Neptune's Arm

[Skyline]

C&C away. I'm here to learn.

This was shot handheld. I've been practicing exposure bracketing with 3 shots. I had just done some on a near by church ruin. Packed the tripod away and forgot to change the settings back


Stormy weather can cause the sea level by the coast to rise by up to two metres. In the past, this has caused disastrous flooding in the town, the worst in the town's history being in 1953. Coastal defences were subsequently constructed including groynes, sea walls and shingle beach. In the 1990s, these defences were deemed to be inadequate and an offshore breakwater, now known as Neptune's Arm, was built to protect the most vulnerable areas of the town.



Herne Bay Breakwater. kent. UK

[Bobobird]

Nice shot but but not "ominous" enough imho for a b/w. Maybe colour?

[Donald]

I'm usually not short of a suggestion (some folk will wish I was!!), but I'm trying to figure out why this one doesn't quite 'sing' for me. It should.

Is it a bit soft (or have I had too much wine)? The other thing I'm looking at it the rock that provides the landfill and the base for the 'arm'. It, obviously, varies in tone with the top part being lighter than the bottom (as we can see it) where, presumably, the water normally sits. It's that bit that's very dark and not really showing a lot of detail. I wonder if it would be worth trying to lighten up that 'below-the-water-line' rock to bring more detail back into it?

[Dave Humphries]

I do like the composition and the people placement, but tend to agree with Donald about the dark rock.

That said, the histo looks like it has already had a stretch at the dark end on the left.

Perhaps it was just under exposed as Dave mentioned previous settings (that's my trick!)

[Skyline]

I need to read a book about tog talk because I don't understand what has been said hahaha

How could I get those rocks to lighten up?

[Donald]

I need to read a book about tog talk because I don't understand what has been said hahaha

How could I get those rocks to lighten up?

Dave - In the old days of the darkroom, chemicals, etc, there was dodge and burn. To lighten things up, you held back the light from the enlarger reaching selected parts of the paper onto which you were printing your image. That meant they didn't come out so dark. If you wanted to darken bits, then you allowed light from the enlarger to reach those bits for longer; i.e. you burned the paper.

You can do the same digitally. There are various ways of doing this; i.e. methods of applying dodge and burn techniques. But, essentially, each achieves the same end, just the same as dodge in burn in the good old darkroom days.

Check out tutorials for the PP software that you use. There should be something in there about how to dodge and burn.

[Skyline]

Dave - In the old days of the darkroom, chemicals, etc, there was dodge and burn. To lighten things up, you held back the light from the enlarger reaching selected parts of the paper onto which you were printing your image. That meant they didn't come out so dark. If you wanted to darken bits, then you allowed light from the enlarger to reach those bits for longer; i.e. you burned the paper.

You can do the same digitally. There are various ways of doing this; i.e. methods of applying dodge and burn techniques. But, essentially, each achieves the same end, just the same as dodge in burn in the good old darkroom days.

Check out tutorials for the PP software that you use. There should be something in there about how to dodge and burn.

Thanks Donald for explaining