[matthew]

From Saturday:

[blowup]

Very nicely done, Matthew. This is an interesting study of textures and colors. The piece of driftwood is covered with fascinating shapes and colors. The oblique lighting works well to create interesting shadows from the layers on its surface. The swirls in the wood complement the clouds and the water surface on the right, but contrast with the sand and pebbles around it. I wasn't sure at first about the 2/3 sky composition, but it quickly grew on me. DOF looks perfect. All in all, a very nice composition. Is the very dark blue in the upper right due to vignetting? If so, you might want to correct that. I can't think of any other things I'd change about this one.

Cheers, Gary

[Pavel]

Very nice job Matthew. My composition with this log is not nearly as engaging, and I blame the length of my lens and sticking to it. I generally like the colours, which seem natural, although they have been boosted (by you or Olympus). I would have liked to see the bottom left beach more separated (lightened?) from the log. Sky near horizon seem to me to have a slight green overcast and I wonder wheather it would be worth trying to reduce it a bit. I do not mindvignetting in this photo.

The second photo is interesting in terms of texture and colour, but for me it does lack a subject. This is often (but not always) the case with this type of photos, but I think it almost works here. The shalow DOF works for me in this photo.

I love the top photo Matthew, but I would tweak it a bit, especially to separate the log better from surrounds. The bottom photo works a lot less well for me. Pavel

[NT73]

Both photo's have nice colour, although just a bit dark.
In the first one the rock seems a little bit overbearing to the rest of the shot. A wider perspective perhaps.

[Pavel]

NT, please do not take ity in a wrong way, but you do have an old CRT and it tends to loose brightness with age. Is it possible that you see the image as too dark because of that? To me, the image seems quite bright, perhaps because I have a relatively new LCD monitor and these monitors tend to be brighter than old CRTs, calibration or not. Pavel

[matthew]

Thanks for the feedback.

The first photo has been cropped down from a frame shot at 9mm (18mm-e). The darkening of the sky at the TR corner is an effect of the perspective distortion, which has similar results to a polarizer, but I have to admit that I've darkened the blues as well. In fact, I've played with all of the colour to some extent. I'm seeing a magenta tint to the sky, so it may be time to calibrate my monitor again.

I find it impossible to see a shape like this rising out of the sand and not draw a comparison with Uluru, the landform formerly known as Ayer's Rock. So creating a photograph with a big sky was the natural choice for me.

The second photo is the kind of pointless (= without subject) photo of lines, textures, and colours that I find fascinating if it's an architectural abstract, but dull if it's of a natural subject. It's also unsharp, which isn't a good trait in a record shot.