Honest opinion

plestig

My husband and I have been to Belize 7 times now and absolutely love the solutude and friendly people. If you're looking for a place to sit back relax and enjoy the ocean, Belize is definitely the place to be!

Can you please give me your honest opinion about this photo taken in Belize? This was taken a few days before hurricane Mitch hit.

plestig

Honest opinion
Can you please give me your honest opinion on this photo? This was taken in Belize.

Nikolai

plestig wrote:

Can you please give me your honest opinion on this photo? This was taken in Belize.

Why don't ask the mods to move this to Whipping Post? You'll get what you want then:-)
HTH

1pocket

Too smack dab centered -- especially with the straight line horizon, and nothing particularly dramatic about the clouds or water surface. Too much like something I might take myself -- we've got to get out of the box!!

jcdill

plestig wrote:

Can you please give me your honest opinion about this photo taken in Belize? This was taken a few days before hurricane Mitch hit.

There are many very pleasing aspects about this photo, including the color of the ocean, the light on the boat, and the looming clouds.

However, there are 2 things wrong with the composition. The first is that the horizon is not level. When you take a photo with an ocean horizon in it, the horizon MUST be level or intentionaly not-level. In this case it's almost level which isn't "intentionally not-level", and this is very distracting.

The other isn't a hard and fast rule but most photos are more interesting when the stong elements are placed 1/3 or 1/4 of the way from the edge of the image, rather than 1/2 way from the edge (in the middle). This photo has 2 strong elements in the middle, the boat and the horizon. See how much more impact the image has when you move the horizon off of the 1/2 way line to the 1/4 line, and when you move the boat from the center to the right 1/3 line? (Note, you usually want to place something that is moving so that it moves towards the center, so it has somewhere to "move" to in your image.)



Experienced photographers can break these rules and still produce a great image, but you usually want to learn how to follow them before you work on breaking them.

Tango

im no pro...
but you need to fix the tilt, i like the color
crop it like a bookmarker?

SloYerRoll

I'll treat this like a whipping post thread:

I love green water. It reminds me of taking Hobie cats out a few miles and just swimming in water so clear, it doesn't fade to black, it fades to dark blue.. So nice..

oh yea, the whipping

The shot is a bit underexposed for my taste. I don't mind if a spot or two on the boat is blown out. You can't see any real detail anyway. Exposing more will also bring out more detail in the clouds.

There's too much water and sky in the shot. Try cropping the top or bottom off. It will be a bit easier to get rid of the water since that big ol mast kinda forces your shot to stay high. You can also try extreme cropping to taste.

The boat is smack dab in the middle of the shot. You don't have to obey the rule of thirds. But you should have a good reason to break it.

Horizon is crooked. Either that or it's the end of the world soon

The green water makes me feel warm and want to swim. Thy sky makes me feel like all hell's gonna break loose any second so I should head for cover. Where you trying to create juxtaposition?

Cheers,
-Jon

plestig

Thank you for your very help feedback. Much appreciated.

schmoo

This shot is fine for this forum (hello constructive criticism!) unless you really do decide you want it to be in the WP. I can move it but just make sure you read the rules and that it's really where you want it.

I think the shot is chock full o' atmosphere. Compositionally yes it's dead center and it could have a little more push-pull if the boat and horizon didn't create that crosshairs effect, but the bright foreground and dark clouds really make the scene.

The blue is nice also but I wonder if more drama could be pulled out of the clouds in greyscale?

Great shot and thanks for sharing!

schmoo

plestig, I saw that you have two of the same threads going with the same shot so I'm going to merge them. If you have more photos from your trips to Belize and feel like writing some words feel free to write it up in Journeys!

SloYerRoll

schmoo wrote:

This shot is fine for this forum (hello constructive criticism!) unless you really do decide you want it to be in the WP.

No offense intended to this forum Schmoo. I'm just used to posting critiques and wanted the OP to know I wasn't just picking it apart for no reason..

Cheers,
-Jon

schmoo

SloYerRoll wrote:

No offense intended to this forum Schmoo. I'm just used to posting critiques and wanted the OP to know I wasn't just picking it apart for no reason..

Cheers,
-Jon

No offense at all! You offer a lot of great advice whatever forum you're in. The WP does have more rules than the other shots forums and I just wanted to make sure they were read and understood by our newer members.