Gazing into the Sea

[PhotoRob]

I'm curious what the group thinks of this crop and where the horizon hits in the frame. Knocked the look around a bit but settled on the 'small boy in a big world' approach which means being careful to leave enough headroom to preserve scale.

At the risk of sounding professorial, staying close and shooting wide gives you a big enough primary subject and still some headroom to work with (that sounds right, right?). Having a crop sensor makes that more difficult for me and is one of the handful of reasons why I'm stalking a non-crop (Pentax 645z anyone?).


Please click for a closer look

ISO100, f/6.3, 1/1000, 24mm, 8-10 ft from the subject. Mono conversion in Silver FX, selective dodge, burn and cloning adjustments in Aperture, slight push-in from original aspect ratio.

[Marie Hass]

Like it!!! Looks cool full screen. Looks as if I am right there with the boy/

Marie

[Shadowman]

Looks fine.

[travis4567]

Beautiful capture and b&w conversion. Just wish the horizon line wasn't going right through his head. Not much you can do, shoot from a lower perspective maybe.

[Stagecoach]

It certainly works for me Rob, it may have been improved by getting the boys head above the horizon but you may have got a wet camera attempting that.

Grahame

[IzzieK]

I think the horizon is sort of going to the right too...and I love this kind of water shot you did here, very natural, can even see the bubbles on the foreground. I agree with Travis, there isn't much you can do about your horizon apart from straighten it a bit perhaps...???

[John 2]

This is a very nice image whatever. Your horizon isn't on centre which traditionally causes comment. It does cut the subject and it would be better I guess if it didn't but IMHO, but that doesn't makes this anything other than a very nice shot.

[Mike Buckley]

This series you are making is just terrific.

The position of the horizon relative to the frame is not an issue for me. The issue, as others have mentioned, is the position of the horizon relative to the subject.

There is an easy solution: wait two years for when your son is taller.

[dabhand]

Robert - other than comments above, from a 'wide world' perspective, you could consider cropping out that little bit of land on the RHS of the image, otherwise I'm glad to see you've kept the sea natural instaed of the current trend for making it look like spilt milk.

steve

[Werner]

really nice image, absolutely skillfully done, great subject.
Maybe you try cropping more from the right to get rid of tha piece of rock in the distance
would give this picture even more impact.

[PhotoRob]

Like it!!! Looks cool full screen. Looks as if I am right there with the boy/

Marie

Thanks Marie!

[PhotoRob]

Looks fine.

Much appreciated John

[PhotoRob]

Beautiful capture and b&w conversion. Just wish the horizon line wasn't going right through his head. Not much you can do, shoot from a lower perspective maybe.

Yeah, that's a good point, I will certainly try and get above or below that line going forward; excellent observation; stare at it too long and you miss stuff like that; it's great to get this kind of feedback!

[PhotoRob]

It certainly works for me Rob, it may have been improved by getting the boys head above the horizon but you may have got a wet camera attempting that.

Grahame

Thanks Grahame!

[PhotoRob]

I think the horizon is sort of going to the right too...and I love this kind of water shot you did here, very natural, can even see the bubbles on the foreground. I agree with Travis, there isn't much you can do about your horizon apart from straighten it a bit perhaps...???

Thanks Izzie, it may be a hair off level, will check that!

[PhotoRob]

This is a very nice image whatever. Your horizon isn't on centre which traditionally causes comment. It does cut the subject and it would be better I guess if it didn't but IMHO, but that doesn't makes this anything other than a very nice shot.

Thanks for the feedback John, will work on that horizon....

[PhotoRob]

This series you are making is just terrific.

The position of the horizon relative to the frame is not an issue for me. The issue, as others have mentioned, is the position of the horizon relative to the subject.

There is an easy solution: wait two years for when your son is taller.

Hey Mike, thanks for the encouragement; very novel idea on the horizon intersect issue, I like it ( but won't be able to convince the wife to keep away from the surf for that long )

[PhotoRob]

Robert - other than comments above, from a 'wide world' perspective, you could consider cropping out that little bit of land on the RHS of the image, otherwise I'm glad to see you've kept the sea natural instaed of the current trend for making it look like spilt milk.

steve

Thanks Steve, will see about cloning that out...good suggestion!

[PhotoRob]

really nice image, absolutely skillfully done, great subject.
Maybe you try cropping more from the right to get rid of tha piece of rock in the distance
would give this picture even more impact.

Too kind Werner, thank you; that's two votes for removing the patch of land, will certainly give it a go...

[flashback]

Robert, this is such a great shot, but I think that your son is lost in the image. Hopefully you won't mind, but this is a crop that I think might work (I'll take it down if you'd rather). It focuses on your son but still leaves the viewer with an image of the immensity of the ocean and your son staring out at it.