Canon EOS 1000D

Lens Model: Canon EF-S 18-55mm f/3.5-5.6 IS

f/11

32 mm

ISO 800

Software: RawTherapy

This photo was taken on an overcast and misty day; I went to this place on this day and I'm not sure I will ever go there again, so this is a travel photography but it may also be an interesting landscape photography; the lens was the kit one and I didn't have any accessories at hand. I did a little tweaking with RawTherapy, although I'm not very proficient in it's use. What do you think?

Dear José,

I can imagine this is an impressive point on earth to be, experience the dimensions, vastness, maybe the power of waves cracking into these rocks. Repetitive elements are usually an eye-catcher, as fading into the grey of mist is. So you got all pre-requisites for a good photo, apart from one thing. And there I see the big flaw in this, your light is totally flat. The coast has a very rough structure, and along the coast you  have these zig-zag line. It "melts" into one big brown element, even the contours of your single elements are hard to discover. 

Landscape photography is unfortunately highly dependent on the light situation. The time you chose determines the direction and intensity, the wheather is what it is. Especially on vacation trips this can lead to fact you have to skip a subject just because you can't wait for better conditions - take a phot foro your personal memories - but no fine art to show or sell. I think here you ran into such a situation, the flat light of an overcast day is simply nit what this shapes need. The landscape looks attractive, but in my view the photo lacks impact. 

Light and shadow is the "fuel" of every photograph. While we can modify it to a certain extend in editors, it's hard to keep the result natural, believable. And that's modifying what's already there. 

I would give up on this one, keep it for your travel album. This was simply not the day to capture this magnificent landscape.

Best regards,

Mike - SC

Thanks Mike, I'm sure you are right! I am trying to learn from the critics comments because, yes, I have a lot to learn and I'm quite aware of that.

Best regards,

José - Newibie

Mike is absolutely right. Overcast and misty weather can be amazing when shooting landscape scenes that have little or no contrast, but there is off course other situations where you deliberately would want to oppose flat light with a subject that under normal conditions seem to "scream" for harsh light and deep shadows.

Ansel Adams was en expert in this type of images. Of course he always worked in monochrome images, but if you take a look at some of his images (The book "Examples" is a worthwhile read) one will understand more on how he solved this.There are a lot of things that make a great photograph, but only a few things that makes a great photographer. A great photographer is consistently able to find something interesting to photograph in a peculiar way.

Ansel Adams is also know for the Zone System, which is a way to evaluate ambient light and figure out how this relates to a proper exposure for the tyoe of image he was creating. This coupled with his images and photography all of a sudden makes a lot of sense, especially when one is faced with making a hard descision on chosing how to expose an image.

Light is what makes a photograph and seing how it is applied in layers in lanscape photography is key to create images that draws the viewer into the image. 

While I am in no way an accomplished landscape photographer, this photograph (that I made at Mont Blanc in the French Alps a couple of years ago) is -  i think - a good example of what I am talking about. It is shot in the early morning light, just after sunrise, and normally would have lots of contrast. But shooting against the sun creates and image with very little contrast, yet it has LOTS of layers that is intended to draw the viewer into the image. At least that was the intention.

What I am getting at is this: When we are shooting, we should always aim to exaggerate that, which we find interesting. As Mike mentions - and I agree - the layers of the cliffs seems to be the iteresting part of this image, and using your exposure (and perhaps depth of field) could have made the separation between the different elements in the image stand out more... making them more defined individually.

It really doesn't matter what kind of photography we are doing. Creating layers in our composition, making the different elements stand out and seperating foreground, middleground and background objects has always been a stable of great photography.

 

There are a lot of things that make a great photograph, but only a few things that makes a great photographer. A great photographer is consistently able to find something interesting to photograph in a peculiar way.

With best regards

Henrik

José,

Thank you for sharing 'Cliffs of Moher' with us here in Critique.  The coastline looks very bleak and rugged.  The photo has mood - you can almost hear the waves crashing and feel the wind. The light is flat, as Mike said.  It has blurred the four distinct rock outcroppings together and taken away some of the three dimensionality of the scene.  The mist has contributed to that flattening - but at the same time has added considerably to the mood.  The composition is good in my opinion - we can enter the frame at the left and be drawn along the shoreline out to the far point.  A ship, lighthouse, or some gulls would a finishing touch. 

Some local dodging and burning could add a bit of separation to the four faces along the cliff.  More texture and 'strength' in the foreground contrasted with more haze and mist in the background could give a sense of depth to the image - make it look more three dimensional.  These would be subtle effects.

I'm sorry I don't know Raw Therapy software - only Photoshop - but I couldn't resist editing a screen shot.  I used the Clarity, Texture, and De-Haze sliders in 'Filter>Camera Raw Filter' to first strengthen the foreground, then used the same sliders in the opposite directions to soften the background to make it more misty.  Those two effects were blended with layer masks.  The idea being to make the foreground stronger and the background softer for a feeling of depth.  This isn't 'trickery', only an exaggeration of the natural effect we see in reality.  Elements nearer to us are sharp and clear while background details get progressively softer  and hazier with distance.  In the visual language of a two-dimensional photograph it says 'depth'. 

I'm sure you know how editing often goes - you try one thing, it leads to another, and another, and pretty soon you've forgotten most of the individual steps and the tools used.  So, as near as I can remember, this is what I did.  The cliffs were stretched a bit taller with Photoshop's 'Edit>Transform>Scale', and then the rocks on the left side were stretched wider using the same tool.  I did some dodging and burning to add definiton to the four separate rock outcroppings.  Subtle changes, but maybe you can see the difference.  I saturated the blue-green of the closest bit of water just a little.

Thanks again for posting.  We appreciate your participation in Critique.  Don't forget that you can comment on any photo you see here.  All opinions and ideas are welcome!

. . . . . Steven, senior critic

Thank you all! I get the idea in your critiques; I just took a shot, with some care for composition, but I didn't pay attention to light; not that there was much I could do about that at that moment. For Steven, RawTherapy is similar to Lightroom but open source; I use Gimp instead of Photoshop and RawTherapy instead of Lightroom, because I don't want to pay for software that I can replace with open source alternatives.

Best regards,

José