Critique Late autumn in Snowdonia

Messages
1,106
Name
Alastair
Edit My Images
Yes
At the start of November I headed up to North Wales with the Avon Mountaineering Club, which was hopefully going to be a weekend of mountaineering with some autumnal photography squeezed in somewhere. However the weather really wasn't playing ball as the weather was pretty horrific. On Saturday we managed to squeeze in a walk around the slate quarries between the worst of the rain, and on the Sunday we had a low level walk around Beddgelert.

I know these are not my best photos, but I thought this would be a good opportunity to ask for some C&C on how I could have made these photos better. I used a CPL on the first photo to reduce reflections, and a ND filter on the second. I would have liked to use a lighter ND filter on the second, but the others had bound together in the cold so I couldn't get them apart!

1)

Looking towards Foel Goch from the slate quarries
by Alastair Begley, on Flickr


2)

Autumn on the Afon Glaslyn
by Alastair Begley, on Flickr

thanks in advance

Al
 
1. Interesting but I get a feeling there was shot just around the corner without the black stuff and with more lake

2. That's far better view and lovely autumnal colour, only shame about the sky. Well you could drop a decent sky in there and fix it. Maybe get rid of the two trees in both corners as well.
 
Sky as said let’s two down. Blending in a Sky and making a composite is one way to go, the other is to crop square making a more abstract picture without any sky. My fear is that can work but it runs the risk of making “a boring little picture” to quote myself.
 
1. Interesting but I get a feeling there was shot just around the corner without the black stuff and with more lake

2. That's far better view and lovely autumnal colour, only shame about the sky. Well you could drop a decent sky in there and fix it. Maybe get rid of the two trees in both corners as well.

Thank you for your well thought out critique. You are probably correct that I could have walked a bit and reduced the amount of slate in the photo which would have made for a better image.

Sky as said let’s two down. Blending in a Sky and making a composite is one way to go, the other is to crop square making a more abstract picture without any sky. My fear is that can work but it runs the risk of making “a boring little picture” to quote myself.
Thank you for critique, unfortunately the sky was very dull before the fact that is is blown. Using a sky from a different place/day isn’t really my thing, but I do accept that it would make it a better image. I will try the crop and see what I think.
 
Thank you for critique, unfortunately the sky was very dull before the fact that is is blown. Using a sky from a different place/day isn’t really my thing, but I do accept that it would make it a better image. I will try the crop and see what I think.


As far as the lower picture is concerned, I'm glad to hear you're not going to try replacing the sky. A very poor suggestion, I might add........:police:. In my opinion the exposure you have used is too long. What should look like a river actually looks more like a snowfield. It's really not necessary to use a ND filter on scenes like this; I imagine you could have used an exposure of about 1/2 second quite easily without one to add a little bit of movement without it going too far. What you could try to do now is reduce the highlights on the water and see if that makes the river more natural-looking. The autumn colours are graet though.

The top pic is a bit of dog's dinner, IMO. To add "foreground interest" you've included a heap of slate rubble which can be a valid subject in its own right. However it is not scenic in the traditional sense so including it here conflicts with the background.

The colours are fabulous on the other side of the lake. Did you have any pictures without the slate? There's a tree part of the way down to the lake which would have made a good foreground interest. (if you could have got there) . There's another tree part visible on the LHS which you could crop out. Polariser is good on this image.

I hope that is helpful .........
 
As far as the lower picture is concerned, I'm glad to hear you're not going to try replacing the sky. A very poor suggestion, I might add........:police:. In my opinion the exposure you have used is too long. What should look like a river actually looks more like a snowfield. It's really not necessary to use a ND filter on scenes like this; I imagine you could have used an exposure of about 1/2 second quite easily without one to add a little bit of movement without it going too far. What you could try to do now is reduce the highlights on the water and see if that makes the river more natural-looking. The autumn colours are graet though.

The top pic is a bit of dog's dinner, IMO. To add "foreground interest" you've included a heap of slate rubble which can be a valid subject in its own right. However it is not scenic in the traditional sense so including it here conflicts with the background.

The colours are fabulous on the other side of the lake. Did you have any pictures without the slate? There's a tree part of the way down to the lake which would have made a good foreground interest. (if you could have got there) . There's another tree part visible on the LHS which you could crop out. Polariser is good on this image.

I hope that is helpful .........
thank you, totally agree about exposure length on the lower picture, but it is great to get some confirmation that other people also think it is too long.

Fair point about the conflict, and yes I see that making the tree the key foreground interest would have been better, so thank you for that feedback. Unfortunately I don't have any pictures without the slate.
 
The top pic is a bit of dog's dinner, IMO. To add "foreground interest" you've included a heap of slate rubble which can be a valid subject in its own right. However it is not scenic in the traditional sense so including it here conflicts with the background.

..
I quite like it ;) it shows the chaos that the mine has created and places it in context of its rather lovely surroundings. It's maybe more an "environmental impact" type shot but I think it works well.

And yes, you are right, the exposure in the other is far too long. Anything between 1/8th to 2 secs does nicely for this sort of thing.
 
I like the slate, it's got great texture and colour. For me the first shot would have been to try to isolate the gnarly twisted tree against the aqua blue water using the slate as foreground to make a simple impactful eye catching composition. Not knowing the locale this may have been impossible or dangerous, if so then having the tree above the horizon is another possibility. What I'm trying to say is the star of the shot should have been that ever so picturesque little tree, it's a little lost in this composition. All IMO of course, we're all different.
Second shot doesn't need the sky, and a wee step to the left would have opened up the view to the river adding some depth to the scene. If the sky isn't playing ball then look for shots that don't need a sky, there's always opportunities to be had in almost all conditions. Cropping the sky doesn't make it a boring little shot at all.
 
I quite like it ;) it shows the chaos that the mine has created and places it in context of its rather lovely surroundings. It's maybe more an "environmental impact" type shot but I think it works well.

And yes, you are right, the exposure in the other is far too long. Anything between 1/8th to 2 secs does nicely for this sort of thing.

Good to get some alternative opinions.

I like the slate, it's got great texture and colour. For me the first shot would have been to try to isolate the gnarly twisted tree against the aqua blue water using the slate as foreground to make a simple impactful eye catching composition. Not knowing the locale this may have been impossible or dangerous, if so then having the tree above the horizon is another possibility. What I'm trying to say is the star of the shot should have been that ever so picturesque little tree, it's a little lost in this composition. All IMO of course, we're all different.
Second shot doesn't need the sky, and a wee step to the left would have opened up the view to the river adding some depth to the scene. If the sky isn't playing ball then look for shots that don't need a sky, there's always opportunities to be had in almost all conditions. Cropping the sky doesn't make it a boring little shot at all.

some really good composition suggestions, thanks for commenting.
 
The first shot, as Scott mentioned, would have been wonderful if you could have isolated the tree against the beautiful blue waters of the lake. The textures and tones and the far light mean it has all the ingredients of a good image but lacks a compositional focal point.

For me, just removing the sky from the second shot by perhaps turning it in to a 4x5 would transform it. Again, some nice soft light on the trees and the long exposed water broken by the sporadically positioned stones, mean it has the features of a decent image
 
The first shot, as Scott mentioned, would have been wonderful if you could have isolated the tree against the beautiful blue waters of the lake. The textures and tones and the far light mean it has all the ingredients of a good image but lacks a compositional focal point.

For me, just removing the sky from the second shot by perhaps turning it in to a 4x5 would transform it. Again, some nice soft light on the trees and the long exposed water broken by the sporadically positioned stones, mean it has the features of a decent image
thanks for the feedback, I have tried the 4x5 crop and quite like it
 
I'm all for the long exposures, but 70+ seconds is way too long for #2. The excessively long exposure has removed all drama from the water. Try some shorter exposures around 0.5 second, and if necessary blend in a separate exposure for the sky.
 
Back
Top