Come Sit With Me a While...

[FrankMi]

This pleasant view is at harbor-side in colonial Wickford on Narraganset Bay looking out at Wickford Cove.

Have I missed anything?

[John Morton]

Looks great to me!

[jiro]

Wait for the light, Frank. Wait for that perfect light...

[FrankMi]

Thanks John!

Hi Willie, I couldn't agree more. Unfortunately, sometimes your presence is dictated by other folk's schedules so you grab what you can, when you can. You see such neat images while you are traveling....

[Steve S]

Works for me, frank.

[Donald]

I'd take that one. I think the important lesson for others who may view this and wonder what we see that makes us say it's a good one. It's the fact that, for me anyway, the composition and arrangements of the 'bits', works. It's an image in perfect harmony with the mood that the photographer was trying to create. It's what I'd call 'in balance'. There is nothing that jars or feels 'wrong'. That sense of peace and serenity doesn't just happen by coming upon a peaceful scene, pointing a camera at it and clicking. You have to compose it.

That's what's been done here.

[Bobobird]

Exactly that - peace and serenity.

[MilT0s]

Harmony indeed.

Frank I know you said you had no time is this area but you could have tried two things if possible. The first is to try to shoot with a longer lens from a greater distance for perspective compression so that the ships appear bigger and the second is a different angle so that the plant does not interfere with the bench. Of course nobody knows if these strategies would have worked until someone tries them.

[Dave Humphries]

Hi Frank,

It's quite difficult for us to say, my instinct is that there's just a bit too much bush on right and I'd like to see more view on left to maintain the aspect ratio, however, I suspect the left was either more empty water or contained something hideous

Also, with the benefit of seeing it large, I'd have shot a fraction lower for the sweep of the arm to be uncluttered by the dark stone behind, but I bet I wouldn't have seen that tiny detail through a viewfinder/on the LCD at the time.

However, I am being really picky mentioning these things, they'll make a 2% improvement many people wouldn't notice.

Cheers,

[FrankMi]

Hi Steve, Donald, and Bobo. I appreciate the kind words.

Hi Mitos, I didn't think to backup and use a longer lens. I was trying to get the bench positioned in the image in such a way that the viewer could see why they would want to take the time to quietly sit, relax, and enjoy the view.

As to the position of the bush, I might have gotten away with moving the bench but not too much as I felt I needed the bush to both anchor the right side and provide a natural frame.

The goal was to let the prominent stones on the left grab the eye and direct the vision to the bench, turn around at the bush and follow the shoreline to the tan water on the left where the stones would take the vision back to the bench to complete the circle.

The reflections in the calm water would then give the eye a place to rest so the viewer can mentally sit down to relax before exploring the boats and shoreline in more detail. I am wondering if the boats were larger in the scene, would the eye have just stopped there?

Hi Dave, good thought! I could have swung the camera more to the left and cut back on the size of the bush (and probably should have) but there was nothing interesting to see - unless I picked up on the left shoreline. If so, that would be adding another strong element and may lose the bush altogether. I did shot another image that takes in more of the left side but to complete the composition I had to be almost square on to the back of the bench and the feeling of wanting to sit and relax was lost.

Interesting that you mention a lower camera angle! I dropped down on one knee for that specific purpose but found that if I went any lower, the back of the bench would crowd the distant shoreline and cut off the return path for the view so in the end I impacted the arm of the bench rather than the shoreline.

Perhaps, as Mitos suggests, I should have composed from further back but I really wanted to have the bench as the primary subject. In quarterback hindsight, perhaps I should have moved the bench just a bit forward and left of its current position, and then changed the shooting angle so as to not impact the reflections.

<Sigh!> These are the kinds of reasons why it takes a photographer so long to visualize and compose an image – and there is always something you miss or could have done differently.

[terrib]

...Unfortunately, sometimes your presence is dictated by other folk's schedules so you grab what you can, when you can. You see such neat images while you are traveling....

This describes my efforts most of the time! I'm glad you grabbed the shot. I think it is beautiful. The bush does not bother me. I like how it helps create that angle from top right corner down to lower left and you got the bottom of the bush so it wasn't just limbs sticking into the picture. I like the perspective, although if you had swung more to the left we would be looking more toward what a person sitting on the bench would see. But as you say that might have put more elements into it that would have detracted. I'm trusting that you got the best shot because it looks beautiful to me!

[FrankMi]

Thank you Terri! I almost always come back from a photoshoot thinking that I could have done better if I had only......

Such is the nature of the beast. LOL!

[Coinneachmhor]

HI Frank, I hope you don't mind this newbe putting my tuppence in. I really like this, as it tells a good story for me, particularly when you take the time to see that most people obviously sit on the left of the bench judging by the lack of grass. It's the wee bits like this that impress me with photo's and what I am striving for in my own. Can you tell me what if any pp work you did on this?

Personally, I would love to sit there and soak in the view!

[FrankMi]

Can you tell me what if any pp work you did on this?

Hi Kenny, I’d be more than happy to.

I have a fairly fixed workflow that I revise from time to time as I learn new techniques and it varies a bit if I am processing RAW images from my Nikon DSLR or JPEG images from my Canon SX40. This image was from the Canon.

I usually start with a careful examination of the image in Adobe Camera Raw (even for the JPEG images) where I set, as needed, the Exposure, Recovery, Fill Light, and Blacks.

If I have taken Bracketed Exposures, and I almost always do for landscapes, I determine if Tone-mapping would help the image and if so, I run the bracketed image set through Photomatix. I did NOT use Tone-mapping on this image.

I then open the duplicate bracketed images (including the Tone-mapped image, if available) in Photoshop CS5 and compare them to see if I want to use a single image or merge shadow/highlight detail from multiple images into one. Often times a darker exposure will have a better sky than a normal exposure image so I might want to blend the two. That was not the case here so I went with a single normal-exposure image from the set of three.

Next I use Topaz DeJpeg to check to see if any area in the image would benefit from noise reduction. Quite commonly, and particularly on JPEG images that have been sharpened in-camera, a very mild noise reduction does help.

Now I am ready to do capture sharpening for which I use Topaz InFocus. For JPEG images, this is rarely done as they have been sharpened in-camera and rarely can that feature be disabled when the camera produces a JPEG image. For RAW, capture sharpening is almost always done. In this case the image did benefit from a minor sharpening. Determining whether or not to either reduce noise or sharpen is done by carefully pixel-peeping the entire image and in most cases you might not notice the difference if you only view full-screen.

If either noise reduction or capture sharpening needs to be applied to one part of the image and not another, I use Topaz ReMask to mask the image and apply the change only where needed. This is common where DoF produces bokeh that I want to treat differently from the main subject.

Now I am ready to see if I need selective processing for the subject separate from the foreground, background, or sky as examples. That was not needed here.

Next I check to see if the image could benefit from Brightness, Contrast, Saturation, LCE, or any other techniques that might be needed to get better separation of the subject from a busy background or perhaps to just subdue or make the subject pop a bit. This is also the point where I deal with cloning out distractions or doing any other retouching of the image.

In this case I used Topaz Adjust to apply a Brilliant Warm setting that gently increased the contrast and saturation, and added a touch of warming color tone.

Lastly, I check and adjust for things like White Point, Black Point, Color Balance, level horizon, keystoning, cropping, resize for web and output sharpening.

You don’t need the Topaz Plug-ins to make any of these adjustments but I find them much faster, easier, and more consistent than I can do manually using just the Photoshop controls.

For comparison, here is the SOOC image:



Hope this helps!