A Day In The Snow - C&C Please

Cork Boy

This one obviously needs to be fixed in Lightroom, but was wondering what people think of the composition? Unfortunately I had no tripod with me, a panorama would've been ideal.


I've talked about this in another thread, I reckon I need to open up the aperture to get a more subtle twinkling sun effect but otherwise any other comments? The dark top sky is me trying to fix the sun with a graduated filter


I waited ages for a skier to come past and kick up a load of snow but alas this was the best of a bad lot. I find the composition boring also, what could I do to improve it?


Many thanks in advance

Tiriel

A quick reply from me, I was following your other thread with interest as I have never really shot in the snow so not the best person to offer critique.

Photo 1
I think you could lift the exposure on this a little, it seems a little too dull. There is a highlight in one of the skis so perhaps mask that off to stop it blowing out.

Photo 2
I like the line of skis that is in the foreground here, but I think it would have worked better if it wasn't in the centre of the shot. If you were perhaps lower down, with that line leading in from the left and off into the panoramic view. Just my opinion though!

Photo 3
I like the lines in this, similar to what I mention above. You've cropped off a bit of the tree to the right though.. so perhaps see if you can now crop it out completely and recompose the image with the horizon on the thirds?

Photo 4
Nice shot, hard to get a sense of scale in it but there's great detail. If there was someone in it skiing or something it would probably help to anchor it.

Photo 5
There's a funny colour cast on this one and perhaps exposure could do with a lift also. Nice shot though and nice detail in layers rolling in.

Photo 6
Something about this I really really like. My favourite of them and I'm intrigued to see what happens with the raw file you posted! The verticals are off, so I think I'd look at an alternative crop taking out the main vertical to see how that would look. Straightening it would lose too much of the composition I'd say.

Photo 7
I'd love to see this shot closer up, to make a real feature of the skiier and the cable cars in the background for context etc.

What I would say is, that they are nice shots but are just a little lacking in foreground interest for me. There's great detail in the middle and distance but perhaps not enough in the foreground to grab you and lead you in.

I think you've done well with the snow and the bright blue sky - difficult conditions to balance. The one you posted looking for advice on lightroom - I have similar shots I struggled with in the past (sand instead of snow though!) with two exposure extremes, as I mentioned I'm looking forward to see what people come up with and hope to have a go myself!

magicbastarder

there's a simple question i often ask myself as to whether i like a photo, and that's 'would i hang this on my wall' - unfortunately what you've posted are a bit static, but it's very difficult to take a 'new' photo of a snowfield; and i've tried myself.

Cork Boy

Cork_girl wrote: »

A quick reply from me, I was following your other thread with interest as I have never really shot in the snow so not the best person to offer critique.

Photo 1
I think you could lift the exposure on this a little, it seems a little too dull. There is a highlight in one of the skis so perhaps mask that off to stop it blowing out.

Photo 2
I like the line of skis that is in the foreground here, but I think it would have worked better if it wasn't in the centre of the shot. If you were perhaps lower down, with that line leading in from the left and off into the panoramic view. Just my opinion though!

Photo 3
I like the lines in this, similar to what I mention above. You've cropped off a bit of the tree to the right though.. so perhaps see if you can now crop it out completely and recompose the image with the horizon on the thirds?

Photo 4
Nice shot, hard to get a sense of scale in it but there's great detail. If there was someone in it skiing or something it would probably help to anchor it.

Photo 5
There's a funny colour cast on this one and perhaps exposure could do with a lift also. Nice shot though and nice detail in layers rolling in.

Photo 6
Something about this I really really like. My favourite of them and I'm intrigued to see what happens with the raw file you posted! The verticals are off, so I think I'd look at an alternative crop taking out the main vertical to see how that would look. Straightening it would lose too much of the composition I'd say.

Photo 7
I'd love to see this shot closer up, to make a real feature of the skiier and the cable cars in the background for context etc.

What I would say is, that they are nice shots but are just a little lacking in foreground interest for me. There's great detail in the middle and distance but perhaps not enough in the foreground to grab you and lead you in.

I think you've done well with the snow and the bright blue sky - difficult conditions to balance. The one you posted looking for advice on lightroom - I have similar shots I struggled with in the past (sand instead of snow though!) with two exposure extremes, as I mentioned I'm looking forward to see what people come up with and hope to have a go myself!

Many thanks for taking the time out to help me. One line really hit me, I've never really considered the foreground until you just said it there... huh! Next time out I'll keep that at the forefront of my mind!

Tiriel

Oh and I had to say too.. what a great username :pac:

Cork Boy

Cork_girl wrote: »

Oh and I had to say too.. what a great username :pac:

Same yourself girl

AnCatDubh

Cork_girl wrote: »

Oh and I had to say too.. what a great username :pac:

Cork Boy wrote: »

Same yourself girl

Oh, get a room you two :pac: :pac:

Re: the photos. Well, and please don't take this overly sensitively but imho they are grand holiday snaps - they will invoke memories of a great time away and that is absolutely fine. In terms of C&C, are they something which i'd be putting on my wall - well, no - probably not.

in #1 you have a foreground interest, but ask the simple question - why? The foreground has no context. Half a ski. imho, probably better going for the scene and omit the foreground. Again imho, you have isolated the foreground too much. Best to zoom out and get context if the ski is actually important. It almost borders on the selective colouring tragedy technique.

#2 - yeah, ok-ish but probably better ratio's available - you may need to get wider to enable a better ratio. It just kinda looks like there could be much more with it and as displayed it probably doesn't do the scene justice.

#3 is worn tracks in snow. hmnnnnn..... It's just quite messy to me looking at it cold (pardon the pun).

#4 is probably the best of the bunch but you are probably up against stiff competition to create something of a wow shot from such a scene, and in fairness there are much better out there. Again, probably a wider perspective would work a bit better.

#5 is ok, but strangely nothing special. The colour cast to me is not right, but i've never been to such a scene so I may be way off the mark. All i know is the stereotypical scene which probably is way better.

In #6, i like the sun creating flare and sparkle - just i'd have looked for more interesting scene / subject. Not being there I don't know what was possible but drop to the ground maybe and take it from that perspective - might have worked. The angles can be a nightmare to get right (yes, i know.... hills have angles, but it can be really difficult to do it well). Most of us (and i'm as guilty as everyone else) go for the easy option of 'lift camera to the eye whilst in a standing position, focus and click". We don't take time to explore the what if.... what if you dropped low, or shot high, what if you changed the angle at which you were to shoot.... anyhow, not bad.

#7 and last one again is a snap. not much going on here except a memory of being on a slope on a nice day and having a nice time. There is nothing wrong with that either but nothing to it really.

IMHO, They are a personally enjoyable set and certainly do just that. Enjoy them. Nothing outstanding about any of them but no disasters either so with room to improve, you'd better book another trip to snowy parts

Hope that helps.

Cork Boy

AnCatDubh wrote: »

Oh, get a room you two :pac: :pac:

Re: the photos. Well, and please don't take this overly sensitively but imho they are grand holiday snaps - they will invoke memories of a great time away and that is absolutely fine. In terms of C&C, are they something which i'd be putting on my wall - well, no - probably not.

....

IMHO, They are a personally enjoyable set and certainly do just that. Enjoy them. Nothing outstanding about any of them but no disasters either so with room to improve, you'd better book another trip to snowy parts

Hope that helps.

It actually does, a lot. I think in future I need to specify "please pick everything apart" because people are too afraid of offending strangers on teh internet or don't want to put off beginners, which is fair enough.

If there's one thing that I can take away from this thread it's that I realise I have given no thought foreground (ski tracks didn't even register until it was pointed out to me tbh...) and in general no forethought to "what do I want out of this picture, what will it look like from all the different angles?". I think I was too focused on the exposure itself.

Luckily this place is not far from what I call home these days so next snow I'll head up and try again. #5 was actually completely white just 2 days before that!With the weather at the moment though that could be either soon or not for another year... stupid global warming :mad:

kevc2

The only one that stands out for me is number 5, it's much more impressive in high res. I would have changed the colour profiling a bit but it's a lovely and sharp image. Also there's some marks on your lens in that photo, I'd edit them out. They do look much better in higher res. Can you tell me did you sharpen the images in any way or is that the way pix.ie represents them? I'm not an expert in any way, good job on the pics.

Cork Boy

kevc2 wrote: »

The only one that stands out for me is number 5, it's much more impressive in high res. I would have changed the colour profiling a bit but it's a lovely and sharp image. Also there's some marks on your lens in that photo, I'd edit them out. They do look much better in higher res. Can you tell me did you sharpen the images in any way or is that the way pix.ie represents them? I'm not an expert in any way, good job on the pics.

I think Lightroom does a small bit of auto sharpening on import by default but apart from that I didn't do any. Just saw those marks now, will definitely have another go at this one in LR