Critique Please (3)

ok guys here we have a long exposure of two bridge pillars and my local River.
Everyone takes this bridge with the usual wide shot but I wanted to go for something closer and to smooth the River. Its the closest you can get without going really wide with an ultra zoom which I dont possess.

Yay or Nay?

That's by far your best shot posted. Like the water, you haven't gone too long with the exposure so there is still texture to the water. Great colours. Tight crop on the bridge works really well.

Fab - double thumbs up

THANK YOU Russ - Hooray!

what I really love this time around is its straight out of the camera with only a boost to the contrast.

QC

I'm going to say "Nay" I'm afraid, IMHO it's nearly there but needs something more doing yet.

The first thing that strikes me is that there's too much foreground. You need enough to show the effect you are trying to achieve, but no more. Anything not needed, cut out. So that would tighten it up a bit.

The pillars are the interesting part, along with the under-arch area, and yet the brightest part of the picture is the top, causing our eyes to wander upwards and away from the subject. So I'd burn in that top area so we concentrate on the main subject.

Finally, the image looks tilted to the left, so I'd do a small clockwise rotation.

Hope that helps. You've seen a good subject and approached it well technically, leaving just the fine points to iron out.

Point taken John

The three tones were done purposely but I will play around with the top.

As for the large foreground its exactly what I wanted because its an important River in town and wanted to emphasise it.

Cheers

I like it ... especially the way the various water level marks stand out. The only negative is that the underside of the arches are too blue, some more PP to bring those back towards stone with a little tint.

I thought it looked a bit blue too. I would also have been interested in equipment, exposure and filters etc., used

I must admit i thought the blue was a deliberate tweak to give a colder look.

Guys

Yes the blue is deliberate - Ive honestly taken on board whats been pointed out and I have made the changes to suit but I am more than happy with how this one has come out overall.

All photos are taken with the K-5 and kit lens - 18-55mm

As always THANKS to everyone who makes a comment or critique.

I think I am going to leave this one as it is

Nothing wrong with that.

For me, the composition is off. I don't like how the arch is cropped. The picture is dominated by the two buttresses, but your eye just ends up going to the dead wall between them. It feels a little tightly cropped on the right. I think it's good to go in and concentrate on one detail, or pull back and show more of the full scene - but this seems to fall between those two approaches.

Hi MR Phile

As mentioned in the first post it is very hard to get in close as I am standing on a towpath. I tried zooming in on the buttresses etc but then you lose the correct look and the smoothing of the water all together.

Thanks for the comment

I'd have preferred the central arch not to have had its top cut off, would happily lose some of the expanse of water for this.

I do love the colour and mood of the shot though.

The problem with including the top of the middle bridge is that it would have brought the sky into play in the top right side of the image and it didnt look right. The majority if the image is taken up by the cool soothing blue and then all of a sudden sharp, stark white - it was too off putting.

Having said all that Ive noticed Ive left a wee bit in top right hand corner!

It doesn't work for me either for pretty much all the above reasons. I like the idea but it just seems an awkward composition. I think
the slightly tilted look is probably down to diverging verticals, maybe the camera was tilted down a little to include more foreground.

I think it would have worked better just concentrating the composition on one pillar. I'd do it in mono too.