Lake Saimaa

[reima000]

Hello!

I had a little walk with my camera this morning, and this is the fruit of the stroll. I'm quite pleased with the composition, but somehow it's not as nice a photo to watch that i hoped when i saw the view trough the viewfinder. What do you think, is there anything to it or is it just boring?

Should i have focused it differently? I used f/7.1 to not to blur the background too much.




Canon EOS 20D, ISO 100, 1/250, f/7.1, lens EF 50mm 1.8 mark II

[FrankMi]

Hi Reima! Something gave you an emotion when you decided that you wanted to capture the moment. What was it about the scene, or, for that matter, the other senses (sounds, feelings, aromas, memories, etc.) that you experienced? If you can recall the emotion, you may be able to enhance the image to get the viewer to experience the same emotion and that is what makes an image 'connect' with the viewer.

[Dave Humphries]

I had a little walk with my camera this morning, and this is the fruit of the stroll. I'm quite pleased with the composition, but somehow it's not as nice a photo to watch that i hoped when i saw the view trough the viewfinder. What do you think, is there anything to it or is it just boring?

Should i have focused it differently? I used f/7.1 to not to blur the background too much.

Hi Reima,

I am familiar with this problem, so familiar I often try a variety of focus and DoF choices to see which looks better on a big screen

Unfortunately, the answer is usually 'none of them'

So I can't really help beyond any little comfort you might draw in not being the only one that does this

It may well be there really isn't a subject.
May be if the frame were filled with the snow laden branch top left and the grasses, field and trees beyond were just background it would help.

Perhaps a landscape shooter can help us both?

Cheers,

[reima000]

Thanks for the comments!

Frank, i think it might be the peacefulness of the spot. Though i don't know how to make the photo to better channel that.

Dave, actually it is nice to know that i'm not the only one with the problem I also took pictures with smaller DoF and with the background focused, but those were not any better than this. Perhaps i should have pursued the largest possible DoF. I think this would be lots of better with some deep blue sky of the evening or morning in it. Haven't seen the sky for i think two weeks now Perhaps some nice day i'll wander there and see how it looks with a nice sky.

Or then with long shutter in the night! I should try that.


Reima

[jprzybyla]

Hello Reima,

I took the liberties to try editing your image. Below is a possibility. Your focus appears to be on the branch with snow.

[MiniChris]

That was the only edit possibility that made any sense at all.