At the beach, phone in hand

[whited3]

Hi all.

I've been absent from CiC for some time but I'll try to post and interact more often going forward.

Recently I've been trying to improve my phone photography as I don't always have the 5Ds with me and sometimes I'm just too lazy to get all my gear together for a formal shoot.

Here are some of my recent efforts for C&C, shot on an S24 Ultra in RAW at 50mp. PP in ACR and PS.

[Round Tuit]

Welcome back.
You have some nice photos. My top pick would be the fourth. I find the washed up ship and the man on the beach to be rather distracting in the first two images.

[Geoff F]

For me, you have a few composition problems with the first three images. Not really your fault; sometimes the world doesn't cooperate with producing ideal scenes.

With #1 I would try a substantial crop from the left side to leave the figure just on the left side of halfway and a similar amount from the bottom.

#2 has similar issues with a gap of interest in the middle section. Sometimes, I just shrug my shoulders and walk on when the scene isn't working well.

#3 is an impossible scene with that over exposed strip of sunlight. Working with my best equipment I occasionally have a go at similar situations but do a merge of bracketed exposures and expect a lot of rejects.

The Limpets work OK (as Andre mentioned) and the image appears like an alien landscape

[whited3]

Again with the S24 this morning..

[MaxwellSevier]

So beautiful.

[whited3]

S24 again.

Why the B&W? No idea other than to say that some photos seem to ask for the treatment. Is it the high contrast that the eye sees in some photos?

[Manfred M]

I like how you are going about your work, but I feel that you need to work on your composition. The first image in #6 is not as strong as it could be because you have enough material there for 2 separate images. They are stronger by themselves than the single image you have posted.

[whited3]

Manfred,

C&C appreciated. Agreed that composition (or even PP cropping) is something I have to finesse. I'm not an artist of any description and so find it hard to "see" these things in the field.

I like how you are going about your work, but I feel that you need to work on your composition. The first image in #6 is not as strong as it could be because you have enough material there for 2 separate images. They are stronger by themselves than the single image you have posted.

[Geoff F]

I am of the same opinion as Manfred but maybe if you cropped the footprints from the bottom to give something like a 4 x 5 ratio you could still have both the people and the footprints in the same image?

In the boardwalk and clouds image you have a halfway horizon line. This is always a tricky area where two subjects are fighting for importance. Which is most important to you; the boards or that nice looking cloudy sky? Reducing one of them should produce a stronger image.

The same thing applies to the underside of the boardwalk where you have a halfway vertical split.

ps. If you want to continue producing unusual black & white images have a look at the work of Kaskais. For example

Emoldurado

I don't always agree with his compositions but he always makes me think.