Mushroom

[uncuffed]

I have been rather inactive here for a while due to some personal issues but i have started taking pictures again so here is some fresh ones from today.

These are a few pictures of the watertower in my town. It's known as "Svampen" which is swedish for "The Mushroom" and is quite famous actually.

In the last picture i had a lot of lens flare issues but i uploaded it anyway, tips are welcome.

[Peter Ryan]

Hi Alex,

The colour of the mushroom against the sky is lovely. Nice shots.

Two and three I like best. There is still some colour in the sky and the main subject is clearly stated. Number 2 is more abstract, which I like. I also like the slightly off-centre look in number 2 plus the angle of view but I find it a little distracting the number 3. I would like the stem of ‘the mushroom’ to be straight and possibly cropped just a little to bring the mushroom more forward in the frame.

Well done – I need to do more night time shots.

[David]

Hi Alex - #2 is the most interesting for me. I can take or leave the slight angle of the stem, and I would clone out the very dark mass to the bottom right. However, the main features that I might try to enhance are the texture in the column and the shadows that play on the underside of the mushroom itself. Regarding the texture, I would probably use some sharpening or local contrast enhancement. Making more of the delicate shadows might be more difficult, possibly using a blend layer via multiply and backing off on opacity. Actually, that would be a good challenge to the rest of the community!

Cheers

David

[uncuffed]

Thank you guys and i think #2 is the best one to, my photoshop skills are unfortunately not that great so i don't think i would be doing anything good.

[Dave Humphries]

Hi Alex,

I think the others have covered most of it, so I'll pick up the flare question on the last shot.

It looks to me like the front element/front filter wasn't clean, was there any rain or drizzle in the air that could have got on it?
If so, clean it carefully and try to shield it from picking up more before taking the shot - i.e. don't point the lens skyward, as in shot #2, or it'll collect more

If you can protect the lens from rain, and you do normally have a filter fitted, removing it (temporarily) can help reduce the number of flares when shooting into bright lights like those, especially if the filter was a cheap one.

Hope that helps and I apologise to your filter if it feels insulted by my suggestion it is cheap,

[uncuffed]

I always have a uv filter fitted, and yes it is kind of cheap I will try taking it of next time and see if it does any difference.