Ooycz #4

Kinkajou

What do you think, is this silhouette-y enough?

kdotaylor

I think it's silhouette-y enough! Beautiful....I like the sun flare.

grandmaR

yes although not so much of a fan of the sun flare.

JAG

You might play with the crop some and remove the top portion to just barely above the top of the tree. Also I would remove the sun spot on the right as it is distracting. Maybe play with your contrast just a touch to darken the people and tree some, or not. Lovely image!

Kinkajou

Thank you for the kind words! I agree that it does need to be darkened down a bit - great idea on the crop, too!. I do love sun flares, though, so sorry folks - you're stuck with it! I shot this way specifically to include the sun flare.

sapphire73

Very nice! I agree about the suggestion to emphasize the silhouettes a bit more by darkening the people and the tree.

tinamarie52

I agree with darkening the couple. I don't have much to add beyond what's already been said, but I do want you to know I looked at the image and agree.

Kinkajou

Alright - last minute hustle! I've got a few shots now to consider. I reworked my original idea a tiny bit - cropped as suggested and darkened the silhouette a touch.

1. (reworked)


2.


3.


4.

grandmaR

I like your first one re-worked the best although you still haven't taken care of the distracting light spot on the right. I do like the lighted clock tower too but feel that it is overshadowed by the tree. IOW I would like it better if some of the stuff on the right was cropped off and I could see more of the bottom of the building.

sapphire73

I think my favorites are 1 reworked and 4. With 4 I might suggest cropping a bit from the left (half chimney of house?) and a little from the top. Very nice!

marionet

Um, I don't know if editing is allowed, but I'm better with pictures than words so it's easier for me to show instead of describe. (JAG, Joyce, if editing isn't allowed, please delete my post.)

Kinkajou, I feel a little confused about what your original picture is about. If it's about the couple, then I think you've included too much information, and you should simplify it a lot. All the posts on the right draw attention, as does all the sky and tree. If your story is about the people, then make it about the people. But if your story is about the people and their environment, well, then, I think you might have got it, but it needs to be simplified a bit. (There's a photography and design maxim called KISS - Keep It Simple, Stupid - and although people who haven't understood simplification aren't actually stupid at all, it almost always works that way every time in photography and design.

So, anyway, if your picture is about the people and their interaction (I'm assuming it is, but I don't really know if it is), tell that.


But if your story is about the people interacting in their environment, then I think you just need to tighten up your original a bit.

I think the barbed wire in your reshoots sends a mixed message, and I, personally, find it kind of disturbing. Again, if you have something to say, say it and don't say something else at the same time. Though I feel the background sunset is evocative and loads well onto the apparent mood of the couple, the barbed wire which leads to the right (that's the way we read...) could suggest that this apparently enthralled couple might be in for 40 miles of bad road soon.

Just kind of confused, here...

Kinkajou

Ooops. Forgot to come back and actually enter. DOH. Note to self: add deadlines to calendar.

@Marionet - Editing is allowed in the forums, yes. In the future, I'd appreciate it if you'd send me a quick message and ask if it's alright that you tweak and repost one of my photos. I totally understand that sometimes it's easier to show than to explain, and I've worked with others in the same way. I'm not upset or anything - no harm, no foul, but just for future reference!

Good point about the subject matter, though. In the first one, I was going for just a broad landscape-type shot. I would have preferred them to be a bit closer to the tree so that the composition would be a bit more balanced and therefore the focus of them, the sun, and the tree would be clearer. However, I didn't pose them in this situation... this beautiful moment happened and I scrambled to capture it before anything changed.

In the second one, that was a separate engagement shoot a few days later and it was out on her family's property in the middle of nowhere. The fence is just a standard country farm fence for cows and crops. The only spot to get this shot was near the fence. I can guarantee that if there was a clear background I would've preferred that. That said, I doubt they will read that much into it as this is just what Florida cracker fences look like! Interesting interpretation, though. It never would've occurred to me had you not suggested it.

Thanks for the thoughts and suggestions, everyone! Maybe next time I'll actually remember to enter!

sapphire73

Missed your entry and that of kdotaylor!

marionet

@Kinkajoo- Will do, thanks for specifying your preferences.

Yeah, about the fence- I know how tight shooting restrictions can be to get a wanted background, so just in case you weren't thinking about what else was in the frame, I was putting it out for consideration...

Also about the fence. There's a thing called "negative space"; that is what is in the picture other than the subject. Wiki article- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Negative_space A fair amount of art teachers, designers and critics swear by it. It's kind of about the subconscious registering everything in the frame as important, and it works out to the photographer focusing in their mind mainly on the subject while others who look at the picture are taking it all in. Like, if you have a picture of a puppy joyfully playing with a cute little child but in the background is a frowning woman looking at a crying baby... Sort of changes how you feel about the picture. (Well, that's a polarization to make a point, but it's usually best to consider everything in the frame and maybe clone out or blur any element that doesn't contribute to the feel that you want your picture to have.)

Kinkajou

marionet wrote: »

Also about the fence. There's a thing called "negative space"; that is what is in the picture other than the subject. Wiki article- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Negative_space A fair amount of art teachers, designers and critics swear by it. It's kind of about the subconscious registering everything in the frame as important, and it works out to the photographer focusing in their mind mainly on the subject while others who look at the picture are taking it all in. Like, if you have a picture of a puppy joyfully playing with a cute little child but in the background is a frowning woman looking at a crying baby... Sort of changes how you feel about the picture. (Well, that's a polarization to make a point, but it's usually best to consider everything in the frame and maybe clone out or blur any element that doesn't contribute to the feel that you want your picture to have.)

I hate split hairs here, but I'm feeling like you might be confusing overall composition and subject with negative space, which is an aspect of composition. As I learned it while earning my BA in Art, the negative space would be the emptiness around and in between the subject (e.g., the space between the two of them in addition to all the empty space on the right). Negative space is generally empty, so if there is something in that space, then it is no longer negative.

That said, I do understand what you are saying in terms of primary subject and additional subject matter and to keep an eye out for that in composition, and that is a valid point and something that I may have overlooked here.

marionet

Right on, I think you're not splitting hairs but are defining. Strictly speaking, negative space contains nothing, and it's the shapes of the empty spaces that are responsible for the subconscious feelings that direct the final conscious thought.

But I've endured looser definitions, and because you were surprised by my take on the barbed wire, and my unsureness of what you were telling in the picture, I wasn't sure whether you were over-emphasizing the subject at the expense of the total picture.

Lol, I enraged an AD one time by using a serrated knife in a picture and showing a play of light on it. The knife and some other things were props and belonged in the picture, but he said serrated is threatening and the lighting emphasized it too much, citing negative space. I caught it from another one about wood texture.

Um, of course it's your choice and decision, but as for me, I will not include barbed wire in a picture unless the wire is integral to the picture- so I have pictures of cows behind barbed wire because that's their environment. Ok, people live around the wire, so that's their environment, too, but I just kind of find it jarring for people. Just my 2 cents...

I feel kind of defensive here, so thank you for saying "That said, I do understand what you are saying in terms of primary subject and additional subject matter and to keep an eye out for that in composition, and that is a valid point and something that I may have overlooked here." Sometimes I have a small tendency to shoot myself in the foot by way of saying what I think...

Kinkajou

marionet wrote: »

I feel kind of defensive here, so thank you for saying "That said, I do understand what you are saying in terms of primary subject and additional subject matter and to keep an eye out for that in composition, and that is a valid point and something that I may have overlooked here." Sometimes I have a small tendency to shoot myself in the foot by way of saying what I think...

I was feeling defensive too. it's all good