I've been very remiss and haven't posted anything for ages. However, here's a photo I took last weekend of a boat at Aldeburgh.
I was using a Nikon D700 with a 24mm f2.8 lens. I deliberately used f4 to allow the background to go slightly out of focus - maybe I should have used f2.8...? As you can see, it was a pretty 'flat' day, so I've given it the mono treatment and applied a bit of sepia tone as well.
Let me know what you think.
Paul.
Last edited by Dave Humphries; 1st April 2009 at 11:38 AM.
Reason: image inserted inline
Is this the 'Viking' of which I have a view from the other end Paul? http://www.pbase.com/crisscross/image/88346592
The thing that strikes me about the background buildings is that the verticals diverge upwards rather than the other way round and may be attracting more attention than they should because of that? How about either doing an unskew (or keystone as its called in other software) or if you can roughly select the background reduce the contrast on it?? Just ideas.
... and there was me thinking anchors went into the sea!
Could be Chris, but without the gull ....
Paul,
I'm not sure even f2.8 would have given the necessary background separation.
I agree with Chris about the divergent verticals; if you do correct these in PP, I'd also consider cropping a little more off the remaining right hand edge afterwards, to make the boat centrally placed from either edge and losing that dark building on right.
Even then, it's still going to be a very 'busy' picture and with peripheral elements both lighter and darker than the main subject, so you may be fighting a lost cause, short of 'painting' the boat itself (as in a duo-tone) with a false colour (pale blue perhaps). Just don't ask me how, I'm not clever enough.
For what it's worth, I still take loads of busy pictures just like this myself.
Anyway, that's my thoughts - but I'm often wrong.