there is a barrier to stop the eye going out of the picture (something you see old darkroom practioners do routinely) - at the moment the sky is the brighest part of the image and so the eye will always be pulled away from the river and the detail that you want people to look at. The end effect wouldn't be subtle, but that stems from the lack of light. You can be more subtle if the light is great because there is far more detail to start off with. Landscape photography is hard because there are so many elements that are out of your control, especially the weather, and the best practioners will be waiting for hours to days sometimes at a given location, waiting for the light. So it is not necessarily a lack of compositional skills or poor technique leading to your frustration !

Duncan

I don't know what happened to your mods Paul but I agree the results are not good however here is my effort. All I did was USM 40,40,0 Must admit that the image looks great in PS but when I saved for Web devices I had to lighten it a bit as for some reason it went very dark.

If you prefer then I will delete my post.

Duncan's comments are oh so true. It's all about light.

I think its an interesting image, the comments about selectively dodging and burning are very on point, its very easy to over do it with overall contrast. The stong diagonal and stream give it some good interest and I think the tonality is nice, it just needs a little cropping and some selective contrast. Well done though

I would be very interested in a landscape day, hope it can be arranged.

Cheers

Paul