Dissecting an image

[Dave Semmens]

Putting this here as it it is more talk than critique (I think )

I was editing this photo and it seemed to raise a lot of points that I hear in these forums and when chatting to other photographers I meet.

Hoping this will spark some discussion - there are no right or wrong answers here.

Here is the image - taken yesterday (hopefully it will show as it is not public on Flickr) I normally let images simmer for quite a while before putting them public. I need to spend time with them to make sure I like them before they see the light of day. This can take quite a long time but I revisit my old unpublished photos quite often as my taste changes and there could be some gems in there.
The image is shot at F14, ISO 100 and 1/6th sec

_DSC2592-Edit-Edit-Edit by Dave Semmens, on Flickr

My thoughts (yours may differ ):
Honey pot locations:
This comes up a lot. I am of the mind to visit them but try to be original as well in my photography - a mix of both. Some locations just need to be visited.
I had to queue up to get the shots - there was a group of around 7 German photographers there already and 2 more photographers arrived to join the queue while I was there.
This doesn't give enough creative time unfortunately and has impacted the final image. This was my first visit and I may go back in a few days armed with the knowledge that I need to be there around an hour later than I arrived last time and it needs to be a cloudy day with breaks in the cloud to allow the sun to keep making an appearance. The flow of the river and autumn colours are perfect at the moment.

Blown highlights:
I try to avoid at all costs but it was impossible to avoid here and I actually don't mind them in this image. Only photographers care - everyone else just realises that the highlights were blown even to the human eye. Do they draw the eye from the subject? They don't for me but I know they will for some. Again - I think this is a photographer thing and we don't look at and image and see it as a none photographer does. We are always looking for the stand out fails in an image (I know I am guilty of this)

Positioning objects in the scene:
Should I have moved the leaf centre bottom to the top of the rock? Probably - or removed it altogether. This is down to rushing the shots. I can always clone or crop out.

Cropping the image / subject position:
I prefer the mill to be central but the river to the right adds to the story and placing the mill slightly left gives the sum burst more space and makes it not look like an accident.

Focus:
I have focus stacked the image but the very close areas are still out of focus. Getting the shot was quite difficult as I dumped the tripod and started resting the camera on rocks at close to ground level. So - taking the shot then refocussing was very difficult. Again - apart from that pesky leaf - I think only some photographers care that all the image is in focus - to most it doesn't matter that the very close areas are out.

Shutter speed for water:
This took up a lot of time when shooting as the light was constantly changing by small amounts. I tried to stay around 1/4 of a second to get the right look for the water.

What I like about the image:
The slash of water catching the sun - it may not be obvious at first but it is a little gem and nice to find as I scanned the image.

The reflected light from the autumn leaves on the end of the mill - this is lovely.

Having the sun burst through the trees - in my mind this kind of justifies the blown highlights.

Allowing the top of the hill to show in the shot - not sure why as normally I would try to cut the sky out of this type of shot.

The rocks lead in well - the centre one points into the image and the light on the left rock pushed my eye into the centre. The light on the right runs up from bottom through to the right of the mill. The 2 branches also work well to lead into the centre of the image. Maybe this is why I don't notice the blown highlights as much and my eye rests on the mill when I first look at the image???

What did I learn?
I took around 100 images and 95% of them were useless compositionally. This may be from rushing but I think I may have made the same mistake even if I had time. I looked at the scene and thought more about the leading lines than about the actual subject. I picked a location that gave a good lead in from the flow of the river but on analysing the photos the branch top left was cutting through the building. I hated this as soon as I saw it on the computer screen. I had focussed most of my efforts in that spot so all the images failed for me. I need to learn from this moving forward.

Not all shots need a tripod - this was taken with the camera resting on a rock. I actually used the image stabilisation by pressing the back button on the camera. I have back button focus setup and always manually focus - so all the button does is activate the image stabilisation. This really helped here but made focus stacking the images very hard

Screen protectors are worth the money - when packing up I dropped the camera and luckily the screen protector took the full force of the rock and saved the day.

I will leave it there - I have been typing for a long time and my wife has decided it is time to go out and find some food

Dave.

 

[jerry12953]

It's a very nice image. The leaves at the bottom that you write about do bug me, particularly as they are lit by the sun and OOF! I would have removed them (if possible) or would clone them out (ditto!). The other leaves at the bottom also bug me slightly but they are in shadow so less intrusive. All of them put together add a slight air of untidiness (IMO).

The blown highlights don't worry me at all and I like the way you can see backlit water droplets arcing down in front of the torrent. They give life to the image. I like the shadow detail in the mill building itself and its surroundings.

The other thing that bugs me is the prominent branch running across the top l.h. corner. If you do go back would it possible to re-compose slightly to make it less prominent, or closer to the corner?

Regarding lead-in lines - why bother? I know that's a sacrilageous statement to make but I hardly notice them. I tend to see the landscape in terms of horizontal parallel sections which - when you are converting a 3D scene into a 2D image - seem more important to me.

 

[Dubbledom]

A great shot, I'm impressed how you achieved it on the fly. The technical "imperfections" are sometimes what remind us of the reality of the picture when looking at it. The one thing I would say is that the areas of highlights seem to balance one another as do the branches on both sides of the mill to an extent. The leaf in the foreground doesn't really distract.

 

[Dave Semmens]

It's a very nice image. The leaves at the bottom that you write about do bug me, particularly as they are lit by the sun and OOF! I would have removed them (if possible) or would clone them out (ditto!). The other leaves at the bottom also bug me slightly but they are in shadow so less intrusive. All of them put together add a slight air of untidiness (IMO).

The blown highlights don't worry me at all and I like the way you can see backlit water droplets arcing down in front of the torrent. They give life to the image. I like the shadow detail in the mill building itself and its surroundings.

The other thing that bugs me is the prominent branch running across the top l.h. corner. If you do go back would it possible to re-compose slightly to make it less prominent, or closer to the corner?

Regarding lead-in lines - why bother? I know that's a sacrilageous statement to make but I hardly notice them. I tend to see the landscape in terms of horizontal parallel sections which - when you are converting a 3D scene into a 2D image - seem more important to me.

I agree with the leaf at the bottom and will probably try to clone it. The leaves in shadow don't worry me at all as they are not as visible / part cropped off like the other.

The branch top left was the one that crossed the building and ruined 95% of my shots - I agree the shot would be improved with it either removed or moved more to the left. It would also centralise the mill between the 2 branches more as well. Problem would be that (as far as I remember) there was little in the way of foreground to the right and moving over starts to put the mill chimney more behind the tree foliage. I don't think I could get much lower with the camera to stop that but it would be worth a try. So good points around moving slightly right and lower if foreground looks good

You may be right about leading lines - I suppose we hear that from the start and look for them when composing (I know I do) - this image does work for me when it comes to dropping my eye straight onto the mill though, even with all the bright areas in the image. So that may be helped with the leads?

Dave.

 

[Dave Semmens]

A great shot, I'm impressed how you achieved it on the fly. The technical "imperfections" are sometimes what remind us of the reality of the picture when looking at it. The one thing I would say is that the areas of highlights seem to balance one another as do the branches on both sides of the mill to an extent. The leaf in the foreground doesn't really distract.

Thanks - I may have made it sound more rushed than it was really. I had some time to mess around with composition a bit, but you are always conscious that someone is probably waiting for that spot
Yes - agree with the balance of the branches - as mentioned above - would be nice to move the mill slightly right to get more central and move the left branch more away from the mill I think.

Dave.

 

[Dave Semmens]

Another interesting point I forgot above is that the group of photographers that arrived before me almost gave up on shooting the scene once the sun hit the water. One even said to another photographer that the scene was no good now the light was reflecting off the water. The scene to my mind was very flat without the light.

 

[sirch]

My personal dislike for very wide angle shots leaves me distracted by the foreground rocks which in this image are as large as the watermill but that is just me, I'm sure plenty of people will like it. Other than that I like the light on the water, the sun and the well controlled light on the building. The water has the right amount of movement/blur for me,

 

[Dave Semmens]

My personal dislike for very wide angle shots leaves me distracted by the foreground rocks which in this image are as large as the watermill but that is just me, I'm sure plenty of people will like it. Other than that I like the light on the water, the sun and the well controlled light on the building. The water has the right amount of movement/blur for me,

Yes - they do fill a lot of the frame and my initial composition went for more of a lead in using the river flowing through smaller rocks. That would have been my preference if not for the branch cutting through the building. Maybe a couple of well placed, colourful leaves on the rocks would have helped break up the area more. The scene looked quite straightforward to capture a good image when approaching it, but the complexity of branches, leaves hiding parts of the building, changing light / shutter speeds all made for a challenging time

 

[Krisstiffer]

Just goes to show that there’s no single correct answer to a lot of these things and personal preference still has a lot to play when it comes to what people do and don’t like about an image......
I actually like the inclusion of the big branch top left - feel it gives a nice frame around the roof of the mill. If any of the branches could do with “going” it would be the thin one above the chimney - that’s a bit distracting. The blown highlights - again to me they highlight the autumn sun on the water and complement the light on the rocks - if they were “more blown” it might have been an issue - but that isn’t the case here for me.
I like the central position of the mill - the image has a subtle symmetry about it that works for me. Think it’s a mix of the shape of the rocks and the tree branches that gives a nice balance.
Agree about those leaves - they’re the only big downside for me - I’d have got rid of them - including the ones in the shadow.
I’m only looking at this on my phone so can say much about focusing and detail so sticking to the “bigger things” that I can see.
As for the “honey pot” locations - there’s usually a reason they’re popular so don’t think there’s any reason not to visit them if you want. Personally I avoid them simply because I’m a solitary sort and would prefer to spend time exploring off the beaten track photographing somewhere that has personal meaning for me rather that go through the kind of hassles and pressure you describe here - but again no right or wrong - it’s purely down to preference.

 

[dcash29]

My eye was going to the foreground leaf and initially I thought a crop of the rocks would help. However I felt that the image was unbalanced.
The image below is a crude alternative for discussion. I'm not sure if I prefer it to the original.

 

[Dave Semmens]

My eye was going to the foreground leaf and initially I thought a crop of the rocks would help. However I felt that the image was unbalanced.
The image below is a crude alternative for discussion. I'm not sure if I prefer it to the original.

View attachment 335142

Here is the shot with the central leaf cloned out - this is an improvement in my eyes.

3x2 by Dave Semmens, on Flickr

Dave.