First Foray into Landscapes....Whitby Abbey

At the risk of being somewhat brutal that shot does not have much going for it. It is flat and dull with a blown out sky. The main subject (large building - Abbey) is bang in the centre of the shot which does not help in this case and appears to be leaning to the right.
Sorry about that gothgirl. Please have another try.
 
Hi Gothgirl,

The first thing that struck me when I saw this image was that everything was cut in half.... the Abbey... the houses....

I can see that you have tried to show how the Abbey looms over the village so it is a nice idea but to make it work I think you would need to be further away with a longer lens and higher up... also as Arclight says above, be careful of putting your subject in the centre both vertically and horizontally (don't be afraid to crop if need be) and beware of leaning buildings (you can correct this in Lightroom to a certain extent and if not then in PS if you can't get it straight in camera).
 
PhotoHols said:
Hi Gothgirl,

The first thing that struck me when I saw this image was that everything was cut in half.... the Abbey... the houses....

I can see that you have tried to show how the Abbey looms over the village so it is a nice idea but to make it work I think you would need to be further away with a longer lens and higher up... also as Arclight says above, be careful of putting your subject in the centre both vertically and horizontally (don't be afraid to crop if need be) and beware of leaning buildings (you can correct this in Lightroom to a certain extent and if not then in PS if you can't get it straight in camera).
Click to expand...

Ok I'll get the original raw out and have another go at it, unfortunately I don't have another lens, just my kit 18-55 so this was the best I could get from the other side of the bridge, I'll edit it in raw and straighten the horizon a bit more and maybe move the abbey to the right a bit with some selective cropping.

arclight said:
At the risk of being somewhat brutal that shot does not have much going for it. It is flat and dull with a blown out sky. The main subject (large building - Abbey) is bang in the centre of the shot which does not help in this case and appears to be leaning to the right.
Sorry about that gothgirl. Please have another try.
Click to expand...

The blown out sky may be more to do with the after editing in lightroom, I may have gone a bit overboard, again I'll go back to the original raw file and see what I can do with it.
 
Only viewing on my phone but it has potential. But it's not the Abbey it's St Marys church ;-)
 
foggy4ever said:
Only viewing on my phone but it has potential. But it's not the Abbey it's St Marys church ;-)
Click to expand...

Yeah the abbey pretty much is one half collapsed wall behind the church, but I thought people would know what I meant lol :)
 
I was there s few weeks ago but travelled light with the X10. Did you go up to the church? It was quite over grown then as access was limited due to the landslide earlier on this year.
 
GG, there's some great shots to be had at Whitby Abbey

Drive up Green Lane and have a go at the most complete section facing you, there's also a large pond that can give you brilliant refelctions
 
foggy4ever said:
I was there s few weeks ago but travelled light with the X10. Did you go up to the church? It was quite over grown then as access was limited due to the landslide earlier on this year.
Click to expand...

No I didn't, these shots were actually taken from the other side of the bridge, near the magpie cafe.

Big Nick said:
GG, there's some great shots to be had at Whitby Abbey

Drive up Green Lane and have a go at the most complete section facing you, there's also a large pond that can give you brilliant refelctions
Click to expand...

Unfortunately I don't drive, and I was there with friends and a dog, and in the very hot weather, my please to climb the 200 steps to the abbey were sadly ignored :LOL:
 
Not wanting to kick a girl when she's down but its not very good. The church is quite soft and the lean is distracting. I can see what you were trying to achieve and would suggest you persevere

Seve
 
I've taken a shot from a similar position (here, so as not to post a pic in your pic thread!) and I think you could have made this much better by zooming out a bit. With a longest reach of just 55mm you were never going to limit the scope of the shot to just the abbey, so it would have been better to show how the abbey looms over everything by getting much more in the frame.

Also if you're shooting in RAW you'd be surprised at what you can do with the sky. In the original that I took the sky was just flat and dull. By applying a grad filter to it in Lightroom I managed to actually make it look quite dramatic.

Post processing can't recompose the shot though!
 
I'll have a look at the original raw and see if I got crop happy on it and take it back a bit
 
I photograph buildings quite frequently, and I hate to see them leaning, or having converging verticals or distorted in any other way. Unless there's a good reason for it. And oddly enough, in this case I think that there is. Sorry to be the odd one out, but this is an image that I find grows on me the more I look at it.

I'll admit that my interpretation (or putting it another way, what it conveys to me) might not have been in gothgirl's mind, but in the absence of any guidance I feel free to consider the elements and see where it leads me.

The most obvious first impression is given by the colour. It suggests an older photograph by the tint. This is reinforced by the white sky, which was caused by early photographic plates being mainly blue sensitive, and hence gave white skies. So, an "old" timeless image.

The church is quite clearly leaning, so a small rotation would fix it. Or would it? The crosses on the extreme right are actually vertical, and so a rotation isn't possible. The church is leaning towards - almost trying to get to - the crosses. And the church by reason of the sky being darkened in the corners and towards the edge has a halo, which is an obvious religious symbol.

As PhotoHols pointed out, this is an image of halves. The top half shows a strong religious motif. The lower half shows buildings. Buildings which appear to have turned their backs on the crosses and be looking steadfastly the other way. Buildings which are undoubtedly more modern than the church.

And hence a whole field of reflection and speculation opens up.

I'll end by saying that for me this image is memorable. It isn't one I'd soon forget. So for me, at least, it has a lot going for it - as it stands.
 
StephenM said:
I photograph buildings quite frequently, and I hate to see them leaning, or having converging verticals or distorted in any other way. Unless there's a good reason for it. And oddly enough, in this case I think that there is. Sorry to be the odd one out, but this is an image that I find grows on me the more I look at it.

I'll admit that my interpretation (or putting it another way, what it conveys to me) might not have been in gothgirl's mind, but in the absence of any guidance I feel free to consider the elements and see where it leads me.

The most obvious first impression is given by the colour. It suggests an older photograph by the tint. This is reinforced by the white sky, which was caused by early photographic plates being mainly blue sensitive, and hence gave white skies. So, an "old" timeless image.

The church is quite clearly leaning, so a small rotation would fix it. Or would it? The crosses on the extreme right are actually vertical, and so a rotation isn't possible. The church is leaning towards - almost trying to get to - the crosses. And the church by reason of the sky being darkened in the corners and towards the edge has a halo, which is an obvious religious symbol.

As PhotoHols pointed out, this is an image of halves. The top half shows a strong religious motif. The lower half shows buildings. Buildings which appear to have turned their backs on the crosses and be looking steadfastly the other way. Buildings which are undoubtedly more modern than the church.

And hence a whole field of reflection and speculation opens up.

I'll end by saying that for me this image is memorable. It isn't one I'd soon forget. So for me, at least, it has a lot going for it - as it stands.
Click to expand...

Thank you, I was going for a vintage victorian Gothic look, specifcally a dated photo in a book ... can't say I thought about it that much in depth but I am glad you liked it :)
 
It's an interesting question as to how much meaning there may be in an image that author wasn't consciously aware of at the time, but which is subconsciously present. I once used an old image of mine (taken when I was 18) as an example of critique, and ponted out many obvious flaws in it that should have been immediately obvious if I'd looked carefully before making the exposure.

I then immediately went over it again, using the "flaws" as actually signposts to an underlying message, and showed what that message was. And of course, I had to then answer the question "did I intend to convey that meaning?". The answer was that at the time, no, I didn't. But the meaning was nevertheless one that I believed in and so could well have been subconsciously introduced.

If an image truly reflects how we feel about something, to that extent it is revelatory of ourselves. Put that way, how easy is it to disguise our thoughts and feelings and produce an image that runs counter to them?

Don't answer - rhetorical question to think over :)
 
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