muckross cc welcome

hoganpoly

AnCatDubh

Its a long time since i've been to muckross so memory aint too good on it, how and ever, a few thoughts.

#1
Sky aint good but I shot a weekend full of them so the pot calling the kettle black here. You have however slightly burnt out areas of it which would be problematic if you are to change the brightness related controls.

I'm probably only tepid towards the image composition. The framing is ok, but i think its the scene itself which i'm not liking. The colours are quite muted.

You've positioned the framing to include the tree branches on left hand side which is a good tactic but I don't think its strong enough.

The bridge in the distance is good and the eye is drawn along the lines of the river. While this is good, again, for me, the scene is not terribly good from the vantage point that you had. You can obviously go lower to see if it helps but again for me, I don't think it would.

Bottom right hand side is a little distraction which is to be avoided.

#2
I'm thinking if only you could have gotten in front of the foreground elements. While you have attempted to spot narutal framing of the scene (this is good and shows you are thinking about things), the frame itself consumes too much of the scene IMHO. I suspect that there was a grand vista to be seen in front of what became the foreground elements.

Again, for me, this one is a miss of an opportunity but I can see where your efforts were heading. I think all the natural framing in this case just leads to a busy scene.

#3
The last image I think has a lot of potential - a boat, fisherman, reflections, water, ripples, etc... and the resulting image that you've produced is generally ok.

I do think however that again your chosen vantage point lets you down. For me, I think you should have gotten further back if the physical extents allowed for it. Would there have been an opportunity to shoot from a higher position or indeed drop to your knees or lie down if you could to give a more interesting perspective on the subject of the scene.

The positioning within the frame I think is too central. You could have zoomed right back given more extent to the overall framing and positioned the boat/fisherman way off center.

The horizon line is a bit distracting which is why I was wondering if there was a possiblity of shooting from a higher vantage point giving an angle which may have isolated that horizon out of the necessary framing.

All the above is only an opinion and should be taken as such. Conditions of the day, physical extents of the scenes, and so forth can be intractible components to your composition and may be impossible to alter. Sometimes a scene just isn't a scene.

On the positive side, you are out there on your photographic journey and willing to learn which I guess is why you are seeking the constructive criticism here. I hope the above is helpful to you. It certainly isn't definitive and could equally be criticised so take it just as one opinion and only that.

Cheers.

hoganpoly

thanks for your educated comments i am new to this so any pointers much appreciated ,thx again

AnCatDubh

No problem at all.

Remember thoughts expressed are only an opinion and if something about the images floats your boat (pardon the pun to the last image ), then it is fine. Some of my favourite images that I have taken myself would have some people going "eweeee" - one in particular which I just can't figure out why my wife doesn't like it.

That in a large part is the thing about photohgraphy - you learn through mimicing technical perfection and then once that particular mission is accomplished, you figure out where the emotion fits in and probably discard lots of what you earlier had strived to achieve through technical perfection.

Looking forward to seeing more of your work around here.

Cheers.