Beginner welcomes constructive critisism re rural landscapes

Mike

Constructive criticism as requested.

For me there's nothing really to focus on here which is the main concern. Sky too big, colours appear a bit oversaturated for the grass and russet trees. Horizon looks not straight- rising to the right which might be how the landscape looks. I'd like to see some green instead of brown in the reight hand shadow.

Upside is that these are all fixable with the exception of the focus point.

Jim
 
There are two questions you can ask yourself..
  1. What is the photo of?
  2. Would you print it, frame it and hang it on the living room wall?

If the answers are:
  1. Not sure
  2. No
Then you need to ask yourself why?

With this shot there's no obvious subject. A fairly ordinary field and a pretty but distant sky. Now you can get a very good photo without an obvious focus/subject if there is a strong sense of pattern or stricture. But again the photo is lacking these.

If you had to give the photo a title, what would you call it?
 
I suspect you were going for layers, grass, grass in shadow, trees, clouds but as others have said there is no where for the eye to really settle and it also feels just cropped off on the left. Don'r be discouraged though, at least you got out and shot something and you have retained colours and contrast throughout, no blown sky or black shadows
 
Jim_Tod said:
Mike

Constructive criticism as requested.

For me there's nothing really to focus on here which is the main concern. Sky too big, colours appear a bit oversaturated for the grass and russet trees. Horizon looks not straight- rising to the right which might be how the landscape looks. I'd like to see some green instead of brown in the reight hand shadow.

Upside is that these are all fixable with the exception of the focus point.

Jim
Click to expand...


Thanks Jim

So I understand, are you saying that in landscapes you would prefer to see a feature to focus on? A focus point?

The brown in right hand shadow is brown caused by wild boar damage to the barley!

Appreciate your comments
 
Alastair said:
There are two questions you can ask yourself..
  1. What is the photo of?
  2. Would you print it, frame it and hang it on the living room wall?

If the answers are:
  1. Not sure
  2. No
Then you need to ask yourself why?

With this shot there's no obvious subject. A fairly ordinary field and a pretty but distant sky. Now you can get a very good photo without an obvious focus/subject if there is a strong sense of pattern or stricture. But again the photo is lacking these.

If you had to give the photo a title, what would you call it?
Click to expand...

Thanks

Your comments highlight my concern with the photo as I was trying to feature the Pyrenees mountains and they are not very obvious in the photo. I liked the way the mountains contrasted with the misty valley, then the woods then the very green, rolling, shadow covered barley field. The photo just didn't recreate what the eye saw - frustrating
 
sirch said:
I suspect you were going for layers, grass, grass in shadow, trees, clouds but as others have said there is no where for the eye to really settle and it also feels just cropped off on the left. Don'r be discouraged though, at least you got out and shot something and you have retained colours and contrast throughout, no blown sky or black shadows
Click to expand...

Thanks for the encouragement!

As stated above, the main aim was the mountains with the contrast of topography and colour in front, but the mountains did not stand out as they did with the naked eye
 
You often need a longer focal length than you think to get the scene the eye perceives with a distant landscape. And perhaps the mountains were just a little too misty - if you hadn't mentioned them I wouldn't have seen them fully.
 
As above but what have you done in post. The colours are very sickly. It is as if you've pulled back the shadows too much then slid the vibrance slider too much.
There is a distinct lack of focal point, but worse still the view to the distance is pretty bland. The way the land rolls seems to block the viewers view forward making it feel hemmed in and oppressive.
 
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