Photos for competition - Thoughts? COLOUR

THANKS to the members on here for their critique

I have taken all the points on board and have edited the photos for entering into a competition

Please feel free to add anything else but I think i have got them the way i want.

I will stick the three black and white images up at a later date

IMAGE 1 is of a sunset that I got back in September of last year.
The first time I posted it some people asked me to crop some of the bottom and right hand side and to take a few annoying clouds out of the top of the sunset. I have also went down a little on the exposure to enhance the contrast of the clouds.

IMAGE 2 is of a bench overlooking a lake here in Northern Ireland.
I got some great tips from you guys and think its really helped the overall image. Ive added the vignette that someone suggested to get rid of some of the chromatic abberation and I have toned down the colours in the trees (think that was Dave Storm)

IMAGE 3 is of a small lake on remote island here in Ireland and again Ive toned down some of the colour but actually like the photo as it is.











Once again thanks for all the input guys - ive never had a lesson and think my photography has really improved in the last year thanks to this forum

With any luck one of these images might shine!

Cheers

QC

And if you had to drop one of them which one?

Ta!

QC

I'd drop number 3, it lacks the vibrancy of the other 2 and I'm not a fan of the HDR

I would drop #1, it looks unreal and any Scottish judge (if it's for a local camera club comp) that I know of will pick up on lack of detail in the shadows.

For #2 I would do a small edit, IMO the top and reflection are to similar in brightness and contrast, I would add a ND layer to darken the top half a little from the water line.

I'd drop #1 and #3

#1 has a tacky colour balance ( cheap print sold in the lobby of a Tesco supermarket and bought for a fiver by people on the program "Benefits Street" ) ,and #3 is too Acid trip HDR


#2 has a nice symmetry and composition and an almost natural colour balance and nice vibrancy.

As for "competition", that's a concept I find almost offensive to the ethos of photography.

How can you reasonably judge subjective art in terms of what's better? IMO competitions are for things that are objectively measured. For example if someone runs a 100m in 9.6s and someone does it in 9.5s then it's clear who is the winner.

Photography competitions IMO are for those who lack self confidence in their own works. One set of judges might place your image better than the rest and another set of judges might place it worse.

#2 is best but I'd have zoomed out a bit more to get all of the bench posts in. As it is, the incomplete bench sort of dominates the shot. Maybe darken the rocks at the very bottom of the frame so that one's eye is drawn more to the symmetry of the reflection rather than the bench itself ?

Unless of course you were trying to shoot the bench itself, in which case I'd have gone for a shallow depth of field with the reflection just the right amount out of focus in the background ...

I agree with all of the above, No.1 For me looks like the start of a nuclear war, No.3 looks like post nuclear war, and No.2 is fab, and wishing that I could spend a few hours sat there myself.

I think your photography and composition are fine mate, the post processing isn't to my taste though.
#1 - The colours are just horible, at least on my cheap uncalibrated monitor here at work so maybe it's not a fair judgement.
#2 - The image is fine but glary to the point that the water reflections hurt my eyes. Would this be the fault of some tone mapping software? If 'twere mine I would also 'cheat' by cloning out most of the lower right foreground foliage where it masks the lake and clutters up the bench shape - assuming the competition rules allowed that.
#3 - This is my favourite of the three (despite the apparent tone mapping). I had a quick fiddle masking it with a sheet of paper and rather liked it with the sky cropped out completely.

Quite the mix of opinion!

Please feel free to post your edits