Comments? Suggestions?

[JBW]

wet rocks.jpg (106.1 KB)

[Dave Humphries]

Hi Brian,

What made you take (or crop) to this composition?

I ask because for me, I don't really see a defined subject in a composition that supports it.

What I do see, upon quickly viewing the image, is that my eye flits between;

the sharp wet bit in middle
the pale root on left
the blob of green on right

then to a lesser extent, various background elements, some of which take my eye out of frame.

Taking shots like this is difficult, I have tried and failed to produce anything myself.

One other thing; turn off the camera's date/time stamp, bad enough having the initials without this too.

Sorry I cannot be more positive, but I hope I have been helpful.

By contrast, I thought your Cicada image was very good.

Oh and welcome to the CiC forums from me;

[JBW]

Dave, never confuse a critique with a negative comment. The rains were almost over and there was water dripping down from the roof so I took the shot. It was just there. Since getting the camera about 2 weeks ago I have done flowers and bugs for the most part.

If i understand your critique i need to have a focal point in the shot. Maybe if I cropped it to the shiny rock in the middle.

Yeah the cicada is a nice one.
B

[JBW]

Dave, how about this?

[Dave Humphries]

If I understand your critique, I need to have a focal point in the shot?

Hi Brian,

Yes, unless the image is 'an abstract', this is usually the case, but other's opinions may differ.

Dave, how about this?

The revised crop is a much simpler composition, which works a bit better, unfortunately, the problem with it now is that it is a significant crop out of one corner of the original image and the green leaves are now noticeably not sharp enough, I'm not sure if this is a lens issue or just a lack of Depth of Field (DoF) since the greenery looks to be closer to us than the wet rocks.

Is a re-shoot possible sometime?
Give yourself time to explore all the angles and be careful with aperture choice for DoF and possibly consider artificial lighting.

Hope that's helpful,

[JBW]

Hi Dave it is the wet season so a re-shoot is possible pretty much every day. At this point I am still a newbie and I just use the automatic settings but this does seem like a good target to play with the manual settings.

As for being helpful, absolutely. About five years ago I became involved in amateur astronomy and I quickly learned the value of having input from people more experienced than myself.
B.