Scene on the Prom (pun intended).

[John 2]

Deliberately shot into the light for atmosphere. Comments welcome.

Nikon D7000
18-200mm Nikkor
ISO 400
1/640th sec @ f20 50mm

[IzzieK]

Why do I have that feeling that the sunlight is glaring? Is that your intended purpose here? The building at the left hand side, if you remove that, the feeling of "alone-ness" will be more pronounced, don't you think? They cannot possibly be alone when they have you behind them ...

[Shadowman]

Interesting repeat of patterns (the stairs and bench), very artistic rendering.

[deetheturk]

Very nice John, I like it mate!

[jcuknz]

I think the picture needs to be horizontally flipped and if I was after Izzie's solitude I would crop the lamppost out, otherwise it holds the sky amd ground together so is a good point to me and my ideas of composition

[Texas Dave]

I like the suggestion about removing the building but the glowing light post is my biggest distraction.

[bnnrcn]

Hi John, very nice shot I would remove the buildings if the image was mine though. I can see some sharpening halos if my eyes are not wrong, but you can fix it easily with PP anyway

[IzzieK]

I think the picture needs to be horizontally flipped and if I was after Izzie's solitude I would crop the lamppost out, otherwise it holds the sky amd ground together so is a good point to me and my ideas of composition

No...!!! Don't remove the lampost...it is part of the environment shot there...part of the scene...that is my feeling anyway about this.

[dasmith232]

So, I've been hanging out at a different photography forum for the past few years, but it's recently gone mostly belly-up. On that forum there were separate sub-forums for "sharing" and "gentle comments" versus the critique subforum that was a bit more direct with comments. I haven't learned the culture here yet, so I don't know the "level" of comments to offer. Please advise how (the length and depth of) my comments fit as needed.

There are some things that I like and few things that I'd approach differently.

The gentle halo around the lamppost immediately caught my eye. I assume that's not the intent, so I see it as a post-processing flaw. At a more detailed level, there is strong fringing around the details of the lamppost which is definitely a side-effect of oversharpening. These end up being distractions.

From the title, I understand that you're wanting to create that sense of space, even if exaggerated a bit. I think that bringing in more negative space would help with that. Using a wider angle on the lens could bring in more sky to (I think) help with that "alone-ness" feeling. It's also possible that going with a wider angle would bring in other elements on the right that were undesirable...?

I'm looking at the points of visual weight... The dominant factors are contrast (the dark post against the light sky), the strong geometric lines (the alternating light and shadow of the steps, plus the wall) and the human forms.

I think that the placement of the lamppost is a little too close to the edge to be a "stand-alone" element, but too far from the edge to be a framing device. With a wider angle shot (picking up more on the right and up into the sky) would render that lamppost as more of a framing device. As is, I think that it's in an ambiguous space.

I think that the placement of the people is also a bit centered horizontally. (The vertical placement is great.) Again, that wider angle view, puts them more at the rule-of-thirds point and allows the negative space of the sky work more effectively.

Regarding the buildings, I think I'd have positioned myself to exclude them from the frame. But if the desire is to keep them, then I think I'd be curious to see how things looked by moving myself to the left to alter the perspective and put more space between the building and the post.

In any case, I think I'd still want more negative space (sky) to create that "alone" or "empty" aspect.

(Okay, I can see that I've rambled on probably too much... I hope this is a helpful perspective on what I see and why.)

[Shadowman]

So, I've been hanging out at a different photography forum for the past few years, but it's recently gone mostly belly-up. On that forum there were separate sub-forums for "sharing" and "gentle comments" versus the critique subforum that was a bit more direct with comments. I haven't learned the culture here yet, so I don't know the "level" of comments to offer. Please advise how (the length and depth of) my comments fit as needed.

There are some things that I like and few things that I'd approach differently.

The gentle halo around the lamppost immediately caught my eye. I assume that's not the intent, so I see it as a post-processing flaw. At a more detailed level, there is strong fringing around the details of the lamppost which is definitely a side-effect of oversharpening. These end up being distractions.

From the title, I understand that you're wanting to create that sense of space, even if exaggerated a bit. I think that bringing in more negative space would help with that. Using a wider angle on the lens could bring in more sky to (I think) help with that "alone-ness" feeling. It's also possible that going with a wider angle would bring in other elements on the right that were undesirable...?

I'm looking at the points of visual weight... The dominant factors are contrast (the dark post against the light sky), the strong geometric lines (the alternating light and shadow of the steps, plus the wall) and the human forms.

I think that the placement of the lamppost is a little too close to the edge to be a "stand-alone" element, but too far from the edge to be a framing device. With a wider angle shot (picking up more on the right and up into the sky) would render that lamppost as more of a framing device. As is, I think that it's in an ambiguous space.

I think that the placement of the people is also a bit centered horizontally. (The vertical placement is great.) Again, that wider angle view, puts them more at the rule-of-thirds point and allows the negative space of the sky work more effectively.

Regarding the buildings, I think I'd have positioned myself to exclude them from the frame. But if the desire is to keep them, then I think I'd be curious to see how things looked by moving myself to the left to alter the perspective and put more space between the building and the post.

In any case, I think I'd still want more negative space (sky) to create that "alone" or "empty" aspect.

(Okay, I can see that I've rambled on probably too much... I hope this is a helpful perspective on what I see and why.)

Dave,

The length of and degree of response is up to you. When I first joined, writing long responses was risky as you would get booted off before you could post and you had to rewrite your response as everything was lost. Hasn't been that way the last couple of years so length of response is not an issue.

[vaez]

very Interesting

[dasmith232]

Dave, The length of and degree of response is up to you. When I first joined, writing long responses was risky as you would get booted off before you could post and you had to rewrite your response as everything was lost. Hasn't been that way the last couple of years so length of response is not an issue.

Thanks for the advice. I guess the question could be from two perspectives: technical glitches (or connection errors) versus people's tolerance... I was originally thinking of the latter.

[John 2]

Thanks all for the comments. I think rather too much has been read into my title for the image. It was a retrospective thought rather than an intent at the time I made the image but you weren't to know that. Thanks also for the crits. I agree with some but not with all. Rightly or wrongly, my thoughts during PP were that the figures and the lamp formed a classic "L" shaped comp but that the space to the right is needed firstly to maintain a balance but secondly, without it, the couple would have been staring out of the side of the comp. That put all of the weight on the LHS and I reasoned that whereas the dead space would look after itself, I needed a stop on the left to prevent the wall taking the eye out of the comp. There were buildings along more of the wall in the original. There is some haloing. I removed most of it via an adjustment layer but being a contra jour shot, there's going to be some natural bleed of light around solid objects. Should I have taken it all out? Not sure.

Dave, I was going to say welcome but you have been around since 2012 so "welcome back". This is a relaxed and friendly place that dubs itself a learning forum so C&C is always welcome. I would only say that in my experience so far, it needs to be constructive and polite and take account of the apparent experience of the author in question, as yours was. As to length of post, the same guidance that applies to inter office memos applies here. The shorter it is, the more likely it is to be read - a piece of advice that I seem to have roundly ignored in the context of this post. Look forward to hearing more from you and seeing some of your work.

[dasmith232]

Dave, I was going to say welcome but you have been around since 2012 so "welcome back"...

Thank you!

...The shorter it is, the more likely it is to be read - a piece of advice that I seem to have roundly ignored in the context of this post. Look forward to hearing more from you and seeing some of your work.

And thank you again. I appreciate the welcome and the advice.